ESSENTIALS

Horse’s head and flowing hair. Or so I had read. When I arrived, I was in no position to judge. Visibility was so poor that a car had crashed just beyond the entrance kiosk.

Vicky Engelhaupt, the cheery soul driving me around, apologised on behalf of the state tourist board: “You’re thinking those blue skies in our pictures are Photoshopped in. They’re not – honestly.” Confirmation would come later, but while we waited for Mother Nature to raise the curtain on the main event, there were plenty of diversions. Three million tourists a year visit Mount Rushmore; a million visit the Crazy Horse Memorial. At both sites they’re catered for with introductory video, exhibition, sculptor’s studio, café and souvenir shop. The foundation behind the memorial aims “to protect and preserve the culture, tradition and living heritage of the North American Indians”. Besides offering a fascinating three-wing Indian Museum of North America and a two-floor educational and cultural centre, it runs a summer school with the state university that is helping to cut the high dropout rate among American Indian students. It also aims, “when practical”, to set up a medical training centre.

The Black Hills are sacred to American Indians, and some regard the Crazy Horse Memorial as no less of a spiritual and environmental violation than the Mount Rushmore Memorial. But few can doubt the commitment of the Ziolkowski family: Korczak told his children that if they moved away they needn’t bother coming back. When he died at 74 in 1982, his wife, Ruth, took over as leader until her own death, four years ago. Four of their 10 children – led by Jadwiga – and some of their 23 grandchildren are still at work. If the pace seems glacial – the face took 10 years – that is partly because the foundation refuses government handouts and relies Michael Kerr was a guest of South Dakota Tourism (travelsouthdakota.com; greatamericanwest.co.uk) and America As You Like It (020 8742 8299; americaasyoulikeit.com). The latter offers an eight-night fly-drive from £1,445 per person sharing, including return flight from Heathrow to Rapid City on American Airlines (via Dallas Fort Worth), eight days’ car hire, two nights’ bed and breakfast at the Rushmore Hotel and Suites, Rapid City, one night, room only, at Cedar Pass Lodge in the Badlands National Park, one night’s B&B at the Comfort Inn, Hill City, two nights’ self-catering at Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary, Hot Springs, including a three-hour cross-country tour, and two nights’ B&B at the Holiday Inn

Express, Custer. on donations and entry fees. On the introductory video, I’d heard Jadwiga say of the carving: “I hope my children will be able to see it pretty well completed.” Terry DeRouchey, vice-president of visitor services, raised an eyebrow when I mentioned that. He referred me to what the foundation had said a couple of years ago: that within the next 10 to 15 years they would like to have finished Crazy Horse’s hand, arm and right shoulder, the 40ft hairline behind the face on both sides, and the top of the horse’s head. Right now, they are “down to within a foot of the final surface on the fingertip”. Tomorrow, as part of a spring Volksmarch (there’s another on Sept 30), walkers can head for the top of the mountain and out towards that fingertip.

Many visitors to both memorials pause at Rapid City, which has presidential sculptures of its own, life-size and in bronze. On the corner nearest my hotel, I found John F Kennedy handing his son, John Jr, a toy plane. Elsewhere were Benjamin Harrison (23rd president), alone with birds in his garden; and Harry S Truman, brandishing with a grin a 1948 newspaper erroneously declaring