The Complete Guide to the Dakotas

From Native American tribes to bizarre landscapes, monumental sculptures to herds of roaming buffalo, North and South Dakota are true US originals

WHERE ARE THE DAKOTAS?

Go to Rugby, North Dakota, and in the parking area of a petrol station you'll see a marker stating that you're at the exact geographical centre of North America. The petrol station (and marker) used to be on the other side of the street but when the owner of the garage moved premises, the middle of the continent came with him.

A recently published guide is called The Dakotas: Off the Beaten Path (Globe Pequot Press). South Dakota's Black Hills apart, that accurately describes both states: the Dakotas were once designated by Newsweek magazine as the "Great American Outback". With no direct links from the UK, and a location far from our traditional vacation destinations, they are little known to British travellers; indeed, the Dakotas receive fewer UK visitors than any other states, except possibly Alaska and Delaware.

The separate states of North and South Dakota lie east of the Rocky Mountains. South Dakota (SD) is bordered by Wyoming and Montana to the west, Iowa and Minnesota to the east and Nebraska to the south. North Dakota (ND) lies adjacent to the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north, Montana to the west and Minnesota to the east.

Both Dakotas are roughly rectangular and many Americans wonder why they are separate states, with only 630,000 residents in ND and just 750,000 in SD. But so fierce is state loyalty that such a move would be akin to merging Yorkshire and Lancashire.

WHO WERE THE FIRST RESIDENTS?

Archaeologists believe big-game hunters lived in the area around 11,500 years ago: settlements of both hunter-gatherers and farming peoples occupied the land until the first white explorers arrived.

The word "Dakota" is a Santee dialect word meaning "Alliance of Friends": confusingly, other dialects spell and pronounce their equivalent "Lakota" or "Nakota". People of this tribe are sometimes called "Sioux", a name thought to derive from a French rendering of an Ojibwa word meaning "treacherous snakes".

WHEN DID THE WHITE MAN ARRIVE?

The first recorded European visitor was La Verendrye, a French explorer who reached the Missouri River from Canada in 1738, while searching for a shipping route to the Pacific Ocean. In 1804, Lewis and Clark led the American "voyage of discovery" up the Missouri River from St Louis.

When the horse was brought to the Northern Plains in the 18th century, the lives of the nomadic tribes - primarily the Dakota, Assiniboine and Cheyenne - changed dramatically. The enhanced mobility provided by horses was a great asset to these nomadic people. The sedentary tribes such as the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara lived in dwellings known as "earth lodges" near the Missouri River. Their fortified villages had extensive gardens, and became fur trading hubs during the 18th and 19th centuries. The growth in trade saw the Northern Plains claimed by European nations: Britain, France and Spain exchanged the territories several times through wars and treaties. In 1803, Napoleon sold French-owned land to the fledgling United States. The sale, known as the Louisiana Purchase, ceded the Dakotas to American ownership.

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?

By the early 19th century, the Sioux dominated the Plains. Buffalo, easily their most important staple, provided food, clothing and a lot more besides. American Indians became instrumental in the fur trade; major trading posts at Fort Union and Fort Clark, and others of lesser significance, catered mainly to Native American trappers and hunters. In exchange for their meat and furs, the American Indians received guns, metal tools, cloth and beads. White settlement of the Northern Plains began in earnest after 1861. Between 1863 and 1865 the construction of a chain of military outposts steadily increased federal control over the area, and the wholesale slaughter of the bison herds - the main staple of the nomadic tribes - meant that the Sioux way of life was lost for ever.

The desire for land and a new way of life brought a stream of settlers to the Dakotas. Gold was discovered in the Black Hills in 1874, while further colonisation "booms" occurred in the 1880s, and between 1905 and 1920.

Many immigrants were from Norway and the Ukraine. To this day, Minot, ND hosts the Norsk Hostfest, which claims to be North America's largest Scandinavian Festival (6-9 October 2004; 001 701 852 2368; www.hostfest.com).

The 20th century was a difficult period for these largely agricultural states. The 1970s were particularly trying years for North Dakota, when many farmers invested heavily in expensive equipment on the back of high grain prices and huge sales to the Soviet Union. When prices fell, debt forced a significant number out of business. The Dakotas are littered with abandoned homesteads, and ND is one of the few US states whose population is now falling.

WHAT DO THE DAKOTAS LOOK LIKE?

Both states are relatively flat and characterised by gently rolling farmland and prairie. Typical vistas are of fields of canola, corn and soya; of rich black soil dotted with rocky outcrops or "buttes". Both states have the dramatic "Badlands" to the west. The mighty Missouri river (its headwaters are in south-western Montana) cuts through the east of ND and then turns south, roughly bisecting SD. South Dakotans tend to refer to places as "East River" or "West River".

Many delightful stretches of the Missouri can be explored by car or on foot: you will see prickly pears growing on sand dunes, and row upon row of sunflowers. Both Pierre, SD's capital, and Bismarck, the capital of ND, lie on the banks of the Missouri.

Northern ND is quite marshy and is home to many species of waterfowl: by contrast, some western parts are so arid that cacti grow wild. Much of far-western SD is taken up by the Black Hills (which spill into neighbouring Wyoming). Here you'll find the Dakotas' most iconic site, Mount Rushmore.

East of the Missouri is a land of rich, rolling farmland and dozens of small, ethnic communities dotting the prairies. Though summers are often hot - especially in the Badlands - winters are long and harsh and help you understand the true meaning of the term "windchill".

WHAT ARE THE BADLANDS - APART FROM A FILM?

Vast swathes of eerie desolation created by weathering, the Badlands are made up of sharply-eroded buttes, steep canyons, bands of coloured rock, pinnacles and spires blended with mixed-grass prairies. There are Badlands in both Dakotas, most of which are contained in two National Parks. In general, ND's Badlands tend to be greener (vegetation-wise) than those in SD.

ND has the Theodore Roosevelt National Park (001 701 623 4466; www.nps.gov/thro) split into two along a north-south axis. The southern section is considered the more scenic and accessible, and thus hosts more visitors. Medora is a restored cowboy town and the base for visiting the southern tracts, while the northern end is fairly close to Watford City.

In SD, the northern region of Badlands National Park (001 605 433 5361; www.nps.gov/badl ) sees almost all of the visitor traffic, particularly along the spectacular Badlands Loop Scenic Byway. The Park is an easy drive from Rapid City; be sure to take scenic State Road 44 (rather than Interstate 90) in one direction at least.

THE BLACK HILLS: UNINVITING?

Certainly not. These uplands, which cover an area measuring 65 by 125 miles in western South Dakota, are dramatically beautiful. They were so named because of the dense covering of pine and spruce, looking like a dark blanket in contrast with the pale surrounding meadows and prairies. Tribespeople named the area "paha sapa" - "hills that are black".

Beatles devotees will know that the "black mountain hills of South Dakota" were home to one Rocky Raccoon. Mt Rushmore makes the Black Hills the most popular attraction for visitors in the whole of the Dakotas. But the area has dozens of other attractions. Don't miss Custer State Park, 73,000 acres of spectacular terrain and home to almost half of America's free-roaming buffalo.

Make the hike to Harney Peak, said to be the highest point between the Rocky Mountains and the French Alps: on this trail I'd also recommend the side-trip to Little Devil's Tower. Other musts are drives along the Needles Highway, which twists and turns past towering granite formations and through narrow tunnels, and the Iron Mountain Road.

WHERE CAN I LEARN ABOUT AMERICAN INDIAN CULTURE?

The Dakotas have several fascinating sites for those with an interest in Native American (particularly Sioux) history. On-Slant-Village in Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park (001 701 667 6340; www.ndparks.com), across the Missouri River from Bismarck, ND, is an excellent recreation of earth lodge structures. The original inhabitants, the sedentary Mandan, were devastated by smallpox in the 18th century.

Also in ND, the Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site (001 701 745 3300; www.nps.gov/knri) contains agricultural remnants of the Northern Plains Indians.

Down in Pierre, SD, a huge, earth-covered building, part of the Cultural Heritage Center (001 605 773 3458; www.sdhistory.org), is dedicated to American Indian culture. In nearby Mitchell, stop at the Prehistoric Indian Village Museum (001 605 996 5473; www.mitchellindianvillage.org) - in addition to a mock-up of an earth lodge and the remains of underground food storage units, you may be able to see archaeologists at work as they continue to explore the site.

Learn about the Sioux Nation at the Akta Lakota Museum in Chamberlain, SD (001 605 734 3455; www.sdmuseums.org). The excellent Indian Museum of North America at the Crazy Horse Memorial (see Mountain Faces box) is also well worth a visit. The final resting place of Sitting Bull, close to Mobridge, SD, is marked by a bust from the sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski. The renowned Lakota chief was originally buried near Standing Rock just over the ND border.

There are cowboys, too. In the mining town of Deadwood is Mount Moriah Cemetery, which contains the graves of James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok (who was killed in a saloon on Deadwood's Main Street) and Calamity Jane. Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday also frequented the town, but didn't end up dead there. Though no Las Vegas, Deadwood has several casinos and many historic buildings.

OTHER BLACK HILLS HIGHLIGHTS?

The hills are riddled with cave networks, several of which are open to the public. The two most interesting are Wind Cave National Park and Jewel Cave National Monument. In the town of Hot Springs at the south end of the hills is Mammoth Site (001 605 745 6017; www.mammothsite.com), which contains the world's largest concentration of Columbian and woolly mammoth bones in their primary context (i.e. where they actually died). There's so much to do in the area that many visitors limit their Dakotas experiences to a stay in the Black Hills with a side trip via Rapid City to SD's Badlands. Rapid City, the state's second-largest city, is at the east edge of the Black Hills. .

If you like the sound of a hotel that mixes Tudor, Germanic and Lakota influences, head for the Hotel Alex Johnson, 523 Sixth Street (001 605 342 1210; www.alexjohnson.com). A room in low season costs $63 (£40). Though the Black Hills area can be visited year round, there can be a lot of snow in winter and some attractions are open only from May to October.

CAN I HAVE A GO AT BEING A COWBOY?

How about a stay at the Triple R Ranch, Keystone, SD (001 605 666 4605; www.rrrranch.com) or perhaps ND's Knife River Ranch (001 701 983 4290; www.kniferiverranch.com) near Golden Valley? Both of these ranches offer loads of horse riding and other western activities in lovely surroundings, dotted with such evocatively-named settlements as Dodge, Marshall and Zap.

WHAT ELSE IS THERE TO SEE?

SD's splendid 1910 State Capitol building in Pierre (001 605 773 3765) is open 8am-10pm daily. You can get a feel of life in an 1890s pioneer town by looking round the restored buildings at Prairie Village (001 605 256 3644) in Madison, SD.

Fans of Little House on the Prairie should head for De Smet, SD, home of Laura Ingalls Wilder, who wrote the books (001 800 880 3383; www.liwms.com). The Corn Palace in Mitchell (001 605 996 5567; www.cornpalace.org) was designed in 1892: early settlers decorated the exterior of this onion-domed Moorish-style building with corn, grains and grasses and have continued this practice ever since. The building serves as the local community centre, so you can wander in - where corn is celebrated in art - at most hours of the day.

At Vermillion, in the far south-east of SD, you can visit America's Shrine to Music Museum (001 605 677 5306; www.usd.edu/smm), one of the world's largest collections of musical instruments.

IS THERE ANYTHING REALLY WACKY?

Along the Enchanted Highway in ND, giant metal sculptures - including a grasshopper 40ft tall and 50ft long - dot the roadside between Gladstone and Regent, about 15 miles east of Dickinson.

Over in Webster, SD, you can pretend to be Imelda Marcos at The Shoe House (001 605 345 4751; www.sdmuseum.org), a collection of more than 9,000 pairs of assorted footwear at what is now part of the Museum of Wildlife, Industry and Science. Unfortunately, it is open only by appointment between November and April. Chip fans should head for the International Vinegar Museum (001 605 486 0075; www.vinegarman.com) in Roslyn, while another interesting site is the South Dakota Outhouse Museum (001 605 835 8002) in Gregory.

HOW DO I GET THERE?

No airline offers direct flights to either Dakota from the UK: the nearest international gateway is Minneapolis, served by Northwest from Gatwick (0870 5074074; www.klm.com). Flights later this month start at around £350 from discount agents, but a through-ticket to Rapid City will add only £30 or so to this total.

Over Easter and during the summer fares are significantly higher, and over the Sturgis motorcycle week in August there is hardly a spare seat to be found to Rapid City.

HOW DO I GET AROUND?

Passenger rail services are limited to one service, Amtrak's Empire Builder which cuts through ND on its way from Chicago to the Pacific Northwest (001 800 872 7245; www.amtrak.com). The buses are slightly better - Greyhound runs an east-west route through each Dakota, and also connects the larger cities in the very east of the states (001 800 229 9424; www.greyhound.com).

With long distances between urban centres, and attractions often far from towns and cities, life is not easy without a car. The major rental firms are represented at the biggest airports. Through Avis (0870 606 0100; www.avis.co.uk), a Group-Z vehicle rented in Rapid City costs around £189 for a week plus £10.50 per day for insurance. However, a fully-inclusive rate of £192 is available for anyone picking up and returning a vehicle in Minneapolis.

WHERE CAN I FIND OUT MORE?

North Dakota does not have tourist representatives in the UK, but its US staff can be contacted on 001 800 435 5663 or via www.ndtourism.com. For SD information, call 09063 640655 (calls costs 60p per minute), or 001 800 732 5682, or go to www.travelsd.com.

Apart from the Off the Beaten Path book mentioned above it's almost impossible to find any guides purely on the Dakotas. Hunt hard enough and you may find an old copy of a Compass guide to South Dakota, otherwise your best bet is probably Fodor's Road Guide USA: Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, published in 2001.

THE WORLD'S GREATEST MOTORCYCLE EVENT: THE STURGIS BIKE RALLY

By Simon Calder

When William S Harley and Arthur Davidson began to make bikes in 1903, they cannot have imagined what they were starting. It's a long ride (even on a Harley) from the North Circular Road at Stonebridge, NW10, to Sturgis, SD - but one that's a dream for most of the patrons at London's legendary bikers' haunt, the Ace Café. The Sturgis rally is genuinely world famous: some call it the world's best biker event.

Every year what seems to be the entire herd of American motorcycles - about half a million of them - are rounded up in this small town in South Dakota. Last year, the Sturgis Bike Rally celebrated the 100th anniversary of Harley Davidson. For a week in the summer (this year from 9 to 15 August), this small town becomes Motorcycle City USA, for a week-long, high-decibel frenzy of chrome and leather (001 605 642 8166; www.sturgis-rally.com).

All those bands that you thought had been put out of their misery years ago are resurrected for Sturgis: last year Whitesnake, Nazareth and Steppenwolf shuffled on stage, along with an AC/DC tribute band called Hell's Bells. Ten years ago, if you'd turned up in anything other than an all-American Harley they would have run you out of town. Today, anything goes. Well, almost anything. Bikers are warned "motorcycle passengers must sit behind the driver", and a $25 fine is levied on women who reveal their "mummy parts"; baring breasts is is a popular pastime at the event.

This August's rally will be the 64th, and as the average age of the participants heads towards 64 the hell-raising, beer-swilling days are disappearing, to be replaced by back-rubbing - massage is available for stressed bikers.

Still, the Harley must come in handy for fetching the pension. It's a shame that James Dean isn't around any more for a sequel: Rebel without a Bus Pass.

HOW BILLBOARDS CREATED AN ICON

In the 1930s the Hustead family bought a drugstore in an isolated one-horse town called Wall in South Dakota. Time went by and business didn't grow at all. However, when they erected advertising hoardings on the nearby highway inviting hot, thirsty drivers to come into Wall Drug for free iced water, everything changed. Before the paint on the signs was dry customers started pouring in to quench their thirst.

The growth continued: the store now draws up to 20,000 visitors a day. Spurred on by the power of marketing, Wall Drug adverts have appeared all over the world, including on trains in London, Paris and Kenya.

Occupying most of a town block, this bizarre tourist trap is made up of photo and art exhibitions, tableaux, animated life-sized puppets (including singing cowboys), an animated T-Rex, eateries, a travellers' chapel and plenty of shops offering products from the practical to the tacky, although I have to say the emphasis seems to be on the latter.

Stop off for a free cup of iced water and it becomes apparents that it's not only the landscape of the Dakotas that's surreal.

TWO MONUMENTAL WORKS OF ART

SD's Black Hills are home to two (literally) monumental works of art. On a mountainside known as Mount Rushmore, amid a setting of pine, spruce, birch and aspen, is the "Shrine of America": giant busts of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln (001 605 574 3171; www.nps.gov/moru).

Less than 20 miles away, work continues on another mountain carving started by sculptor Korczan Ziolkowski in 1948. When complete, the carving of Lakota leader Crazy Horse astride his horse will measure about 700 feet by 600 feet. All four presidents' faces from Mt Rushmore would fit into Crazy Horse's head (001 605 673 4681; www.crazyhorse.org).