BROOKINGS — The Brookings Wildlife Federation will host Jamie Lancaster, executive director for the De Smet Development Corp., at the group's monthly infolunch at noon at the Outdoor Adventure Center, 2810 22nd Ave., on Sept. 1.
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BROOKINGS — The Brookings Wildlife Federation will host Jamie Lancaster, executive director for the De Smet Development Corp., at the group's monthly infolunch at noon at the Outdoor Adventure Center, 2810 22nd Ave. S, on Sept. 1.
Lancaster will talk about plans for a visitor/interpretive center at Silver Lake near De Smet on U.S. Highway 14.
The public is invited. A free-will-offering lunch will be available.
Cooperating agencies in planning the visitor/interpretive center are the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks, National Park Service and South Historical Society.
The planners have partnered with Buildner, an architecture competition organizer, to arrange an architectural competition for an iconic observation tower.
The tower and associated walking paths and information kiosks will be located near Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Big Slough.”
This location offers an ideal vantage point for observing the area’s historic natural features.
Big Slough is the upper part of Silver Lake, which is the setting for many of the "Little House on the Prairie" books.
Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote “By the Shores of Silver Lake.” Her mother, Caroline Ingalls, named the lake for the silvery appearance of its surface.
The lake is a “prairie pothole,” a depression in which rain and snow-melt collect.
A drainage ditch to nearby Lake Henry was built in the 1920s with the support of local landowners to prevent the lake from flooding the surrounding land.
The De Smet News often receives questions from young readers about the existence of Silver Lake.
The response is “The News is happy to vouch for the authenticity of the books by Mrs. Wilder — that she actually experienced the pioneer days here with her family, on the shores of Silver Lake by a large slough, since drained, living on the claim throughout the Hard Winter and many more winters afterward...”
The USFWS has conservation easements on about 1,000 acres in the Silver Lake basin.
A Fish and Wildlife Service employee reports that recent rains have filled Silver Lake and attracted hundreds of blue-winged teal, the first migrants of the fall season.
The BWF is in its 43rd year of supplying conservation information and activities to the Brookings community.
It is affiliated with the South Dakota Wildlife Federation and the National Wildlife Federation. For more information, contact BWF President Bob Kurtz at 605-695-1361.
