In the summer of 1997, I interned at Badlands National Park. Located in Interior, South Dakota, the park protects over 240,000 acres of mixed grass prairie, eroded buttes, and pinnacles of layered rock.
I was the John C. Clark Paleo-Education Intern, a position that shared a lot of the same duties as the park’s interpretative rangers, such as presenting talks and walks to visitors, operating and staffing the vsitor center, and answering visitor complaints and emergencies.
What I did, that the interpretive rangers didn’t do, was investigate fossil sightings made by park visitors.
Now the park’s beautifully eroded landscape is part of the White River Badlands, a region rich in Oligocene fossils (34- to 23- million years old). Some of the more fascinating fossils, uncovered at the park, are those of a three-toed horse, a false sabertooth cat, tiny hornless deer, camels, the ancestor of the modern pig, and the ancestor of the modern Rhinoceros.
I remember falling in love with the park in my youth, during a family vacation that toured the wonders of South Dakota. Getting this internship, years later, was simply a dream come true. And since I was also exploring an interest in Paleontology, it looked great on my resume.
Of course, the park is also known for its animals. They have bighorn sheep, pronghorn antelope, coyote, mule deer, black-footed ferrets, and prairie dogs.
The park also has a herd of bison. Unfortunately, a lot of people have no clue how dangerous bison can be. I lost count of the number of times I had to stop a visitor from trying to pet a bison.
Badlands National Park has two units, the North Unit and South Unit. I worked primarily in the park’s North Unit. The South Unit is located on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, and co-managed by the National Park Service and the Oglala Lakota Tribe.
The South Unit includes a former USAF bomb and gunnery range, the site of the 1890 Ghost Dances, and Red Shirt Table, the highest point in the park. Largely undeveloped, the South Unit is incredibly beautiful. I visited one day and was simply blown away.
A large portion of the South Unit was also used in the filming of the movie, Dances With Wolves.
That summer, I spent most of my free time hiking. My favorite trail was Door Trail. It’s unique rock formations made me feel like I was walking on another world.
That summer was also one of many firsts. I encountered my first Bull Snake, ate my first Indian Taco, went to my a Powwow and attended in my first Country-Western dance.
I also visited the town of Scenic, where there was literally little to nothing to see.
I also did some rock hunting at the park’s Prairie Dog Town. Note: Prairie Dog Towns are great places to go rock hunting. I found a lot of cool rocks the Prairie Dogs had dug out and then dumped around the entrances of their burrows.
I know it’s very unlikely I’ll get to visit Badlands National Park again in my lifetime. When I want to reminisce, there are a couple movies I can watch that were filmed on park land, like Dances With Wolves, Thunderheart, or Armageddon. But if I had to choose, it would be Galaxy Quest. There’s nothing quite like watching Tim Allen getting his ass handed to him by a rock monster, with Door Trail as the backdrop.
-Jen, aka. “Power Chair Dorothy”
Not in Kansas Anymore 