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Transforming the Prairies proposes a new understanding of Canada’s Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration (PFRA), complicating common views of the agency as a model of effective government environmental management. Between 1935 and 2009, the PFRA promoted agricultural rehabilitation in and beyond the Canadian Prairies with mixed and equivocal results. The promotion of strip farming as a soil conservation technique, for example, left crops susceptible to sawfly infestations. The PFRA’s involvement in irrigation development in Ghana increased the local population’s vulnerability to various illnesses. And PFRA infrastructure construction intended to serve the public good failed to account for the interests of affected Indigenous peoples. The PFRA is revealed as being a high modernist state agency that produced varied environmental outcomes and that contributed to consolidating colonialism and racism. This investigation affirms the importance of engaging historical perspectives to help ensure that contemporary environmental management efforts support more just and sustainable futures.
The prairie grassland biome covers the heartland of North America with an eastward extension called the Prairie Peninsula. Primarily composed of tallgrass prairie, this biome lies between the shortgrass prairies of the west and the eastern deciduous forest region and includes the states of Illinois, Indiana, southeastern Wisconsin, and Ohio. With text by coauthors Gary Meszaros and Guy L. Denny and striking photographs by Meszaros, The Prairie Peninsula examines the many prairie types, floristic composition, and animals that are part of this ecosystem. It took only 50 years for 150 million acres of tallgrass prairie to disappear under the steel plow, transforming the Prairie Peninsula into fields of corn and wheat. Today, only a few thousand acres of this endangered ecosystem remain in small parcels, some just a few acres each. The second half of the 19th century brought the mass slaughter of prairie wildlife. By 1900, like the prairie they roamed, the plains bison, gray wolf, and eastern elk became extirpated east of the Mississippi River. The Prairie Peninsula also tells the story of the early settlers and the hardships they endured. Thousands died of milk sickness and malaria, with prairie fires sending flames 30 feet into the air and stretched across the horizon, destroying everything in their path. Today, many of these pioneers lie buried in cemeteries comprising prairie remnants, fragments of the primeval land they tried to tame. The authors investigate these and other surviving prairie remnants and current efforts to save these traces of original North American grassland. Both Gary Meszaros and Guy L. Denny have traveled extensively throughout the Midwest, studying the animal and floristic composition of original prairie remnants.
Introduction: Voices of Passion, Voices of Hope / Sharon McKay -- 1. Passion within the First nations School Work Profession / Dexter Kinequon -- 2. Passion, Action, Strength and Innovative Change: The Experience of the Saskatchewan Children's Advocate's Office in Establishing Rights-based "Children and Youth First" Principles / Marvin M. Bernstein and Roxane A. Schury -- 3. From Longing to Belonging: Attachment Theory, Connectedness, and Indigenous Children in canada / Jeannine Carriere and Cathy Richardson -- 4. Jumping through the Hoops: A Manitoba Study Examining Experiences and Reflections of Aboriginal Mothers Involved in Child Welfare in Manitoba / Marlyn Bennett -- 5. Rehearsing with Reality: Exploring Health Issues with Aboriginal Youth Through Drama / Linda Goulet, Jo-Ann Episkenew, Warren Linds and Karen Arnason -- 7. The Moving Forward Project: Working with Refugee Children, Youth and Their Families / Judy White et al. -- 8. Passion for Those Who care: What Foster Carers Need / Rob Twigg -- 9. Children with FASD involved with the Manitoba Child Welfare System: The Need for Passionate Action / Don Fuchs, Linda Burnside, Shelagh Marchenski and Andria Mudry -- 10. Physical Punishment in Childhood: A Human Rights and cxhild Protection Issue / Ailsa M. Watkinson -- 11. Complex Poverty and Home-grown Solutions in Two Prairie cities / Jim Silver [Winnipeg and Saskatoon].
Prairie Fairies draws upon a wealth of oral, archival, and cultural histories to recover the experiences of queer urban and rural people in the prairies. Focusing on five major urban centres, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Regina, Edmonton, and Calgary, Prairie Fairies explores the regional experiences and activism of queer men and women by looking at the community centres, newsletters, magazines, and organizations that they created from 1930 to 1985.? Challenging the preconceived narratives of queer history, Valerie J. Korinek argues that the LGBTTQ community has a long history in the prairie west, and that its history, previously marginalized or omitted, deserves attention. Korinek pays tribute to the prairie activists and actors who were responsible for creating spaces for socializing, politicizing, and organizing this community, both in cities and rural areas. Far from the stereotype of the isolated, insular Canadian prairies of small towns and farming communities populated by faithful farm families, Prairie Fairies historicizes the transformation of prairie cities, and ultimately the region itself, into a predominantly urban and diverse place.
Prairie Town: Redefining Rural Life in the Age of Globalization describes the contemporary rural condition and efforts to sustain rural life in one small Minnesota community at the turn of the 21st century. Like many other agricultural based towns, Prairie Town struggled for survival within the context of the on-going farm crisis, NAFTA, neoliberal agricultural policies, and growing agribusiness that negatively impacted many farmers throughout the world. The effects of globalization, the displacement of rural workers to urban areas, and the deterioration of rural life were a widespread phenomenon. In spite of these complex issues, Prairie Town worked to define a new rural— life, one which entailed a new rural literacy—a new way of reading rural life-that changed the way rural life, work, and education were realized. Prairie Town's story offers us hope as we learn that neoliberalism is not inevitable, nor is the demise of rural America. From this community, we learn that not everything can be bought and sold, and disidentification with dominant societal structures is possible within a participatory democratic society. New cultural models can be constructed that enable individuals in Prairie Town and elsewhere to actively work to construct ways of being that are consistent with their values and hopes for how they might live together.
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR The first comprehensive historical biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder, the beloved author of the Little House on the Prairie books Millions of readers of Little House on the Prairie believe they know Laura Ingalls—the pioneer girl who survived blizzards and near-starvation on the Great Plains, and the woman who wrote the famous autobiographical books. But the true saga of her life has never been fully told. Now, drawing on unpublished manuscripts, letters, diaries, and land and financial records, Caroline Fraser—the editor of the Library of America edition of the Little House series—masterfully fills in the gaps in Wilder’s biography. Revealing the grown-up story behind the most influential childhood epic of pioneer life, she also chronicles Wilder's tumultuous relationship with her journalist daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, setting the record straight regarding charges of ghostwriting that have swirled around the books. The Little House books, for all the hardships they describe, are paeans to the pioneer spirit, portraying it as triumphant against all odds. But Wilder’s real life was harder and grittier than that, a story of relentless struggle, rootlessness, and poverty. It was only in her sixties, after losing nearly everything in the Great Depression, that she turned to children’s books, recasting her hardscrabble childhood as a celebratory vision of homesteading—and achieving fame and fortune in the process, in one of the most astonishing rags-to-riches episodes in American letters. Spanning nearly a century of epochal change, from the Indian Wars to the Dust Bowl, Wilder’s dramatic life provides a unique perspective on American history and our national mythology of self-reliance. With fresh insights and new discoveries, Prairie Fires reveals the complex woman whose classic stories grip us to this day.
Landscapes of the Northern Great Plains have been constantly changing, but never so rapidly as under modern conditions of economic affluence and technological development. This change is multifaceted and has an impact not only on the fabric of culture and its perception of landscape, but also on the ecology and physical landforms. Multidisciplinary research has therefore become an important tool in identifying the influences that human activities have, not only on cultural landscapes but on biophysical ones as well. This collection of articles, originating in a conference held at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in April 2000, focuses on just such an integration of research concerning the Great Plains of North America and involving the disciplines of geology, archaeology, biology, geography, sociology, and agriculture.
This text describes the ecology of the North American prairie, and urges conservation measures to protect the remaining North American grasslands. It summarizes the various conservation management issues relevant to prairies, pointing out the costs and benefits of alternative action.
The ruggedly beautiful Zumwalt Prairie in northeastern Oregon has become a battleground in the war between ranchers and environmentalists. In this eloquent expose, wildlife biologist Marcy Houle shows what she learned about this majestic region--and why ranchers, grazing, and wildlife not only can coexist but must coexist if we are to save our native prairies.