Rediscovering the Great Plains
Subtitle: Journeys by dog, canoe, & horse
By: by Norman Henderson ; drawings by Robert Cook
Series: Creating the North American landscape
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: 2001
Place of publication: Baltimore
Language: eng
Number of pages: 214
Subjects: Transportation; Description and travel
Description: "The North American Plains is one of the world's great landscapes - perhaps the signature landscape of the continent. 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 traveled on foot across the vastness, with only the fierce, wolflike Plains dogs as companions. Later, with the arrival of the Europeans, horses and canoes appeared on the Plains.

In Rediscovering the Great Plains, Norman Henderson, a leading scholar of the world's great temperate grasslands, revives these traditional modes of travel, journeying along two hundred miles of Canada's Qu'Appelle 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 travelers, such as 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 landscapes 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 re-creating traditional 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 captivating account of his three journeys of exploration will foster a better appreciation for, and deeper understanding of, the natural and human history of the North American Plains."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 197-202) and index.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note: CHAPTER ONE Night Vision-Of the Moonlit Plains by Train, 5; title: CHAPTER TWO Dog-OftheDogs of the Old Plains; title: and of Building a Travois, 13; title: CHAPTER THREE "Mush!"-Of Plains Journeys through Heat, Snow,; title: and Mosquitoes with a Remarkable Husky, 29; title: CHAPTER FOUR Canoe-Of the Extraordinary River Voyages; title: of Plains Navigators, 63; title: CHAPTER FIVE "En Avant!"-Of Coyotes, Cattle, and Wire,; title: and of the Many Wonders of the Prairie River, 83; title: CHAPTER SIX Horse-Of the "Great Gift" of the Spanish; title: and of What-Might-Have-Been, 127; title: CHAPTER SEVEN "Gee Up!"-Of a Final Journey in the Great Valley; title: and of Adventures with a Philosophical Horse, 145; title: CHAPTER EIGHT Day Flight-Of Home and the View from Above, 173.