Road Trip to Southwestern Minnesota: Beautiful Lakes and Peaceful Prairies

by Teri E. Popp, Tastemaker in Residence

Traveling during the time of Covid19 is not without its challenges; however, for the intrepid traveler, it gives us all a chance to get creative with our travel choices, and to learn more about our own home states. Plus, it provides much-needed support to local businesses located in small towns in the rural parts of our country.

To add context to our trip during this time of social reckoning, I decided to focus our trip around Laura Ingalls Wilder’s book series, and then to study and compare it to the experience of the American Indian/Indigenous American culture of Southwestern Minnesota. My husband and I listened to Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House on the Prairie” on Audible as we traversed the prairie lands of our beautiful state. We visited Walnut Grove to start our tour of places where Laura romped and played as a child.

Just outside of Walnut Grove, we hiked the trails and crossed Plum Creek to see the sod house where she lived and the Big Rock she climbed. While her original home has collapsed, you can visit two replicas of sod homes built by Stan McCone. McCone no longer lives, but his widow, Virginia, resides on the property and allows self-guided tours.

For this trip, we booked a small cabin on the edge of Lake Shetek State Park at Schreier’s Campground. Cozy and quaint, our clean little cabin located on a peninsula overlooked two separate bays of the lake. We could enjoy both sunrise and sunset on the water! The word shetek means pelican in Ojibwa, and these large, white birds can be seen in a variety of flocks in the park and on surrounding lakes. Lake Shetek, a popular fishing spot, is the headwaters of the Des Moines River.

We then shifted our focus and devoted our time to studying the American Indians (AI) of the prairie. We spent a day driving out to the very edge of the state visiting and hiking Pipestone National Monument. Located near the borders of South Dakota and Iowa, American Indians have come to this spot for over 3,000 years to quarry the soft red stone found in the cliffs of this area. These grounds are sacred, with only people from within the AI community allowed to actively quarry at this time. According to the National Park Service, 23 tribal nations are affiliated with the site. We enjoyed a feeling of peace and calm while in the park!

The next day, we traveled back in time as we walked the Jeffers Petroglyphs. Home to over 5,000 carvings, these 7,000-year-old sacred rock drawings was made by the predecessors of today’s American Indians. When fully open, this site, run by the Minnesota Historical Society, offers programs on history, archeology, anthropology, and biology. As the History Center was closed due to Covid, we learned about these ancient cultures and the surrounding prairie lands through the detailed explanations found at various locations along the path. The beauty of the prairie, with its over 250 varieties of grasses, flowers, and lichens lay out before us, bringing a fitting, and peaceful end to our journey as we truly felt like we had been at the Spirited Table!

For more information regarding the places referenced in this article, please visit the following sites:

Sod House on the Prairie: http://www.sodhouse.org/

Schreier’s Campground: http://www.schreiersonshetek.com/

Lake Shetek State Park: https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/state_parks/park.html?id=spk00220#homepage

Pipestone National Monument: https://www.nps.gov/pipe/index.htm

Jeffers Petroglyphs: https://www.mnhs.org/jefferspetroglyphs