Tom Isern

Early American colonists, like the ancient Hebrews and Romans, knew all about hand-dug wells and their dangers. When settlement reached the Great Plains, the need for and peril from hand-dug wells was all the more acute.

In his nifty new history of the Homestead Act, Richard Edwards says the “three perils” of homesteading on the Great Plains were grasshoppers, prairie fires, and childbirth — and good on him for recognizing the third of these as the most perilous of all. Earlier historians of homesteading were so focused on masculine aspects of their subject, they neglected the obvious.

If we’re going to live in this level land we call the Great Plains — and I expect to do so until I die — then there are some fundamentals we need to come to terms with. Like the Homestead Act, signed by Abraham Lincoln on 20 May 1862. Unless we are Indigenous, we should think about what it means to be the heirs of a landed, settler society. Fortunately, we have Richard Edwards and his book, Great Plains Homesteaders, to help us out.

I’ve been arguing, along with Richard Edwards and his new book, Great Plains Homesteaders, that we should rethink our history with the Homestead Act on the Great Plains. You can do some of this for yourself, of course. If you have a homesteading ancestor, then you can order up the land patent file from the National Archives and learn the gritty details of proving up. You can scroll through the digitized pages of your local and regional newspapers and watch the notices of final proof blink in across the landscape like farmyard lights at prairie dusk.

In the Enderlin Museum a few days ago I noticed an old handbill on display, dating from 1897, and addressed “To Cattle Owners”: The undersigned hereby wishes to announce that he is again ready to receive orders for herding cattle during the coming season, from May 1st to October 1st, 1897. Good and sufficient drinking water can be found on the land. All cattle entrusted to my care will receive the best attention. All cattle must be branded. Price of herding $1.50 per head.

Every year is a mixed bag, always with its measure of miseries, but this one, 2024, is packed with celebratory milestones for me. Fifty years of college teaching under my belt. One hundred fifty years of successful agriculture on our family farm. And now, one thousand radio essays under the title, Plains Folk, composed and voiced for Prairie Public.

Sometime soon I will come to Prairie Public studios and record Plains Folk radio feature no. 1000. I am not winding down, but ramping up toward that recording, wherein I will, of course, offer some wise and witty remarks about life on the Great Plains of North America and the enterprise of telling their stories.

To lovers of the outdoors, the legacy of Gunlog Bjarni “G. B.” Gunlogson is evident. Just visit Icelandic State Park, in Pembina County, established in 1964 following Gunlogson’s gift of a 200-acre nature preserve along the Tongue River to the state of North Dakota. See the homestead buildings of his Icelandic immigrant parents, Eggert and Rannveig, along with an assemblage of other historic buildings representing rural life. Hike the nature trails. Homesteading + country life + nature + conservation: it’s a simple legacy. Only, maybe not so much.

Women and men and how they get along, or not, are not just matters for contemplation and commiseration in our personal lives. They are historical questions in the settlement and development of the Great Plains. The homesteading era often featured men going out alone to stake claims. Historically, however, the late nineteenth century in America saw the enshrinement of romantic love as the beau ideal of the full life. Marriage came to be considered a love match, not just an economic alliance. Thus all those bachelor homesteaders in their little old sod shanties on the claim, they longed for their sweethearts to come join them and make their lives complete.

In a previous essay, I left you in the lurch, having quoted, in closing a discussion of the early work of the Institute for Regional Studies at North Dakota Agricultural College, now NDSU, a poem by John R. Milton. This opening poem of The Loving Hawk, a chapbook published by the Institute, ranges from the fall of man to the endless issues of place and identity fostered by open horizons. Never fear, there is salvation in the same booklet, in the form of another poem, Dust Storm, which doesn't sound optimistic, but wait, listen: