Perhaps the buffalo will return

[alfreda89]

The disappearing Prairies....

The wallpaper of my journal echoes this article. The northern prairies are slowly becoming depopulated. To be honest, they should never have been farmed -- not enough water, too much wind, too much drought. Each year more people leave, or die -- of old age, of loneliness. The young either flee or struggle to own more land, because it takes 3000 acres of wheat to survive. North Dakota has stabilized at around 600,000 people, because the big cities have new folk on their fringes.

I've been to South Dakota, and can report it is wild and beautiful, but distant, not a place for people who need a lot of people. North Dakota sounds like leaving the planet.

If not the return of the buffalo (and I eat buffalo, so could appreciate this irony) perhaps a huge wind farm will be born. I've heard the constant wind on the north Texas prairie, and it moans, it screams, it whispers outside your door. I have great admiration for those who fled Europe, looking for a new life. I hope they found some joy in the Dakotas, since their descendants have continued moving, looking for Home.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/2008-01/emptied-north-dakota/bowden-text.html

Comments

[cabin77.livejournal.com]

This is a beautiful post. And very timely to us - Princess and I are making our way through the "Little House" books.

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

I was just wondering the other day about how someone named Alonzo (sp?) ended up in those stories. Would you believe I never read them? Jumped right over them, reading on a very high level by fourth grade.

The universe got even by having me write a fantasy alluded to as "Little House on the Prairie with werewolves and vampires."

[oliana0.livejournal.com]

I really should read some of your books.

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

I even have loaner copies around here somewhere....

[moon-happy.livejournal.com]

This is a sad post, yet I found the article a good read. I grew up in Chicago when we actually had prairie fringing the forest preserves. My aunt was a member of the Prairie Club and often took "her little girls" on their hikes and outings. (I think we nieces may have been her version of legitimizing her singleness in what was usually couples.) All that prairie is gone now, just gone.

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

It was a good article, but I remember reading about how we need to get a handle on how we live and move in this country, because some areas are slowly withering away. Of course the deep south has SERIOUS drought right now, too.

The next irony will be if the upper plains revive because of global warming.

My mother used to worry aloud that all the good farmland was being covered over by asphalt. I wonder if we will live long enough to see them strip away the asphalt to reach the dirt once more?

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

I've driven thru North Dakota, on the way to Conadian in 1994. "Bleak" doesn't really do it justice. It's the only place where I've ever seen interstate mileage signs that read "Exit N, X miles". And when you get to the exit, there's nothing there but an overpass and a stub of paved road underneath that turns into dirt-tracks a few hundred feet away.

Russ points out that the environment in southern Manitoba is essentially the same, but there are many more people there (relatively speaking) than in North Dakota. The difference? Canada has active social support systems, and we don't.

Wind-farms would probably be the best option for a lot of that area. They don't require much in the way of permanent residents, just regular maintenance checks.

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

Does Russ mean that the elderly could live comfortably there if someone checked on them regularly? And younger people because they're doing the checking? Or something else?

Wind farms -- and possibly other farms. The global warming routine could make the northern plains desirable farmland. But to say they need a longer growing season is just scratching the surface of the problem.