The Little-Known Goat Island Is Nebraska's Untamed Hidden Gem
By Delana Lefevers|Published November 03, 2019
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Delana Lefevers
Author
As a lifelong Nebraskan, Delana loves discovering the many hidden treasures of her state. She has worked as a writer and editor since 2007. Delana's work has been featured on more than a dozen websites and in Nebraska Life Magazine.
Those familiar with paddling Nebraska’s rivers may be acquainted with many of the small, often temporary, islands that inhabit the waterscape. But not many people know about a relatively untamed island between Nebraska and South Dakota that has been hosting wildlife lovers for at least 200 years.
Goat Island measures just three miles long and a quarter-mile wide. It lies northeast of Wynot, NE and southwest of Vermillion, SD, officially on the Nebraska side of the river. Its existence was noted during many European exploratory missions, including that of Lewis and Clark.
However, neither Nebraska nor South Dakota specifically claimed the land when declaring their statehoods and mapping out their respective land. For generations, then, Goat Island was an island in more than one sense.
That doesn't mean that it was forgotten, though. People have been enjoying this little strip of forested land since the earliest records of the area. Goat Island was named for the goat herd that grazed there in the 1940s and 1950s, owned by Norman "Jake" Jaquith. The island is a popular stopover for canoeists and kayakers and a beloved destination for hunters, many of whom set up camp among the ancient cottonwoods.
The construction of Gavins Point Dam in 1957 raised the island's banks to 10 to 15 feet above the water level, allowing it to survive even the harshest river floods. The heavily forested island is home to cottonwoods and Eastern red-cedar trees, a healthy variety of wildlife, and the ruins of a wrecked 1800s steamboat. Even though it's the area's worst-kept secret for boaters, hikers, and hunters, Goat Island remains a largely wild place where nature is untouched by human hands.
Goat Island was the subject of a nearly 20-year-long dispute thanks to its undetermined ownership. The states of Nebraska and South Dakota, along with the Bureau of Land Management, officially began to investigate the island's age in 1999. The study was meant to determine whether the island was excluded from statehood documents because it didn't exist at the time or because it just didn't seem important enough to include.
It was eventually decided in 2019 that neither state would be responsible for the upkeep of the island; that responsibility was given to the National Park Service. Their plan for the island is to make it more accessible for recreation-seekers while keeping it in its wild, natural state.
Take a look at the island in this short but sweet video:
The 800-acre island is a beautifully preserved piece of nature, one of the only spots on the Missouri River where you can still see the land as it would have appeared to early residents of the area. Visit when you can to experience a lovely piece of Nebraska – but remember to leave only footprints.
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