Black Hills Badlands the Web of the West

"The web of the Black Hills reached to the Big Horns, up and around the curve of the Missouri, and across the Platte River. It was part of the Badlands, the grasslands, and the wild West. The web included Indians and fortune seekers. Life in one location would send its vibrations throughout the whole.

This is the Black Hills, the center of the earth, a mirror of geologic history, a landscape painted dark by pines and surrounded by a rainbow of badlands. This is eagle country, a sacred land where the ancestors of the early travelers who had hiked across the Bering Straits could climb a peak and look for holy visions. It was here also that the white man could chase the yellow metal that seemed to be solidified sunbeams."

The challenge is that there are so many legends, so many voices and names and characters--each with an individual story: Sitting Bull, General Custer, Wild Bill Hickok, Preacher Smith, Calamity Jane, Wild Horse Harry Hardin, Vincent McGillycuddy, Bob Brislawn, Teddy Roosevelt, Lame Deer, Chief Flying Hawk, Red Cloud, Crazy Horse, Captain Jack Crawford, and Harry Longabaugh (the Sundance Kid). In this book the reader can meet them all.

The setting is as interesting and varied as the characters and tales. Photographer Craig Blacklock has traveled the territory and returned with 96 stunning full-color photographs that capture both the grandeur and the passing beauties of this part of the west--old and new, wild and natural.

Also recommended: Lake Superior's North Shore and Isle Royale, Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, Minnesota Underfoot.