The first time I carved a turtle from pipestone, it took me three hours. From the general shape to the beeswax sealant, I carved the turtle using a small pocket knife I’d found in a drawer of odds-and-ends. I didn’t have any specialized tools – I would learn about those later – or even a…
Tag: Pipestone
Secrets of Pipestone National Monument
Pipestone doesn’t feel like a part of Minnesota. It should be its own district. On the surface, it seems like a place for people who take too much medication to live in South Dakota but not enough to live any closer to Edina. And I think Iowa just confuses them. They don’t know what our…
Kitchi-manitou and Finding the Future in the Past
When I was a kid at summer camp, the counselors told us the story of Kitchi-manitou. It was an old Indian story, they said, about the creation of the world. I hated it because it made no sense. The beginning, for instance, saw Kitchi-manitou floating in an ocean talking to a turtle. “Wait,” I thought,…
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