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There was a certain sense, a few years ago, that things
were coming unraveled as I headed west on I-94. No Kuchen and coffee at
the Drumstick today, I knew. That venerable oasis of Bismarck had closed
its doors after New Years. Come evening, I also knew, I would not be able
to repair to that wonderful Keller, the German-Hungarian Club of Dickinson.
It, too, has closed.
A stop at the North Dakota Winter Show, Valley City, did not improve the
outlook much. The bison sale was a bust—magnificent breeding stock
gaveled away for next to nothing. Every bubble bursts, I know; those bison
heifer prices of recent years had been ridiculous. Bison is a real commodity
with a real constituency, meaning the industry will be back. From now
on, any money made will have to be on the basis of real value, rather
than speculation. Ultimate confidence in the future of this signature
industry of the northern plains did not make me feel better about the
malaise of the moment.
Isn’t it remarkable, though, how travel through the Great Plains
landscape salves the heated brain and stirs a battered soul? On this occasion
I was headed for Devil’s Tower, Wyoming, a place of history and spirit
for many plains peoples. In particular I wanted to spend time
contemplating this volcanic remnant with the work by
Scott Momaday, The Way to Rainy Mountain, on my mind. I have ruminated
before on Devil’s Tower, but right now, I feel moved to write about
the getting there.
It is a good thing to be a historian when you travel the plains, or perhaps
I should say, any true traveler of the plains becomes a historian. Making
my turn south on 85, I paused to amble around Ss. Peter & Paul Ukrainian
Orthodox Church, in Belfield. How odd and yet heartening that this building,
the product of bitter schism, should be such a thing of beauty.
Suffering and beauty often are mates on the plains, I thought, as I made
another stop in Buffalo, South Dakota. The stucco, Art Deco high school
that was built in 1939 and still serves the community was the product
of the Great Depression and its Works Progress Administration.
High taste and low stand cheek to jowl in this part of the country, too.
In Belle Fourche, because the light was right, I pulled over to photograph
the stunning Neo-Classical Deuel County Courthouse, its lines so nicely
accented by a well-done paint job. Then I couldn’t resist taking
a few snaps of its neighbor, the Weyer Motel, with its hokey façade
of petrified wood.
To appreciate such material works of humanity on the plains is one element
in well-seasoned travel; to wonder at the wealth of wildlife inhabiting
the plains today is another. Surely there are great problems in the Great
Plains environment. Land use is often abusive, chemical use is unspeakably
perilous, and we seem to be waging continual war on all species that do
not return us profit in the narrow sense. Still, I chuckle at people who
insist on calling the Great Plains environment “fragile.” It
is, in fact, remarkably resilient. Modest husbandry brings about fabulous
aesthetic returns.
That’s what I was thinking as I drove parallel along the old Belle
Fourche to Dickinson stage trail and studied the mature bald eagle studying
me, I on the asphalt of 85, he in a stubblefield. Eagles are a commonplace
on the plains in this post-DDT generation. And whereas the Cave Hills
and other grand buttes of the region no longer boast bighorns, plainspersons
from a century ago would marvel at the restoration of pronghorn and especially
blacktail herds. Wild turkeys strut from the coulees. Mink scamper across
the winter ice of sloughs. To a creature of the mid-twentieth century
such as I, the plains have never seemed so alive with wildlife as they
are today.
From this I take the lesson that the end-game for humanity on the plains
may not be the dismal thing that some prophets preach. Good things may
come from trial. People, like other species, are more resilient that we
credit, if you give them half a chance. I plan to stick on the prairies
and see how all this comes out.
The prime rib is still great at the Corner Bar, in Camp Crook, and you
know, Fried’s Family Restaurant of Mandan now serves pumpkin Blachinda.
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