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Dancing Leaf Lodge is unique B&B experience for archeologists, paleontologists
Jan Hosick and her husband Les had idyllic childhoods growing up in the area not far from where they currently live along Medicine Creek in southwest Nebraska.
“Like all the kids in the area, we spent our days digging holes, climbing trees, making forts and running up and down the creek banks,” says Jan. “We still spend our days pretty much that same way.”
Discovering some interesting ancient artifacts early on got Les interested in archaeology and paleontology, and even as a student in nearby Curtis he started working with university scientists, leading them to sites where he had discovered bones and helping dig them out. Today he has a pretty impressive personal collection by anyone’s standards, including the bones of ancient mastodons, giant camels, peccary and the large and mostly intact skull of a saber-toothed tiger. There are also fossils of lush ancient vegetation and teeth from sharks who once swam in a great Midwestern sea.
And that doesn’t even begin to touch the Hosick’s collection of Indian artifacts.
Dancing Leaf Lodge
The Hosick’s purchased the property now known as the Dancing Leaf Lodge about ten years ago. According to Jan, it was an active Boy Scout Camp in the 50s and 60s, but had fallen on hard times and been totally vacant for 15 years before they first saw it.
“On most of the buildings there were no windows or doors, the roofs were gone and there were plants growing inside,” Jan said. “It was a horrible mess, a total disaster, but it was right where we wanted to be, at the head of Medicine Creek.”
No one can deny that it’s a glorious setting, on top of a cedar-covered ridge, with views in all directions. The creeks that run in the bottoms of the canyons on each side were especially attractive to a group of Indians known to archaeologists as the Upper Republican Culture, and it was a fascination with these peoples that led the Hosicks to create the captivating experience that is the Dancing Leaf Lodge today.
Personal view of a primitive people
The showpiece of the Dancing Leaf Lodge is a careful and historically accurate recreation of an earth lodge typical of those in the area from a period some 1,300 years ago. Les Hosick himself has discovered numerous earth lodge sites in the vicinity.
The lodge is shaped like an overgrown igloo, with a long, low entrance that serves as a chimney to help smoke from the central fire escape through a hole in the roof 15 feet overhead. It’s surprisingly spacious. Around the edge is a sleeping ledge piled with skins. The center is supported by a system of posts and beams, utilizing the natural notches in the posts because they had to be cut and shaped with a stone axe. A framework of saplings and twigs rest on the beams to form the dome, and the entire structure is covered with a thick layer of prairie sod, making it well insulated against both heat and cold.
Although modern cabins are available for overnight stays at the Dancing Leaf, many visitors choose to sleep in the lodge, trying to get a sense of who the people were and how they lived. To further that experience, Jan prepares a buffalo stew for guests along with a meal made entirely of the types of dishes that might have been typical 1,300 years ago.
A unique experience
The Dancing Leaf Lodge offers a 90 minute daily tour as well as accommodations for overnight stays, meetings or conferences. Among its amenities are several hiking and bird watching trails, natural springs an a spring-fed lake.
Jan says they give the lecture and tour year-round to special groups and school classes, and that the lodge has particular interest among “eco-tourists” and people looking for unique cultural experiences. For birders, bird feeders are located strategically around the property, making it easy to view a wide variety of species, especially during migration season.
“We just feel privileged to live in such a beautiful spot,” Jan says. “We feel as if we have some unique things to share with people, and we enjoy it when they come to visit.”
We just know there aren’t very many B&Bs with the “earth lodge” option. The Dancing Leaf Lodge will be an experience hard to duplicate.
Who To Contact...
Dancing Leaf Lodge
Les and Jan Hosick
6100 East Opal Springs Road
Wellfleet, NE 69170
(308) 963-4233
www.dancingleaf.com
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