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This new book by David Treuer, The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee, is long, winding, and sometimes exasperating. I was making my way through its treatment of…
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I don’t know whether it is on account of the nostalgia that oozes from that stanza, or because of my delight in the discovery of a new-to-me prairie…
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That old Conrad Richter trope of the sea of grass, the tired cliche that the prairie is like the ocean - I never have bought into that. Evidently it works…
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Well, yes, we do have to agree that the farmer is the man who feeds them all. Because given what we have learned about the capacity of indigenous peoples…
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George F. Will, of Bismarck - ethnologist, archeologist, dendrochronologist, and son of the celebrated horticulturalist and seedsman, Oscar Will - was…
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If I were to say to you, Sing a couple lines of “Home on the Range” and I’ll give you twenty bucks, chances are you could win the twenty. How is it that…
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If you are unfamiliar with the classic of first farmers on the northern plains, Buffalo Bird Woman’s Garden, pick up a copy. I am making it the first core…
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In the course of that slow dance by which we people of the plains come to an understanding of the place we inhabit, we require many contributors. We…
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In August of 1887 the Jamestown Alert sounded an alarm. “The Russian thistle,” writes the editor, “the seed of which was brought to the territory by some…
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“Twas in the town of Jacksboro, in the spring of '83.” So recounts one of the great ballads of the Great Plains, “The Buffalo Skinners,” also known as…
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The groves of trees planted by settlers to meet the requirements of the Timber Culture Act of 1873--they did not fulfill the hopes of those who figured…
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I made the drive to Dickey County on a quest, but when I got on the ground, I was a little puzzled. I had driven through Monango, thence navigating to the…