Rediscovering the Great Plains
Johns Hopkins University Press (Verlag)
978-0-8018-6688-3 (ISBN)
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The North American Plains are one of the world's great landscapes. Today, the most intimate experience most of us have of the great grasslands is from behind the window of a car or train. It was not always so. In the earliest days, Plains Indians travelled on foot across the vastness, with only the fierce, wolf-like Plains dogs as companions. Later, with the arrival of the Europeans, horses and canoes appeared on the Plains. In this study, Norman Henderson, a scholar of the world's great temperate grasslands, revives these traditional modes of travel, journeying along 200 miles of Canada's Qu'Appelle River valley by dog and travois (the wooden rack pulled by dogs and horses used by Native Americans to transport goods), then by canoe, and finally by horse and travois. Henderson interweaves his own adventures with the exploits of earlier Plains travellers, like Lewis and Clark, Francisco Coronado, La Verendrye, and Alexander Henry.
Lesser-known experiences of the fur traders and others who struggled to cross this strange and forbidding landscape also illuminate the story, while Henderson's often humorous description of his attempts to find and train old Plains breeds of dogs and horses highlight the difficulties involved in recreating archaic travel methods. He also draws on the history of the world's other great temperate grasslands: the South American pampas and the Eurasian steppes. Recalling the work of Ian Frazier and Jonathan Raban, Henderson's account of his three journeys of exploration should foster a better appreciation for, and deeper understanding of, the natural and human history of the North American Plains.
Norman Henderson is a senior policy advisor on resource and environmental management issues to the government of Saskatchewan.
Contents:
Preface
Chapter One: Night Vision - Of the Moonlit Plains by Train
Chapter Two: Dog - Of the Dogs of the Old Plains and of Building a Travois
Chapter Three: "Mush!" - Of Plains Journeys through Heat, Snow, and Mosquitoes with a Remarkable Husky
Chapter Four: Canoe - Of the Extraordinary River Voyages of Plains Navigators
Chapter Five: "En Avant!" - Of Coyotes, Cattle, and Wire, and of the Many Wonders of the Prairie River
Chapter Six: Horse - Of the "Great Gift" of the Spanish and of What-Might-Have-Been
Chapter Seven: "Gee up!" - Of a Final Journey in the Great Valley and of Adventures with a Philosophical Horse
Chapter Eight: Day Flight - Of Home and the View from Above
Acknowledgments
Biographic Notes
Chapter Notes
References
Index
| Erscheint lt. Verlag | 2.3.2002 |
|---|---|
| Reihe/Serie | Creating the North American Landscape |
| Zusatzinfo | 2 Line drawings, black and white; 11 Halftones, black and white |
| Verlagsort | Baltimore, MD |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 156 x 203 mm |
| Gewicht | 431 g |
| Themenwelt | Reisen ► Reiseberichte ► Nord- / Mittelamerika |
| Naturwissenschaften ► Biologie ► Ökologie / Naturschutz | |
| ISBN-10 | 0-8018-6688-X / 080186688X |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0-8018-6688-3 / 9780801866883 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
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