Wind Cave National Park: Life near Jupiter, Native American Legends, and a Bowl of Nachos
It is a cold and sun-infested December day in South Dakota and as we make the turn onto US Highway 385 there are prairie dogs poking their heads high from mounds in the dry prairie ground. Behind us lies a bicycle sculpture: a hodgepodge collection of broken bicycles numbering in the hundreds, if not thousands says Dolly Evans, who owns the land where the structure sits and where her husband once owned a bicycle repair shop (Thorson, 2020). This is the pride of Pringle, which boasts a population of 90 people. Past prairie dogs and the pride of Pringle, under five hundred feet of bedrock, lies a complex cave system, one of the largest in the world known as Wind Cave in little-known Wind Cave National Park.
Wind Cave did not always go by this name, and was once know as Maka Oniye, or ‘breathing earth’, by the Lakota Tribe of the Black hills. According to oral tradition it is here where humanity was asked to wait (The Spirit Lodge) as The Creator built the world above them. As is the case with many mythologies or stories, there is a morale and an instigator, and the instigator arrived in the form of Anog-Ite: a two faced woman who had once been the wife of the wind spirit. Those who were convinced to leave the cave did so through a small opening after a long and arduous journey to light and Earth, and were enamored with the world in the full bloom of Spring. However, not knowing the swing of the seasons, Winter soon came to torture them, and they threw themselves back at the entrance to the Wind Cave, now blocked by The Creator. Punishment came for these deserters and they were turned into the world’s first Bison herd. When the others, who had not been tricked by Anog-Ite finally emerged to a completed Earth, they were instructed to follow the tracks of the Bison who would lead them to water and provide them with tools, food, clothing and shelter. In an effort to provide scientific backing for this fantastical story, please reference the below: a depiction of the cave’s discovered passageways, seemingly mirroring the shape of a bison. Fact or fiction? You be the judge.
More meager, and exploratory beginnings arrived with the discovery of the cave in 1881 by early Western pioneers of the Black hills who discovered a hole that expelled and inhaled a farmer’s straw hat off his head. This was the first recorded confrontation with the cave’s barometric pressure system. Frank Herbert, writer of the first exploration log, made his first descent into the cave with nothing more than string, and a lantern. In 1889 the mineral rights to the cave were purchased by the South Dakota Mining Company; and Alvin McDonald, the son of Jesse McDonald, became the chief guide of the Wind Cave during its early tourist attraction days. Alvin’s love for the cave endures today as current tours follow the routes he marked while researching and leading expeditions through the cave. Early maps, route names, and rooms are all attributed to the diligent work of this man who explored a complete mystery using rudimentary tools in almost complete darkness. Alvin’s diary can still be read today, courtesy of the National Park Service. Find it here.
When I visited Wind Cave National Park the first thing I did, after passing a few preliminary prairie dogs; the bicycle sculpture; and stopping in to the Visitor Center, was book a guided tour through the cave that would begin a few hours later. To kill time, or take advantage of our time, my girlfriend Kyra and I drove through the park, encountering hundreds of prairie dogs conducting their business with great fervor and frequently calling to each other by standing on their hind legs, gerbil teeth showing, and loosing a shrill and repetitive scream into the air. Hilarious giant gerbils, I thought at first. Completely harmless entertainment. Which they were, but as the day went on my admiration for them grew. The yip of a prairie dog, according to recent research, can convey not only the species that approaches their dwellings, but specific details about the intruder. I was not just observing them during this time, they were observing me and pointing out my blue-striped shirt, the speed of my stride. These were not just “Chicken McNuggets of the grasslands,” as Kristy Bly, a senior WWF wildlife conservationist puts it, but integral members of a thriving ecosystem who rely on under-appreciated social systems to survive (Wade, N.D.). And although they are an abundant food source for the endangered black-footed ferrets, coyotes, and hawks, their value stretches beyond the role of hors d’oeuvres. Underground colonies provide cover for rattlesnakes and jackrabbits. Their digging encourages plant growth and water flow. And aside from their contributions to the rest of the environment, they are fierce fighters who challenge their ferret adversaries with skillful claws and powerful teeth. On my return to the entrance of the Wind cave for the tour, I witnessed a prairie dog and a coyote in a face off, the distance between them shrinking as the coyote advanced. The steely-eyed prairie dog, well-versed in the heartless nature of the wild, played its part, alerting its coterie, never retreating in the face of a lonely and desperate predator.
In the shelter of the National Park building where the entrance to the Wind Cave lies, we finally began our descent into the nightmare world of the cave system. The elevator was old and groaned with the effort of its load, landing finally with a hollow metal clang. The doors opened slowly, reluctantly, and we stepped into a small section of the cave blockaded by a sturdy metal door. Our tour guide informed us this was an effort to retain the barometric pressure level of the cave, a self-regulating force responsible for the theft of the farmer’s straw hat in 1881. Once the door opened, we were thrust inside by the beckoning force of the wind created by the pressure regulation, and immediately exposed to the boxwork formations present on the roof of the cave. Boxwork is made of thin fins of calcite that look like, well, a lot of things. Our tour guide asked us what it looked like: my girlfriend said a spiderweb, someone else offered up a honeycomb, I was hungry, and thought it looked like nachos. Geology, despite being a fascination of mine, is not a strength, and I find myself unable to properly describe the formation of these delicate structures without assistance. For more information, click here. There, that should do it. And as a fan of science-fiction, I was more than intrigued by the next nugget of information our guide offered up: recent scientific explorations of the cave had revealed extremophile microorganisms that may hold the key to discovering how life on a barren planet survives. Over the last five to seven years, astrochemistry students and NASA scientists have conducted experiments funded by grants from NASA to better understand the unique nature of these microorganisms. As recently as 2023, NASA awarded University of Alabama professor Dr. Hazel Burton’s team a three million dollar grant for research that may reveal information leading to the discovery of life on Europa, a moon of Jupiter (The University of Alabama, 2023). The irony is not lost on me: the key to discovering life on distant planets has been under our noses this whole time.
In bleak South Dakota, where a drug store (Wall Drug) is advertised two states and five-hundred miles in advance, the fiercest prairie dogs persist and mysteries lie miles below in unimaginable darkness.
References
U.S. Department of the Interior. (n.d.). Alvin McDonald’s diary. National Parks Service. https://www.nps.gov/wica/learn/historyculture/alvin-mcdonalds-diary-text.htm
U.S. Department of the Interior. (n.d.-b). Boxwork. National Parks Service. https://www.nps.gov/wica/learn/nature/speleothems-boxwork.htm
U.S. Department of the Interior. (n.d.-c). Cave exploration. National Parks Service. https://www.nps.gov/wica/learn/historyculture/cave-exploration.htm
Thorson, S. (2020, September 5). Eye on keloland: Bikes, bikes and more bikes. KELOLAND.com. https://www.keloland.com/news/eye-on-keloland/eye-on-keloland-bikes-bikes-and-more-bikes/
U.S. Department of the Interior. (n.d.-d). The lakota emergence story. National Parks Service. https://www.nps.gov/wica/learn/historyculture/the-lakota-emergence-story.htm#:~:text=To%20get%20to%20the%20spirit,is%20a%20portal%20to%20the
Facts about prairie dogs. IFAW. (n.d.). https://www.ifaw.org/animals/prairie-dogs
Wade, S. (n.d.). 8 surprising Prairie Dog Facts. WWF. https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/8-surprising-prairie-dog-facts
University of Alabama. (2023, November 1). College of Arts & Sciences. College of Arts Sciences. https://as.ua.edu/2023/11/01/exploring-the-hidden-depths-unraveling-the-mystery-of-wind-cave/
