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A watershed moment.
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Thanks Tom!
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Troop 33, Webster, S.D.--a great Troop!
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Goette family--thanks guys!
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A Watershed Moment (Entry by Scott and Todd)
(Jun 9th, 2005) We saw this sign yesterday so we know we are going the right direction.

Two days ago we woke up at Camp Iyataka on the north end of Big Stone Lake after surviving a big storm. Some of Troop 33’s tents got blown down but we got lucky. Sevareid and Port suffered through a storm when they camped on the South Dakota side of Big Stone Lake too—pretty cool.
The troop fed us breakfast burritos, of course since all we do is receive endless kindness from others. We finished off Big Stone and entered the Little Minnesota River, which flows into the Lake. The Little Minnesota starts up on the big coulee in South Dakota and drains down in a hurry. It was full of water and we struggled against the current again—as we’d done for so many days on the Minnesota. Our muscles soon grew weary and then we came to a logjam; the river was only about 15 feet wide. Not wanting to unpack our canoe we figured out how to pull it up through. This involved Scott balancing on two floating logs, lots of pulling and pushing and at one point Todd’s lifejacket falling into the water and being carried downstream (fortunately it got caught right away). After some a very difficult morning we made it to the small town of Browns Valley where we climbed out of the river bottom and had some lunch.
We’d been tipped off that the people at Bud’s Bait could help us out if we needed it. A guy named Mike Faulkingham had e-mailed us; the full service station has been in his family for about 75 years. It was 50 yards or so from the river and easy to find. Before we knew it we had met Karen and the gang and they called the newspaper and arranged for us to get a portage up to Lake Traverse, across the continental divide but only an hour away. Sevareid and Port had gotten help from a local with a truck for this section as well.
We put in on a windy Lake Traverse and paddled exhausted for about 2 miles before pulling over to a home on the South Dakota side. We walked up to Mike Goette and asked if we could camp there. He looked us over and said he thought that would be OK. Before long we were engaged in great conversation with his whole family; his wife Mary, daughter Karen and grandkids Ray and Jamal. Scott played basketball with Ray for a while and Todd got some early Z’s. We learned a little more about the Sisseton-Whapeton Oyate; a large Dakota Reservation we were on. Oyate is the Dakota word for people, I believe. The Sisseton-Whapeton people have lived here for hundreds or maybe thousands of years. The reservation currently covers a triangular shaped wedge of northeast South Dakota. Mary’s family is from this beautiful place.
That night was a wind advisory for up to 50 mile an hour winds; good thing we weren’t on the lake!
In the morning the Goette’s had us in for breakfast—soup, frybread, sweet bread and muffins. It was all delicious. They had tried to get the tribal chairman to come visit us, but unfortunately that didn’t work out. We said good-bye and headed off. That was this morning and now we are some 21 miles away having paddled the length of Lake Traverse and Mud Lake. We are now at the start of the Bois De Sioux River and excited to go downstream tomorrow.
We feel a little like we’ve been in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers playground the last few days as all this water has been impacted by dams built for flood control. In fact Lake Traverse is controlled by dams at both ends so it actually can flow to the Gulf of Mexico and to Hudson Bay at the same time—pretty wild. The Bois De Sioux has been channelized for the first 7 miles or so so in the morning we will set off down what looks like a canal. Perhaps we will sing some Venetian songs and pole our way along. Apparently the channel was dry completely earlier this Spring; it’s now quite full so after struggling against so much water for so long we will finally reap the benefits as we go downstream; Eric and Walt had to pull their canoe through this stretch 75 years ago and we would have had to too…
Oh I forgot we had lunch today between Traverse and Mud and the little payground there is flooded out; we got some pictures of Todd swinging over 2 feet of water and Scott playing on a Merry Go Round. These border waters are very pretty; borderd by rolling green hills and sheep and cattle sometimes. We stopped for a bit in the middle of Mud Lake and could hear….absolutely nothing…it was a deep silence and it was awesome.
We celebrated the end of the first of four chapters of our trip tonight by drinking a little blue agave juice—delicious.