By Scott Shephard

Mt. Athos, in north central Greece is the home to several monasteries and is considered by some to be one of the holiest places on earth. I used to show a short video to my history students about “the holy mountain” and I remember an abbot of one of the precariously located retreats talking almost rapturously about “the silence of the mountain.”

Of course you are not looking at Mt. Athos here — it’s the north leg of what is perversely called the “Little Bend” of the Missouri River on Lake Oahe in central South Dakota. I say “perversely” because the river makes a 180 degree turn and creates an 8 mile long peninsula. (See the map below). This small piece of South Dakota has been a place of pilgrimage for me for over 30 years.

Like Mt. Athos, there can be an awesome silence here. Yesterday (June 3, 2020), just before sunrise at 5:55 am, there was no sound of wind or of traffic or of human voices. There was only, as Emily Dickinson described it, the “yellow noise” of the incipient rising sun.

Canon 5DIII 1/250 sec, f8.0, iso 250