Neihardt-Black Elk Hike to celebrate 10th anniversary

LINCOLN — One of the nation’s most notable literary hikes will soon celebrate its 10th anniversary.

The John Neihardt-Black Elk Hike will be held Saturday, May 30, beginning at 9 a.m. at the Sylvan Lake Trailhead in South Dakota’s beautiful Black Hills.

The hike up the 7,244-foot-high Black Elk Peak commemorates the trip Neihardt made with Black Elk – also on May 30 decades ago – to the top of the peak.

That’s where Black Elk, a Lakota medicine man, had his “great vision” that was made famous in the million-seller book by Neihardt, “Black Elk Speaks.”

The hike, led by members of the John Neihardt Foundation and Black Elk’s descendants, also honors the renaming of the mountain from Harney Peak to Black Elk Peak in 2016.

“The importance of this hike is to reflect on a foundation of brotherhood that culminated in the greatest story ever,” said Myron Pourier, a great-great grandson of Black Elk.

Basil Brave Heart along with Pourier led the effort to rename the peak, an effort supported by the Bancroft, Nebraska-based Neihardt Foundation.

The four- to five-hour hike will be preceded by a short program featuring Pourier and Walt Duda, a long-time leader of the Neihardt Foundation.

John Neihardt is the “poet laureate in perpetuity” of the State of Nebraska. He wrote many epic poems and books about heroic figures of the Great Plains. A state historical site dedicated to his works is located in Bancroft, along with a bronze statue depicting Neihardt interviewing Black Elk.

Those interviews on the Pine Ridge Reservation led to the 1932 book, “Black Elk Speaks,” which describes the demise of the free Plains Indian tribes from the Native American perspective.

There has been a recent effort launched to have Black Elk declared a saint by the Catholic Church, led by his family and the Diocese of Rapid City. Black Elk converted to Catholicism and converted dozens of Native Americans.