MaMaLiRZ

As we drove onward from Keystone, South Dakota to Wind Cave National Park the landscape transitioned from the vibrancy of the Sunflower Yellow and Kelly Green against the azure empyrean to ever so slightly muted in less than 50 miles. It would have looked perfectly normal if it weren’t in contrast to the pervious day. The difference didn’t make it any less beautiful, simply noteworthy.

I found the history of the cave, told to us from Ranger Jack, intriguing. The boys and I were listening intently. Jack had after all practiced the story several times a day all summer, and therefore was an expert storyteller!

The story of Wind Cave from the perspective of the Lakota in the area, starts with the cave being a passageway between Earth (surface) and the spirit world. People were created before the Earth was ready to be inhabited and were told to wait.

However, there were two trickster spirits that were banished from the spirit world to Earth and they got lonely. There was no one to trick. Ultimately, they used tactics to lure spirits up to the surface. Their tactics were essentially material possessions, gold, textiles, food, etc. Once the lured spirits were above the spirit world, they turned to the tricksters to ask where they could get the material possessions that enticed them up. The tricksters gave them all the answers, it was an easy summer. The clothing was beautiful and more than enough to satisfy the spirits. But as you can imagine, the winters in South Dakota quickly became harsh and dire.

The textiles were no longer sufficient to support the people through the impossible winter, and the food had run out. When they returned to the trickster spirits, the tricksters showed their true faces of deceit, and laughed at them. As the tricksters celebrated their biggest trick yet, the spirits quickly realized that they had nothing. Now stuck on Earth, unable to return to the spirit world, they turned back to the Creator to help them.

The Creator took pity on them, but would not return them to the spirit world because they had disobeyed the Creator and surfaced. The Creator provided them with food of the land and shelter for the winter.

He turned them into Bison. Not what they had hoped for–

Once the surface was ready to be inhabited, the Creator allowed the spirits to enter the surface as humans. The humans were familiar with the story and understood that the bison were their ancestors. Because of that, the Lakota revere the bison and in turn the bison helped the Lakota endure the winters.

We were riveted. Hook, line and sinker. The Creator then shrunk the opening of the cave to smaller than a body’s width so the humans could not return to the spirit world.

It is called Wind Cave due to the breathing of the cave as the pressure of inner and outer air fluctuate, air either flows in or out of the small natural entrance with enough force to blow the hat off your head, the difference only in whether the hat is blown off your head or sucked in never to be seen again.

Without the story of the Lakota, and the fact of the cave breathing, it is unremarkable as cave’s go except that it has 168 miles of caves discovered. They project more than double that actually exist.

Wind Cave National Park, #3 of our Quest63in365 is complete. You only need about a half day to explore the park. Reservations are required to take a tour and they are sold on Recreation.gov.

For more information on the story behind Wind Cave can be found at nps.gov.