Research Catalog

Title

Rediscovering the Great Plains : journeys by dog, canoe, & horse / by Norman Henderson ; drawings by Robert Cook.

Author

Henderson, Norman, 1960-

Publication

Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xv, 214 pages : illustrations, maps; 21 cm.

Summary

• "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.

Series Statement

Creating the North American landscape

Uniform Title

Creating the North American landscape.

Alternative Title

Journeys by dog, canoe, & horse

Subject

• Transportation > Qu'Appelle River Valley (Sask. and Man.)
• Transportation > Great Plains
• Qu'Appelle River Valley (Sask. and Man.) > Description and travel
• Great Plains > Description and travel

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 197-202) and index.

Contents

Ch. 1. Night Vision - Of the Moonlit Plains by Train -- Ch. 2. Dog - Of the Dogs of the Old Plains and of Building a Travois -- Ch. 3. "Mush!" - Of Plains Journeys through Heat, Snow, and Mosquitoes with a Remarkable Husky -- Ch. 4. Canoe - Of the Extraordinary River Voyages of Plains Navigators -- Ch. 5. "En Avant!" - Of Coyotes, Cattle, and Wire, and of the Many Wonders of the Prairie River -- Ch. 6. Horse - Of the "Great Gift" of the Spanish and of What-Might-Have-Been -- Ch. 7. "Gee Up!" - Of a Final Journey in the Great Valley and of Adventures with a Philosophical Horse -- Ch. 8. Day Flight - Of Home and the View from Above.

ISBN

080186688X (alk. paper)

LCCN

00011755

OCLC

• ocm45172194
• SCSB-8412028

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries