Mike Yardley shares the enchanting fusion of art and nature found in South Dakota’s Black Hills.
Rising from the western South Dakota plains, the Black Hills region beckons like an emerald isle in a sea of prairie, serving up a swirl of headline experiences. Widely regarded as one of the man-made wonders of the world, Mount Rushmore is as much a work of art as it is an engineering tour de force. Its creator, Gutzon Borglum, who studied under Auguste Rodin, wanted to symbolise in stone the very spirit of a nation through four of its most revered leaders. Chiselled in granite high on a pine-clad cliff in South Dakota’s fabled Black Hills are the portraits of four of America’s greatest leaders. Since 1941, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt have gazed quietly across the Great Plains and a land they did so much to shape.
Dynamite was used to carve more than 90 percent of the memorial. Originally, the four presidents were going to be carved from head to waist, but that was scaled back to just head sculptures. All told, the monument was completed at a cost of about $1 million over a 14-year period, involving 400 workers. Remarkably, there were no fatalities. On a sunny, bluebird day, the memorial is a captivating sight. Plan to visit early, to avoid the hordes. Follow the Presidential Trail through the forest to gain excellent views of the colossal sculpture, or stroll the Avenue of Flags for a different perspective. If you’re visiting at night, the ranger-led lighting ceremony takes place between June and September.
Less well known as Mount Rushmore but arguably even more eye-popping, and only 30 minutes away, is the monumental work in progress, the Crazy Horse Memorial. Designed to be the world’s largest work of art (the face alone is 87 feet tall), this tribute to the spirit of Native American people depicts Crazy Horse, the legendary Lakota leader who helped defeat General Custer at Little Bighorn. A work in progress, thus far the warrior’s head has been carved from the mountain, as has his outstretched hand. His eyes alone are five metres wide. Self-taught sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski started this memorial in 1948, knowing full well that the immensity of the project meant it would not be completed in his lifetime.
After he died in 1982, his family carried on the project, with some of his children and grandchildren actively involved even today. Technological advances have given hope that the huge project will completed in several decades. The dimensions are staggering — nearly two rugby fields long and two rugby fields wide, all carved out of the granite cliff of Thunderhead Mountain, 1828m above sea level. When the sculpture is completed, Crazy Horse will sit astride his mount, pointing over his stallion’s head to the sacred Black Hills. So large is the sculpture that all four presidents on Mount Rushmore would fit in Crazy Horse’s head.
