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The Last Prairie: A Sandhills Journal
It is an area that has captivated and inspired travelers, philosophers, and artists for centuries. Long celebrated as one of the most visually stunning regions of the American landscape, it is also one of the most historically significant. And now, this vast, 25,000-square-mile expanse known as the Nebraska Sandhills is brought to life with passion, perspective, and ecological timeliness in an unforgettable collection by Stephen Jones. The Last Prairie is an extraordinary triumph of the essayist's art. By turns graceful and penetrating, introspective and universal, ruminative and prescient, the 20 essays in The Last Prairie embodies the essence of Sandhills life. Jones delivers a series of riveting accounts of the Sandhills, flora and fauna, wildlife, and rich cultural history. Fascinating descriptions of bald eagles, trumpeter swans, and the annual migratory flight of a half-million sandhill cranes stand alongside equally vivid accounts of trailblazing homesteaders, range wars, and devastating prairie fires. Jones speaks eloquently to such timeless themes as humanity's search for community and the ties that bind man and nature.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published May 23, 2000
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
February 25, 2020
Beautifully written book that is a series of essays and author’s experiences in the Nebraska Sandhills, each chapter is around 8 to 14 pages and focuses on some aspect of the natural history of the region or the human history, whether Native American or European-American settlers. I believe every chapter featured the author out in the Sandhills, whether describing a natural scene (especially at his beloved Pine Lake campground), touring a place important in Native American or settler history, or talking to someone who knew something about that history. Though there are no photographs (but there is a good map), author Stephen R. Jones painted a beautiful portrait of the region with words. The chapters don’t seem to follow any particular pattern, with a chapter on Native American legends as apt to be followed by one on fireflies, curlews, or the fate of a tiny rancher town.
The Sandhills we learn early on takes up about one-fourth the state of Nebraska and are the largest region of grass-stabilized sand dunes in the Western Hemisphere and also the largest remaining area of more or less natural grassland left in the United States. They stretch some two hundred miles from west to east and about one hundred miles north to south, extending from the Platte River in central Nebraska to the Niobrara River near the South Dakota state line. Though the region has a few forests, mostly around lakes and lining various rivers and streams, its “dunes are covered almost entirely with native grasses: big bluestem, sand bluestem, little bluestem, prairie sandreed, switchgrass,” a “unique mosaic of grasses, wildflowers, shallow lakes, and spring-fed streams.”
Though not setting down the geography, geology, and natural history of the Sandhills in one chapter, the author slowly clues in the reader to the fact that this is a young landscape and one in transition. Though the dunes seem stable, covered as they are by grass, they have shifted and move quite a bit in the last 12,000 years, burying and blocking streams, with the region as recently as 6,000 years ago mostly sand desert. Geologists drilling test holes have found that the oldest dunes are up to 13,000 years old but some are as young as only 1,500 years old. Seemingly static now, “dunes can form can form and move only when vegetation cover falls below about 30 percent,” something that could happen in western Nebraska “when annual precipitation averaged less than ten inches, about 50 percent of current levels.” Even within recorded human history the area was more sandy on the surface that now, with in 1866 geologist Ferdinand V. Hayden calling the region “20,000 squire miles…of loose moving sand which is driven by the winds into round or conical hills” and ranchers in the 1900s “described the difficulty of herding cattle in parched, grasshopper-infested country.” Interestingly (and too briefly) the author visits the debate over whether or not ranching actually improved the vegetation of the Sandhills by among other things suppressing prairie fires and whether or not “nineteenth-century descriptions of a Sandhills desert reflect differences in environmental perception rather than significant changes in the landscape”).
Despite the Sandhills desert heritage, the region has at times abundant water. There is a significant resource of underground water in the Sandhills, as like “a giant sponge, the Sandhills and the underlying aggregate collect snow and rainwater and then release it slowly through the thousands of springs that feed the region’s lakes and streams.” The Sandhills he writes is dotted by thousands of lakes and ponds,” the number varying annually due to “differing amounts of precipitation and irrigation mak[ing] groundwater levels rise and fall.” Many lakes “lie in the interdunal valleys where groundwater percolates in from the underlying aquifer,” and many of “these lakes were created during periods of drought when drifting dunes blocked creak drainages.” Most are shallow (“to drown you’d have to sand on your head”) but support mink, muskrat, ducks, geese, swans, pelicans, snapping turtles, and seventy-five species of fish (noting that many of “these fish are eastern and northern species that may have become isolated in region at the end of the last ice age, when the Great Plains became more arid,” though several such as bass, sunfish, and perch are stocked by the Game and Parks Commission).
The author covered animals quite a bit. He spent time on the Sandhill Cranes, which have a fossil record in Nebraska going back 9 million years, well before the “Sandhills came into being,” whose migration through the region draws thousands of tourists every year. Grasshoppers get some coverage (“If this country was made for anything, it was made for grasshoppers”), with the author noting that there “are more species of grasshoppers in Nebraska than there are of mammals.” He spent some time on the Rocky Mountain Locust (Melanoplus spretus), a locust that once occurred in disastrous and devastating outbreaks but is now extinct (he speculated on the reason for the extinction but if one wants to read some really good coverage of the locusts at their worst and why they went extinct, I highly recommend _Locust: The Devastating Rise and Mysterious Disappearance of the Insect that Shaped the American Frontier_ by Jeffrey Lockwood). White-tailed Deer get some coverage, booming from a low of about 50 in 1900 to around 250,000 today, thriving due to the lack of wolves and mountain lions and spreading thanks to the flourishing trees and shrubs along prairie streams, areas “where formerly, bison, fire, and scouring floods had stripped away vegetation,” though suppression of prairie fires, the elimination of the bison, and dams and water diversions have all encouraged these riparian forests to grow. Also covered among others are the bison, trumpeter swan, greater prairie-chicken (noting efforts to reintroduce them into the region have failed) and sharp-tailed grouse.
The author alternately enters and leaves the stream of history at various points in the book. The reader gets a chapter that has a lot of focus on the infamous “schoolchildren’s storm of 1888” that sadly resulted in the death of a number of children, some coverage of the agricultural disasters that hit the region so hard in the 1890s, quite a bit of time on author Mari Sandoz (author of a number of “western classics like _Old Jules_, _Crazy Horse_, _Cheyenne Autumn_, and _Lovesong to the Plains_), the sad tale of when and where “the Northern Cheyenne spent their last winter of freedom” (fictionalized by Mari Sandoz), and the surprising fall and return of the Northern Ponca people among other stories.
Sadly though “five hundred square miles of Sandhills prairie lies in federally protected wildlife refuges and national forests…this represents less than 3 percent of the land.” Noting a few exceptions (such as draining wetlands for hay meadows), overall the author noted that the region is actually fairly well managed, though should “family ranching become untenable, allowing outside investors with fewer incentives to preserving the land to take over, much of the Sandhills could revert to an overgrazed, windblown state, and the ecosystem could collapse.”
There is a really good bibliography at the end, and though the book dates from 2000 and some of the sources might be dated, is probably still one of the best out there anywhere for resources on Native American and settler history of the region. The listings aren’t just the names of the various works but talk a bit about them. Sadly there is no index.
The Sandhills we learn early on takes up about one-fourth the state of Nebraska and are the largest region of grass-stabilized sand dunes in the Western Hemisphere and also the largest remaining area of more or less natural grassland left in the United States. They stretch some two hundred miles from west to east and about one hundred miles north to south, extending from the Platte River in central Nebraska to the Niobrara River near the South Dakota state line. Though the region has a few forests, mostly around lakes and lining various rivers and streams, its “dunes are covered almost entirely with native grasses: big bluestem, sand bluestem, little bluestem, prairie sandreed, switchgrass,” a “unique mosaic of grasses, wildflowers, shallow lakes, and spring-fed streams.”
Though not setting down the geography, geology, and natural history of the Sandhills in one chapter, the author slowly clues in the reader to the fact that this is a young landscape and one in transition. Though the dunes seem stable, covered as they are by grass, they have shifted and move quite a bit in the last 12,000 years, burying and blocking streams, with the region as recently as 6,000 years ago mostly sand desert. Geologists drilling test holes have found that the oldest dunes are up to 13,000 years old but some are as young as only 1,500 years old. Seemingly static now, “dunes can form can form and move only when vegetation cover falls below about 30 percent,” something that could happen in western Nebraska “when annual precipitation averaged less than ten inches, about 50 percent of current levels.” Even within recorded human history the area was more sandy on the surface that now, with in 1866 geologist Ferdinand V. Hayden calling the region “20,000 squire miles…of loose moving sand which is driven by the winds into round or conical hills” and ranchers in the 1900s “described the difficulty of herding cattle in parched, grasshopper-infested country.” Interestingly (and too briefly) the author visits the debate over whether or not ranching actually improved the vegetation of the Sandhills by among other things suppressing prairie fires and whether or not “nineteenth-century descriptions of a Sandhills desert reflect differences in environmental perception rather than significant changes in the landscape”).
Despite the Sandhills desert heritage, the region has at times abundant water. There is a significant resource of underground water in the Sandhills, as like “a giant sponge, the Sandhills and the underlying aggregate collect snow and rainwater and then release it slowly through the thousands of springs that feed the region’s lakes and streams.” The Sandhills he writes is dotted by thousands of lakes and ponds,” the number varying annually due to “differing amounts of precipitation and irrigation mak[ing] groundwater levels rise and fall.” Many lakes “lie in the interdunal valleys where groundwater percolates in from the underlying aquifer,” and many of “these lakes were created during periods of drought when drifting dunes blocked creak drainages.” Most are shallow (“to drown you’d have to sand on your head”) but support mink, muskrat, ducks, geese, swans, pelicans, snapping turtles, and seventy-five species of fish (noting that many of “these fish are eastern and northern species that may have become isolated in region at the end of the last ice age, when the Great Plains became more arid,” though several such as bass, sunfish, and perch are stocked by the Game and Parks Commission).
The author covered animals quite a bit. He spent time on the Sandhill Cranes, which have a fossil record in Nebraska going back 9 million years, well before the “Sandhills came into being,” whose migration through the region draws thousands of tourists every year. Grasshoppers get some coverage (“If this country was made for anything, it was made for grasshoppers”), with the author noting that there “are more species of grasshoppers in Nebraska than there are of mammals.” He spent some time on the Rocky Mountain Locust (Melanoplus spretus), a locust that once occurred in disastrous and devastating outbreaks but is now extinct (he speculated on the reason for the extinction but if one wants to read some really good coverage of the locusts at their worst and why they went extinct, I highly recommend _Locust: The Devastating Rise and Mysterious Disappearance of the Insect that Shaped the American Frontier_ by Jeffrey Lockwood). White-tailed Deer get some coverage, booming from a low of about 50 in 1900 to around 250,000 today, thriving due to the lack of wolves and mountain lions and spreading thanks to the flourishing trees and shrubs along prairie streams, areas “where formerly, bison, fire, and scouring floods had stripped away vegetation,” though suppression of prairie fires, the elimination of the bison, and dams and water diversions have all encouraged these riparian forests to grow. Also covered among others are the bison, trumpeter swan, greater prairie-chicken (noting efforts to reintroduce them into the region have failed) and sharp-tailed grouse.
The author alternately enters and leaves the stream of history at various points in the book. The reader gets a chapter that has a lot of focus on the infamous “schoolchildren’s storm of 1888” that sadly resulted in the death of a number of children, some coverage of the agricultural disasters that hit the region so hard in the 1890s, quite a bit of time on author Mari Sandoz (author of a number of “western classics like _Old Jules_, _Crazy Horse_, _Cheyenne Autumn_, and _Lovesong to the Plains_), the sad tale of when and where “the Northern Cheyenne spent their last winter of freedom” (fictionalized by Mari Sandoz), and the surprising fall and return of the Northern Ponca people among other stories.
Sadly though “five hundred square miles of Sandhills prairie lies in federally protected wildlife refuges and national forests…this represents less than 3 percent of the land.” Noting a few exceptions (such as draining wetlands for hay meadows), overall the author noted that the region is actually fairly well managed, though should “family ranching become untenable, allowing outside investors with fewer incentives to preserving the land to take over, much of the Sandhills could revert to an overgrazed, windblown state, and the ecosystem could collapse.”
There is a really good bibliography at the end, and though the book dates from 2000 and some of the sources might be dated, is probably still one of the best out there anywhere for resources on Native American and settler history of the region. The listings aren’t just the names of the various works but talk a bit about them. Sadly there is no index.
July 3, 2018
Beautiful descriptions of the Nebraska Sandhills, along with snippets of history and Native American legends. Makes me want to visit Nebraska!
April 30, 2012
I grew up in Nebraska and return to the Sandhills whenever I can. Unlike nearly every other part of the US, this area is not crossed by an interstate highway, and the resulting isolation allows you to feel a little of the vast distances that used to be the West. To experience these rolling hills of grass, with not a tree in sight, especially in stormy weather, is to feel yourself totally absorbed in a great sweep of landscape - a living carpet of flora and mostly unseen fauna. Jones' book does much to recreate that experience in words. And he deepens the experience with his knowledge of geology and history, explaining how the Sandhills came into existence and in more recent times became peopled by the Plains Indians, cattle ranchers, and homesteaders.
Jones is especially knowledgeable about the birds that inhabit the Sandhills - noting those that are long-time residents and those that have been introduced over time with the changing ecology. It is amazing, as I have heard it myself, to hear a chorus of birds from every direction, all hidden by the grass and not a tree in sight. He also provides an accounting of the white-tail deer and pronghorn that range across this land, undeterred by barb wire fences. His stories of the Indians, the Pawnee, Lakota, Cheyenne, and Ponca are respectful and poignant. He also takes time to visit the grave of writer Mari Sandoz and to describe her life as the daughter of a Panhandle homesteader. This is a fine collection of essays for anyone who enjoys good nature writing. Readers may also enjoy Ian Frazier's "Great Plains."
Jones is especially knowledgeable about the birds that inhabit the Sandhills - noting those that are long-time residents and those that have been introduced over time with the changing ecology. It is amazing, as I have heard it myself, to hear a chorus of birds from every direction, all hidden by the grass and not a tree in sight. He also provides an accounting of the white-tail deer and pronghorn that range across this land, undeterred by barb wire fences. His stories of the Indians, the Pawnee, Lakota, Cheyenne, and Ponca are respectful and poignant. He also takes time to visit the grave of writer Mari Sandoz and to describe her life as the daughter of a Panhandle homesteader. This is a fine collection of essays for anyone who enjoys good nature writing. Readers may also enjoy Ian Frazier's "Great Plains."
April 30, 2013
Really beautiful book - it made me want to go to the sand hills of Nebraska, camp out under the stars and watch the nighthawks swoop and call . Jones' prose is lovely, his essays fascinating and the place he describes, sublime. I just hope the cranes and the grasses are still there...Here is an excerpt: "A typical sod house was a work in progress, usually beginning as one large room housing native flora and fauna along with humans and a domestic animal or two. Rattlesnakes curled between the sod blocks. Wildflowers unfurled on the roof. Walls reverberated with cricket song. Musty odours of drying earth, roots, and grass permeated every nook and cranny, blurring the demarcation between the 'inside' and the 'outside', between the artificial and the natural. Most of us, except perhaps children who dig subterranean forts in the backyard, have forgotten the atavistic appeal of earth and sod."
March 30, 2023
A lovely book of twenty short (about eleven pages each) essays focused on the human and natural history of the Nebraska Sandhills. If this book doesn't make you yearn to visit the Sandhills, I suspect nothing will. Jones's writing is not as lyrical as that of Merrill Gilfillan, who has written extensively on the same region in Magpie Rising and Chokecherry Places, but Jones's work is evocative and captivating. The best essay may be the third-last, "East Meets West."
August 22, 2021
Nature books unfortunately are pretty boring. Thanks his is an exception. Maybe because it is brief. He describes the Nebraska Sandhills- the last unspoiled prairie- a place I found astonishing in its beauty.
August 9, 2017
This book made me fall more deeply in love with Nebraska.
January 15, 2022
Visit western Nebraska. Buy a postcard featuring the Sandhills. Read the back. Or, read this entire book.
June 1, 2009
I really enjoyed this book written by an outsider who clearly loves the Sand Hills. I too love the area but have never really given as much thought to the plant and animal life there. It really opened my eyes to the rich biological history of this unique land. Recommended for anyone who loves the Sand Hills of Nebraska.
October 13, 2014
Not a new book but very interesting. Makes me want to take off for western Nebraska. Who knew there are several kinds of fireflies with different light patterns? Great info about the grasses, birds & animals of this wonderful area with beautiful descriptive narrative. I can only hope things have not taken a turn for the worse since the book was written.
October 29, 2012
A nice combo nation of reflection of a nature and the people that live in it. Limited on the hard science, but you can certainly sense the true enjoyment of the place by the author.
October 14, 2014
Reading this book made. Me want to go there a very interesting book. I have went to Crane Meadows it's awesome I highly reccommend. This book to anyone interested in the land
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews