On a pleasant winter day, January 6, 1903, Knut Throndson, an 1892 homesteader from Hellingdal, Norway, set out to visit his closest neighbors, Tobias and Bertha Herigstad, who lived less than a quarter mile east, while his wife, Caroline, remained at home with three small children and his older daughters, Theoline, age 13, and Menne, age 15, rode with him in the sleigh. Returning home late in the day, they were caught in a sudden blizzard, and when the sled runner hit a rock and broke, Knut unhitched the team from the sleigh and told each daughter to hold the horses' tails while he held the reins. They struggled through the blinding storm, but after arriving home Knut discovered both daughters missing. He ran back to his neighbors' homestead, shouting their names all the way, and he and Tobias searched frantically all night in the storm. At daylight they found the frozen bodies of Theoline and Menne four hundred yards from Tobias Herigstad's home. Over the past 100 years of Herigstad Pass history, other travelers on the Coteau des Prairies told many fortunate stories of rescue from winter storms through the hospitality of the Herigstad family, while the tragedy of the two sisters endured as a warning to be prepared for winter storms.