The Three Maidens
This place is held sacred by the American Indians. To preserve the sanctity of this site, do NOT climb on the boulders. Do NOT disturb or remove any prayer offerings placed here. Please respect this special place.
It is easy to drive right past the Three Maidens as one enters Pipestone National Monument, but to do so is to miss the traditional stopping place upon entering the pipestone quarries. Traditionally, the Three Maidens were regarded to be representative of guardian spirits of the pipestone quarries. According to an Indian legend, the boulders were eggs of the war eagle. Indian maidens beneath the rock guarded the quarry, and gifts were left near the boulders. Some quarriers hurled tobacco at the rock afraid to move too near. Some quarriers still leave such offerings today.
Historically, there were 79 petroglyphs on 35 slabs of rock placed around the three maidens. The carvings depicted various forms such as people, animals, bird tracks, and more. The petroglyphs were removed in 1888 or 1889 after some had been defaced. The stones changed locations many times before some of them were returned to Pipestone National Monument in the mid-1900s. Seventeen of the petroglyphs formerly placed at the Three Maidens are now on display in the Visitor Center.
The stories of the unusual origins of the Three Maidens reflect the unusual nature of the rocks themselves. The rocks are, in fact, very different from the quartzite and the pipestone, both metamorphic rocks. If the Three Maidens seem out of place, as it did for ancient storytellers, it is because they are out of place. The Three Maidens are huge boulders of granite, an igneous rock that formed far away. The rock was carried by the ice sheets during the Pleistocene Ice Age and was dropped here when the glacier melted. Rocks transported and deposited by glaciers in the manner of the Three Maidens are called glacial erratics. Glacial erratics are found scattered throughout the Great Plains and there are many legends about their nature. This erratic was possibly brought here from Millbank South Dakota, just west of the northwest end of the Minnesota River Valley, 90 miles to the north.
The Three Maidens site is still spiritually significant for many people. Visitors are invited to view the Three Maidens but are asked not to climb on the rocks or to disturb any offerings at the site.
Pipestone National Monument sits on the Coteau des Prairies (ko-toe-day pray-ree), French for 'highland of the prairie.' It is shaped like a triangular wedge pointing north. To the east is the Valley of the Minnesota River. The western margin is the James River valley in South Dakota.
Within the Coteau are many layers of debris (called till) deposited by ice that advanced many times during the Pleistocene Epoch, better known as the 'Ice Age.' Many of the tills are believed to be between 800,000 and 500,000 years old.
During the last (Wisconsin) phase of the Ice Age, from about 75,000 to about 10,000 years ago, an ice sheet estimated to be almost one mile thick split into two lobes near the current northeastern border of South Dakota; one lobe plowed through the old tills to form the Minnestoa River valley, and the other formed the James River valley. The Coteau was carved from the land, like an island between two streams of ice.
Pipestone National Monument was not covered with ice during the Wisconsin phase, so most of its glacial features date to much older periods. Local glacials deposits include soils formed from weathered till and windblown clay, silt, and sand.
On the surface lie many erratics, boulders of many types or rock picked up and carried south by the ice sheets from outcrops in northern Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Canada. The 'Three Maidens' near the Monument's entrance drive are fragments of what was once a single very large granite boulder. This original boulder was split apart by thousands of years of seasonal freezing and thawing of water that seeped into fractures.
Where the glaciers moved directly over the quartzite bedrock of the Monument, hard stones embedded in the ice left grooves and scratch marks called glacial striae. Outcrops of exposed stone were also sand-blasted by strong winds from the north, which picked up silt and fine sand from the glacial plains. This produced the natural polish seen on the bedrock outcrops by the Monument's Winnewissa Falls.
To claim credit for this earthcache please email or message me the answers to the following questions.
- Why should you NOT climb the boulders?
- Measure the Height, Width, and Length of the larger boulder that sits at the SE of the site
- Assuming granite weighs 175lbs/cubic foot... How much does that boulder weigh? (HxWxLx175)
- Describe to me the surface texture of the boulders. (are they rough, smooth etc)
- Based on what you might know already, or what I've described above, how can one be certain that these boulders are not from this area?
- Not required... but please upload a photo of you or you group marveling at the spledor of these giant erratics.
Don't forget to do the Adventure Labs at Pipestone National Monument
They are a nice little tour guide as you walk around the trails.
