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Tuesday, 6/22/21: Corteau des Prairie

Nearly a full moon over Lake Oahe.

Wake up, move on, set up camp, take a quick look around; wake up, move on, set up camp, take a quick look around….. These last couple of days have been very different from our “base camp and explore” style of travel. But, as South Dakota flattened into a vast featureless cornfield, there wasn’t much to explore. The northeastern corner does have two features: 1)

A concentration of lakes; 2) The Courteau des Prairie.


The Lake Country, as it is called, does have a bunch of lakes, big and small. Most are just dark, shallow lakes surrounded by tall grass. Occasionally, a very nice, clear lake will have some houses and trees surrounding it. Our campground, Fort Sisseton State Recreational Area, was situated next to a couple of the darker lakes. Another nearby state park, Roy Lake State Park, straddled one of the nicer clear lakes. That park even featured a swimming beach. You wouldn’t want to swim in the mucky lake next to our campground.

Some of the remote lakes in South Dakota’s Lake Country.

We were surprised to see that South Dakota had white pelicans.

The Corteau des Prairie Is a long, nearly 1000’ high, hump about 5 or 6 miles wide that runs for about 100 miles. The plaques we read speculated that it might be the end moraine of a glacier or two, but that wasn’t considered to be definitive. Sica Hollow State Park was tucked into a small corner of the long ridge. We hiked the trail associated with that park. Surprisingly, the side of the hollow was thick with woods, and dripping with springs that ran down to a creek at the bottom of the ridge. The woods were also thick with magnificent butterflies.

On our drive back to Fort Sisseton, we happened upon a tall wooden tower, just off Highway 10, near the top of the ridge. I have no idea why it was there or who built it, but we climbed up and enjoyed a view of the prairie that spanned into North Dakota and Minnesota. We did find out that the forest we were seeing on the ridge below us was the absolute western fringe of the eastern deciduous trees, like maples.

These woods along the Corteau des Prairie ridge are the last of the eastern forests.

Our campground, Fort Sisseton, was a restored 1870s Calvary fort. The buildings were well built stone edifices. Some, like the barracks and the commander’s house were nicely furnished with authentic furnishings.


The campground itself was a great campground. The sites were large and level. Expansive cottonwood trees gave us shade. Electricity was provided, however I never found a source of potable water anywhere. The shower house was every bit as good as the shower house at Okobojo Point. (I guess, you could get potable water from the showers, but that would be kind of weird.)


With a high of 72º, and a light breeze, it was a wonderful lazy kind of day. Even the cotton falling from the cottonwood trees drifted down in a lazy manner, accumulating on the ground like snow.

The restored barracks of Fort Sisseton.

The commanding officer’s house.

Cottonwood fluff accumulating like snow.

Glossary of terms used for newcomers: 1) V-Jer. The name of our camper. 2) Saturn. The name of our Van. 3) Duende. Our mischievous gremlin that breaks things. 4) Tata. The good gremlin that helps us fix Duende’s dirty work. 5) The Black Hole. This is what we call Walmart because every time we go in for just a couple of items, we come out spending way more than we figured. 6) QT. Quaint Town. 7) Little Buddy. This is what we call our Dyson cordless stick vacuum.

Dave and Wanda

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