When people who don’t
live here write about the Great Plains, they usually use the words
“bleak,” “empty” and “wasteland” to describe it. The writer often
suggests that our economy and people are “depressed” because their
“lifestyles” are “vanishing.” Photographs show sky and clouds above
miles of windblown, rolling — not flat — grass.
Prairie residents tired of these negative stereotypes
have a rich source of responses: the Encyclopedia of the
Great Plains, a 900-page, 8-pound treasury of our history
and culture collected by hundreds of contributors, published in
2004 by University of Nebraska Press. It tells us the U.S. Plains
includes all or part of 10 states: the eastern portions of Montana,
Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico; all of North and South Dakota and
Nebraska; western Kansas and Oklahoma, and a chunk of northwestern
Texas.
Most authorities agree that three things make the
Plains unique: climate, physical environment and distance. My
definition would include the people here.
Our climate
often makes national news: a tornado the size of Brooklyn, a killer
blizzard. Winds that slam airliners into the ground. Lightning that
melts your eyeballs. Hailstones the size of baseballs. The annual
drought. Not the planet’s worst weather, but extreme.
Physically, grassland has few trees and little water. Now
that we understand why plowing up ancient grasses to cultivate
invasive crop species is neither profitable nor good, we’re
working to weave plants, animals and humans into a sustainable
future. We’re still wasteful with water; we probably
shouldn’t use it to grow trees here, where they are not
natural.
Finally, Plains distances make travel hazardous,
mail delivery uncertain, and even Internet hookups unreliable.
Thus, people who appreciate space and solitude like it here, and
resist change.
Anyone can be inspired by a fat purple
mountain or a noisy ocean. Those places shout an easy beauty. “But
the prairie only whispers,” says Nebraskan Val Peters. “You must
listen carefully and not miss the message.” To be happy in the
grasslands, you must pay attention: hear a whisper, appreciate
small things. If you crave a city where cultures mingle, change and
learn from one another, the prairie is probably not for you.
The Plains, says Jonathan Raban, has “more space than
place.” Expanse is essential. Subdivisions, swimming pools,
sidewalks, super-malls, highways, traffic — all destroy that
essence. A living prairie can support only a limited number of
people willing to live within her guidelines.
Let me show
you the prairie in a sego lily, rare even with careful grazing.
We’ll drive part way through my pasture. The hills and
hollows unfold gently, covered in knee-high grasses that reflect
blue and lime green, or shimmer bronze as the light changes. Bleak?
Empty? Zing! A herd of antelope runs
under a fence, leaves the bottom wire twanging like a guitar
string. (They can’t run under chain link or plank.)
Now let’s walk; tires would damage this steep gumbo hillside.
Grass whispers against our boots. We listen for prairie rattlers,
for meadowlark song flowing in the breeze. No earphones; no talk.
There: beside a lone cedar rooted in this limestone
outcropping centuries ago. A magenta heart beats at the center of
each creamy, curving petal, a single bloom shivering on each stem.
Sometimes a mountain lion sips from this small pool,
leaving only tracks, undisturbed and unthreatening, because
she’s far from people.
I once tried to transplant a
sego lily; like Plains people, they don’t thrive just
everywhere. Similarly, not everyone can appreciate the Plains.
Swarms of people would destroy its most precious, most unusual
qualities. Only a few of us were present to see the tiny rattler
with only one button to shake in warning, wound so tight it would
have fit in a teacup. Alone on horseback I saw six downy burrowing
owl chicks stacked in a burrow. I’ve seen fox kits playing at
a den entrance, a king-sized badger waddling home after a frog
feast. These are the local reality shows. You must go alone or with
a quiet few or forever miss them.
As writer Ted McLachlan
says, “The prairies require commitment, they cannot be delivered in
a media bite.” The Plains can’t be bought or super-sized,
syndicated, mass-produced, overpopulated, paved, or subdivided. If
you’re thinking of a ranchette but really love the city,
think again. The world is filled with stimulating cities boisterous
with varied cultures, where folks who love a metropolis can revel.
Click on “prairie” on your computer’s thesaurus and
no synonym appears. We only have one such storehouse of unique
plants, animals, people. If it’s crowded, it’s gone.
Linda M. Hasselstrom is a contributor to
Writers on the Range, a service of High Country
News (hcn.org). She ranches in South Dakota and writes in
Cheyenne, Wyoming.
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