Black Hills and Beyond: Crazy Horse Memorial

Labor Day Weekend was drawing near, and after a few days of work, we were ready to explore the Black Hills some more. We had already visited one of the famous mountain carvings in the area, Mount Rushmore, but we also wanted to dive into learning about Native American history. There are lots of places to learn about the Native tribes of South Dakota, but no better than Crazy Horse Memorial.

Crazy Horse is a carving-in-progress that has been under construction for years. Sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski assisted on the creation of Mount Rushmore and was later asked to design a memorial that would honor the Native Americans. He went above and beyond, turning his art into a humanitarian quest, keeping the construction's funding out of the hands of the federal government and in the hands of his family. When Ziolkowski died, his family continued his legacy. Though the carving is nowhere near complete, visitors flock to the site to see the progress. At the entrance to the property is a museum that houses art and artifacts from tribes all across America. There is even a school for Native American youth to educate themselves and then return to their reservations to help improve their communities.

The history of the memorial is touching. It showcases the deep spiritual connection between the Lakota tribe and a Polish artist from Massachusetts. It demonstrates the strong bond of family. It also symbolizes the honor that the Lakota tribe had for their chief who fought to his death to protect his people.

Aimed to be the largest monument in the world, it's planned to stand at 563 feet tall and 641 feet wide. However, it will likely be decades before this sculpture comes to full fruition. After 75 years, the sculpture, which is designed to be Crazy Horse riding his horse and pointing to his tribal land, is but a head and the start of a left arm and hand.

Each evening after sundown, the memorial puts on a laser light show, and so we decided to visit later in the day and stay until the show. This laser show will be ending at the end of September after a 17 year run, so for us, seeing it was now or never.

We entered the visitor center and were overwhelmed by how many exhibits they had. Each artifact and painting on display had an entire essay accompanying it, telling the backstory of the piece. It was far too much to read, but the art itself was lovely. We meandered around but were hoping to see more of the memorial itself. The website mentioned some tours and events, including a van tour that goes up the mountain. Because evening was approaching, we wouldn't have much time before the last van departed, so we stopped our perusing of the museum and went over to the information desk.

We inquired about the van tour, which online says patrons can ride for a "charitable contribution." The lady informed us that this contribution was $125 per person. Wow. We respectfully declined and continued our way through the museum. As we passed by donation box after donation box, we began to understand more of why this labor of love was taking so long to build. We totally respect not taking federal funding, but it comes at a price. This monument now reads less as a source of outreach and more like a reach for tourists' cash.

After we finished walking the museum, we went out back to find the café, hoping to grab a bite for dinner while we waited for the sun to set...only the café had closed 10 minutes prior, at 7PM. We were perplexed as to why they would close before the light show. After visiting the museum, there wasn't anything left to do but wait. We ended up sitting in the truck listening to a podcast to pass the time. While we sat there, we looked up the memorial on the website and read more thoroughly. This was when we noticed the Bus to Base tour, a shorter tour that doesn't go up the mountain, but stops at the base. Still, it allows for a closer view of Crazy Horse. The visitor center is 3/4 of a mile away, so there's no way to get the full scope of the monument's size. A trip to the base would have been worthwhile, especially because it would have cost us each $120 less than the van tour. That's right. $5 bus tours up to the base of the mountain, and like the van tours, we would have been able to catch the last one if the lady at the information center had told us about it. We were pretty disappointed that she left out this option for us. Perhaps she thought we already knew about it? But we're first-time visitors. That's why we went to the information booth. If we asked about the van, wouldn't the next line of conversation be, "Oh, but if that's too expensive, there is also a bus tour." In our moment of realization that we were totally gypped out of what could have been a cool experience, Anthony wondered if the bus tour was listed on the sign at the information center. We hadn't looked because we just started asking questions directly. Well, the sign did list the tour, but no pricing, and as Anthony stated, it was one of the most hard to read, poorly designed signs he's seen in a while.

We didn't want our disappointment and boredom to cloud the rest of our evening, but we started questioning our decision to stay for the light show when we saw lots of visitors leaving a short while before it was scheduled to start. Did they know something we didn't? A few minutes before 8:30pm, we headed over to the observation deck, and the show began...but not before we got caught in the dark because the staff turned off all the lights in the museum as we made our way through to get out the back. We get that they need it dark for the lights, but walking through a pitch black museum was a little frightening.

Remember all those groups of people who left just minutes before the show started? We should have been one of them. Right at the beginning of the show was a "thank our sponsors" segment, which is fine (more reaching for those bucks)...except they actually project the logos onto the memorial. There's something about seeing a Coca-Cola logo plastered on a tribal chief that just rubbed us the wrong way. Then the show started, and it felt like technology from the 80s. A few parts seemed to be educational, but then the laser beams would shoot out from the unbuilt horse, and it all just seemed...wrong. We left after about 3 minutes. On the way out, Anthony said it felt disrespectful. Exactly the word that had popped into my mind too.

We honestly don't know what to think about this whole experience. There is so much good in the mission of this memorial, but a lot of the present-day operation missed the mark for us. Thank goodness the laser show is ending because it doesn't have a place here. The exhibits are amazing, but they're just too much. It felt like we were reading textbooks for a dissertation on Native American studies. And the experiences that would really drive home the essence of this monument - the tours up to the mountain - are either way too expensive or not advertised enough. It begs the question: If Ziolkowski could send a message down to his children and grandchildren, what would he say? He left detailed plans of his memorial design, but what about the other parts of the memorial, like the places people are visiting? How would he want it to be structured in a way that captures the attention of visitors in 2023 and beyond? Give the visitors something real to hold onto when discovering the lives and plights of the Native Americans. Give them a poignant moment when they view this art-in-progress, not just glimpsing it from almost a mile away. Let us feel the martyrdom of the Lakota chief. That's where the money lies, not in acrylic donation boxes and overpriced excursions.