Finding Myself

In the crowded, elbow bumping aisles at Scheel’s Arena during the Pride of Dakota show, a booth for  Dacotah Trails Books from Bismarck stopped me. Several large bookcases, filled to overflowing, stood in the allotted space and begged me to stop and look. This proprietor probably doesn’t have every North Dakota community’s history or school yearbook, but it’s not for lack of trying. Yes, he had centennial books for Sheldon and Enderlin.

His business card says he specializes in ND history, old west, and special interest books. One of those books looked very familiar. Sure enough, it was the first book I published 13 years ago, Paha Sapa Tawoyake: Wade’s Stories. Of course, that was a conversation starter, and I was even handed a pen to autograph it. His wife said she was going to keep it for herself. 

A bit of background as to how this book came about might interest. While looking around in Wahpeton’s School of Science library, 45 years or so ago, I found an edition of it on the shelves. It looked interesting enough to check out and take home to read. Not finding any copyright date, I presumed it was in the public domain and made a copy of it for my own library.

The stories in it fascinated me. In his early working days William Wade had been a seafaring man and later found work as a wagoner driving yoked teams across the prairie. He worked in the employ of Don Stevenson whose large wagon trains crossed Ransom County on their way west. But Wade wanted a life as an independent operator and set up a ranching operation on the west side of the Missouri River. Reminiscent of his days at sea, he named it the Anchor Ranch. 

His story drew me in, especially after my wife said that this spread was immediately adjacent to the place where she grew up near Raleigh, North Dakota. The Voigt family owned it then and she would occasionally babysit for Duaine and Alma Voigt. Not so many years ago, we drove to the place to meet with Duaine who had a great story to tell about being displaced by the Garrison Dam and trail driving their herd to this new ground. In addition, he took us on a tour of the large ranch that Wade established and four-wheeled to the top of a tall butte where his family had placed a stone marker engraved “Wade Ranch.”

I was hooked and knew I needed to pursue the Wade story. First, I searched out descendants of William Wade and found a great-granddaughter closest to the source. She endorsed my effort, and we agreed I would reprint the Wade book as well as adding pertinent information that we had found. 

Another consideration was to translate the Lakota terminology of “Paha Sapa Tawoyake” that Wade used on his original book. The “Paha Sapa” part was easy because I knew it was Lakota for Black Hills. Try as I might, I couldn’t find any reference to Tawoyake. Remembering the United Tribes Technical College in Bismarck, I drove in there one day and began looking for someone who could interpret the word. School was not in session then, so finding an indigenous person who could help took a search.

Eventually, I found two men in an office to ask. They looked puzzled and couldn’t come up with a translation. One of them picked up the phone and called to ask an elderly relative, but he couldn’t provide a quick answer. A phone conversation ensued with give and take on  both ends. Finally, they agreed on a solution. It meant something akin to “finder.” So there it was, “Finder of the Black Hills.”

A bit of knowledge of Indian humor explains it. Wade knew and liked his Indian neighbors there on the west side of the Missouri River, and they in turn reciprocated. He was asked to accompany a group of them traveling south to meet with the U. S. government officials to discuss treaty problems. As the group rode along, Wade spotted the outline of the Black Hills on the horizon and shouted out, “There they are.” Wade became a victim of his companions wry humor when they named him the “Finder of the Black Hills.” They knew where they were and had a good laugh about it. He could take a joke and related so many more rich anecdotes in his writing that I’ll need to save until next time.

We walked a little way down the aisle and were greeted by a couple of friendly faces who were representing the “North Dakota Magazine.” I hadn’t seen a copy of that publication in awhile and had heard it was closing up shop. Here they were and when I asked, they said, “Yes, we were on the brink of closing down, but then we found support to continue, so here we are.” They were more than happy to sign us up for a year to receive six new issues. With our payment, they reached back and gave us their last two issues for samples. They contain interesting articles along with beautiful color pictures. North Dakota is well represented in its pages.