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Before the coming of the white man, this lake was a favorite place for Sioux and Crow Indians to seek visions, and something of this mystical past seems to cling to the place even today. Crazy Horse, "the strange man of the Oglalas," came here many times to build sweat lodges and seek spiritual guidance during the course of the wars with the U.S. Cavalry. To the Indians, the lake was known and "Medicine Lake." But during the 19th Century, it was re-named in honor of after Father Pierre-Jean DeSmet, the first catholic missionary to Indians in the region, who followed the Indian trails north past the lake on his way to Montana in 1840. |
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