The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-03-15
WINTER TERRoRs or DAKOTA.
storms that Carry Deatll-Residents Unwill-
ing to Talk of the Tempests.

cant mention of the circumstances attending the
freezing to death of a family, and there is on the
part OF everybody a manifest disposition to say
! as little as possible about such occurrences
| Nearly every man, woman and child in Dakota
| Is Il landowner, and all, therefore, have per
senal interest in keeping up the grand delusion
| that while 1t may be colder in this latitude
| than 1t IS further south, You don't feel IT.
Men bury their frozen wives children, and other
relatives and strangers with many self-comfolt-
ing observations on the mysterious dispensatouS
! of Providence, and boom their town all the
| harder the next day. Every little collection Of
wooden hutS calling itself a city boasts one or
more daily papers, but these ponderoUs organs of
! the real estate agent and tax collector lind no
room to give more than u bare mention Of occur
| rences which elsewhere i'll this country would
! possess startling interest. If man
| or woman and child DIS
appear the newspaper is good enough to
chronicle the fact, and to express the fear that
| they may have persisted in the storm. In the
! spring, when skeletons begin to peep out from
the diminishing snowbanks, the discovery Of the
| remains of human being is usually dismissed
in three lines, as probably lost in one Of last
winters billiards." To dilate upon any of these
| little incidents of life in the frozen Northwest
| would be rank treason. If newspapers in other
parts of the covnt1y wish to learn the facts, they
must send their men after them, for no resident
can see more than mere natural death notice
! i'll any such occurrence. Sometimes an enthu-
| sastic railroad telegrapher impressed with
and surprised at the fact that with the mercury
10 below zero he IS Sui! alNe JelegdpnS llle III
| formation abroad, but denias are promptly sent
out from forty different points If a state
ment gets on the wires that a family has been
| frozen to death, stage lost, or a mallcarrler
| buried in the SHOWS, somebody will deny it from
point 300 miles away. where nothing is known
about it. 1t is a fact, nevertheless, that dozens
of people have been lost in the storms here dur
ing the past winter, and the winter has not been
unusually severe, either.
A snowfall which in some localities would
scarcely make good sleighing becomes in this
region foe to human life of almost nconceiv-
! able fury. The flakes always small and
! dry, and borne along by winds of such power
as to make locomotion almost impossible; they
cut the flesh like razors. The blizzard comes up
suddenly. like a tornado, wrapping the earth in
semi darkness, and yet giving everything the
| appearance of whitenesS Objects dozen yards
away are shut out from view, and the wayfarer
| is blinded and stihed by the whizzing clouds
! which envelop him. In thirty minutes from the
| beginning of one of these storms it is hard to
| tell whether there is one foot or five feet of
snow, and whether in fact, the greater part is
on the ground in the air. When blizzard
once attacks section it grows colder very
rapidly, and, added to the terrors Of people
who may be caught in it on the open prairies,
! is the extreme probability that they will freeze
| to death. As nothing can prevent man from
| losing his way in a blizzard, so nothing in the
shape of clothing can prevent his freezing to
| death if he cannot find shelter from the cold
which follows. 1t is very difficult to tell just
when it stops showing The wind keeps the air
filled with icy particles long after the clouds
have passed away. and so furiously is the light
snow driven by the gale that even then the
vision is almost as cIcumscribed as before.
a stranger experiencing this stage of biz
card would protest that he never saw it snow so
fast but in the momentary lulls of the wind he
would see the cloudess sky and know that the
binding blast was but the afterclap of the great
storm. There will be drifts ten feet high packed
50 hard that a human foot will sink in
them but few inches. Then there will be
CTfrr aA,f..
as in midsummer To live in these bhZzards is
almost an impossblity. No horse can be made
to face the blast, and only men who have long
been accustomed to the rigors of the north can
! breathe in them. There is something sulIOcat
ing about the wind. The nOstrls and tongue
seem ready to CONCEAL, and the eyes ache far
back in their sockets. Ten feet away may yawn
a chasm. yet the driving SHOWS will hide it from
view. There is ringing, roaring noise, such as
| is sometimes family heard under telegraph
wires on clear. cold night. At times the roar
of the storm will resemble nothing so much as
| escaping steam, like thousand locomotives
! blowing off at once. When this dies out for an
instant tho ringing noise will rise and fall, some
times shrek and sometimes hum.
One of the saddest of this winters storm trag-
edies was that which resulted in the death of the
| Nelson family, who lived near Sanborn. They
had not been in the Territory long, and they
knew comparatively little about the ferceness of
the billiards.. They were poor and had made
| but scant provision for the winter Running out
of fuel, they had been burning straw and as the
consumption of this article was enormous during
the severe weather. it was found almost impos-
/ sible to keep enough of it on hand to last more
| than a few hours. When the last great blizzard
| swept over the country the Nelson's found them
! selves with only little straw at hand and
their necessities very great The nearest stack
was only half a mile from their house, but they
feared to brave the storm in an effort to reach it.
Hoping that the tempest would soon spend its
| force, they economical the fuel they had at
hand as best they could. Doing out the straw
| sparingly they managed to keep their hovel toll
! erably warm, and to cook such food as they
were supplied with Economical as they were
with the straw, however, it was spent before the
storm showed any signs of abatiug, and as the
| cold grew more intense it became a question of
| securing more fuel or freezing to death 1t is
! believed that they realized the desperate situa
ton they in and the possibility that if they
once ventured out in the binding gale they
| might not return. None of them wishing
| to remain in the cherries home the father and
! his two children started out 1t is known that
! they reached the str1w-stack, and, each having
| secured load started back but, in changing
their course, they lost their way, and wandered
| aimleSsly about until, exhausted and bcnumbed
with cold they could go no further The father
| then appears to have dug a cave in a huge snow
| drift, at point little exposed as possible,
into which he put the children He then started
out in search of assistance, but. finding
none he succumbed to the snow and
the cold Becoming tired of waiting for him.
and probably crazed by her suffering. of the
girls left her retreat and wandered aimlessly
about the prairie. AL persisted. A searching
party found the body of one little in the
| cave, that of the other few rods away, and
| that of the father about half mile from his own
door
Almost every blizzard that sweeps over this
! section causes similar eases of suffering and
death They will continue until people coming
| here to settle understand in advance that they
are Drawing an arctic climate in winter, and that
when the blizzard rolls about their habitations
they must stay indoors and wait for clearing
| skies.