Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate and the Coteau Viewpoint

The Sisseton and Wahpeton are bands of the Dakota, the eastern division of the Oceti Sakowin, the Great Sioux Nation. Their homeland has long centered on the Coteau des Prairies and the lakes and rivers of this northeastern country, where they hunted, fished, gathered wild rice, and traded for generations. Today they form the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate, a sovereign nation governing the Lake Traverse Reservation.

That homeland was drastically reduced through the treaties of the mid-1800s and the upheavals that followed the Dakota conflict of 1862, one of the most painful chapters in the state's history. The Oyate endured, and today the nation sustains its language, its culture, and its self-government from Sisseton and the surrounding communities. Visitors are welcome to learn, at the tribal college, at cultural events, and at interpretive sites, in a spirit of respect for a people still very much at home here.

The Coteau des Prairies, a French name meaning hill of the prairies, is a wedge-shaped highland built up by the glaciers. As the great ice sheets ground south, this resistant upland split the ice into two lobes that flowed around it, leaving the coteau standing high between them, layered with till, gravel, and countless small lakes and wetlands.

Near Sisseton, the Nicollet Tower rises on the crest of the coteau, named for the explorer Joseph Nicollet, who mapped this region in the 1830s. From its top the land falls away for miles in every direction, out across the glacial hills toward Minnesota to the east and North Dakota to the north, a rare chance on the plains to see the shape of the land itself from above.

The Coteau is the wettest, greenest corner of South Dakota, its hollows filled with lakes, sloughs, and marshes that make it a haven for water and grassland birds. In spring and fall the wetlands ring with waterfowl, ducks, geese, and grebes among them, while pelicans, herons, and shorebirds work the shallows through the warm months.

The uplands hold remnants of native tallgrass and mixed-grass prairie, where deer, pheasant, and grassland songbirds live. It is a landscape of edges, water meeting grassland meeting wooded draw, and that variety is exactly what makes it rich. Birders and anglers both find plenty to love among the coteau's lakes and hills.

Spring brings the return of the waterfowl and the greening of the prairie, one of the best times for birdwatching across the coteau's many wetlands. Wildflowers follow through early summer.

Summer is green and comfortable, the lakes drawing anglers and boaters, and cultural events fill the community calendar. Fall gilds the grasslands and brings another wave of migrating birds, along with crisp, clear air ideal for the tower view. Winter is cold and windswept on the exposed coteau, quiet and stark, with services concentrated in Sisseton.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.