Walgren Lake: Place Post No. 1

“The first name for this lake was ‘Sicamma Ble,’ which means “Stinker Lake.” It was named by the Lakota Sioux Indians because of the alkali smell it gave off.

In early 1885 settlers started making their homes in the area. W.A. Chappell built a rock house across the road to the west. The rock came from John Elwin Reid’s rock quarry two miles to the west. People used to gather in this house when there was an Indian scare when they were on the war path. …the lake was the meeting place for people for miles around. They would get together for visits and picnics. It was the only recreation area for miles around." - Hay Springs Centennial Book

The lake sleeps before me under the mottled sheet of snow and ice that our pastures wear in the winter. I have not been here for years, at least five of them, and I can't help but notice how small and still and quiet everything is around me. Where once there seemed an endless horizon forever slipping off into the distance there is now only a reedy outline of frozen grasses on the opposite shore. This small expanse of frozen water seemed large to me as a child, and I can hardly imagine being afraid now of swimming in the ragged circumference of water.


"The drought came in 1889 and 1890 and the lake dried up to a small puddle. When the rains started coming again the lake started to fill again… and it wasn’t too many years before people could again enjoy swimming, fishing, boating, ice skating and their many picnics and celebrations. There was a nice beach around the lake, and at this time (about 1900) it was used for horse races. About 1932 we used to use it to race our Model T Fords."

I step away from my car, the 1996 Toyota, Rav-4 in model, and taste the harvest-chill fragrance that drifts from our field to this area. It is dry and papery, a cold reproduction of air that tastes like popped corn. It is January 18, too late for a corn harvest, later than my dad has seen in all his 77 years, but today still, there is corn slowly drying in the field across from me. We have seen our share of dry weather in the last twenty years, but this winter, already, we're dealing with intensely wet conditions and a later, probably too late, harvest. The snow has kept the farmers in bars, or shops, or the office, and even though winter becomes recreation time once the crops are sold or sheltered, if we get the dry spell we're so desperately needing, the work will be a welcome, celebrated occasion. I've camped at this lake, wandered around it so many times while my dad was in the field, and even though I didn't believe the rumors about the lake monster, there was always something otherworldly and old about the mosses kissing the sandy body of land half-hidden by the mossy waters.Even though it is 2010, and I'm no longer a child, I would love to feel the atmosphere of this place during a Native scare, or a monster sighting.

"In the early 1920s the story got started that there was a sea monster in the lake. This story was spread all over the world. E.A. Johnson, who lived close by, said he had seen weird “Chimera” tracks on the ice. In 1923 a clipping from the London Times said “by far the most vivid picture of the action and features of a medieval monster which for three years has been terrifying the native of the vicinity of Alkali Lake near a small town of Hay Springs, Nebraska, USA."

I cut across the ribbon of concrete that wraps around the west side of the lake, hoping to sidestep snowdrifts that glut the dock. I've worn my rubber boots today, the green ones that are flecked with roses and match the depths of the lake, but I'm not interested in busting through the dunes of snow and taking the chance of missing the dock. instead, I loop around a clutch of cat-tails, palm a fistful of their frozen, golden stalks, and stand by the old Elm tree, the one that juts up uncomfortably, broken and weeping with the scourge of Dutch Elm disease. All of the trees around here have got it, and unless they're dead and charred from lightning, it's hard to miss the mucusy yellow snot that drains from crack and crevice.

"It is known far and wide as Alkali Lake, although it is so located as to catch a very large amount of surface water and also has an inlet from a branch of Hay Springs Creek generally known as the dry branch, which in certain seasons of the year carry heavy rainfall and overflow from the main branch into the lake, so that for the most part, the waters may be said to be fresh or at least fresh enough for fish in abundance to live in."

I walk around the old playground, see that the rusted water pump is now missing its handle, and sit on the cold sidewalk in silence. I don't think of Walgren Lake as anything special--never have-- but because I have returned to this familiar place--Hay Springs, in general-- I want to feel something special too, about the lake. It's not like Lake Michigan, the lake I to which I have become accustomed, and very few fishermen have any kind of "real" luck at this place. But in my knowledge of Lake Michigan and cities beyond this town I am spoiled; my ideas of luck in fishing run as counter to this area as the same ideas do regarding the magic of a place.

"Fishermen are seen daily in season with hook and rod. Some years ago the state hatchery deposited fist there which seem to thrive and grow to very desired size and good quality."

My back stiffens in the 40 degree sunshine, and eventually I rise, knees creaking like dry branches. I've not found my moment of magic here yet, but because I am drawn to lakes and water, I am as surely here for this place as I am for home. I turn and walk slowly back to my modern marvel of a car, and as I face south, a winged one dips his inky wing across the blue surface of the sky in front of me. It is a bald eagle, most likely one half of the pair that lives in the Cottonwood next to the Orange farm. Last year, when harvest was delayed through November and I was home to ride in the combine as we got out the last of the corn, the pair of eagles was floating and calling out their presence above us as the loud machinery spit out its corn. It is the second eagle I've seen since I've been home, and although my body connects to the Seagull as my totem animal, I find it fitting that this feathered life form is drifting toward me from the farm. It passes from my line of sight to the western edge of the horizon, back toward other small farms.

"The lake is situated in nearly the center of section 29, township 31, range 45, Sheridan County, and is about 5 ½ miles from Hay Springs. The N.E. fourth was homesteaded by Rev. Adams and is now owned by the Johansen estate, the NE fourth was homesteaded by a Mr. Fisk and is now owned by Lawrence Walgren; Mr. McDervitt filed on the SE fourth, which is now owned by Mr. Walgren, and the S.W. fourth was homesteaded by a man by the name of Chappell. It is now owned by Mrs. Anna Walgren. It has been ascertained by actual measurement that this body of water contains 113 acres and is near round in shape. At present it is from 12 to 15 feet deep, although in the spring of the year is considerably deeper. In 1900 it is said the lake was dry, and there are those who say that they have driven over the bed when there was not a drop of water in it. The lay of the land around the lake is gently rolling and affords a pleasant scene for miles to the north, south and west. On the east the view is not too far reaching but very picturesque. Nearby are farms and barn houses, herds of cattle and hogs. The farmers are prosperous and hospitable."


I don't know the names of many of the people farming the land around our pivot; the old ones I knew as a child are long since gone, and soon, I'm sure, my own familial attachments will follow. But there is something open and raw about the golden stems of wheat in the summer, or the hard-crisped shells of sunflowers in the fall that will forever linger on this land and all that surrounds it. The snow-kissed backs of Black Angus in the winter, or the rutting grunts of mini, spring hogs are becoming once again, pleasurable.

"A huge water animal again seen on surface of lake by four reliable Hay Springs citizens, also Jerry Hanks of Wyoming at about 4. It surfaced, sprayed water and disappeared again."

Maybe this feeling of connection is the magic and the mystery, something intangible that comes and goes, but always lingers. I cross once more across the rusted shadow of the swingset's form, I hear a slow "breaauup" come up from the lake, and this noise makes me warm. It is a sound like a human belching, the kind of burp that starts deep in one's abdomen and never fully reaches escape or public form.

I smile, think to myself that there is, after all, a monster in the lake, and maybe some magic to be found. I know it is simply the magic of winter, the movement of water as it flows from the creek into the monster's bed; it is the creaking crack of a sunny day and ice that grows slightly warm. But for a moment, as all things intersect and become one, I almost believe it is nature's call, a dialogue that might be entered between it and this human form.

***

I have chosen a local legend as my "place" of study and reflection this semester. Walgren Lake was first known as Alkali Lake in the 1800s when my part of the state was being settled. After the Walgren family amassed the lands surrounding it, it became known as Walgren Lake, and has been thus known since then. My great-great-grandfather Vaclav Prokop came to the US from Czechoslovakia in the 1800s, and my great grandfather Joe, who was 12 when he emigrated, eventually built his home a mile from the lake.

My grandfather Elmer built a house about 5 miles away, and when my dad married his first wife and began farming, he lived on the original "homeplace" that my Great-grandpa had homesteaded. That original house still stands today, and my dad has fields just to the west of the lake.

The "pivot" and "the Orange farm" that I refer to are the same place, a field we call "the orange" because of the orange-colored pivot that my dad bought for for irrigation. He was the first farmer in the area to use the mechanical irrigating system in the 60s, even though modern crop irrigation was pioneered in this part of Nebraska by Old Jules Sandoz in the 1800s.

Water is intensely important in this part of the state, as we suffer from dry periods and soil erosion; Sheridan County sits on top of the Oglala Aquifer, which is an immense, underground water system-- one of the largest in the United States. I have always been drawn to the water, and even though my love of it has nothing to do with farming, or fishing, I'm lucky enough to have spent a good deal of my life around water because of these two things. Because of this inherent love of water, and the family history that lies so close to the lake, it felt natural to pick Walgren Lake, which is about 10 miles from our home, instead of the rive that runs south of our farm.

The italicized parts of my setting come from the Hay Springs Centennial Book, and selections from this hefty volume will reappear throughout my place writings. The snippets were collected from old newspapers in the '80s and arranged in this book; when I worked for the local newspaper I wrote a column called "A Leaf Turned Back" which focused on similar newspaper writings.