canada

interesting account if a bit dry and academic. led me to Wallace Stegner's "Wolf Willow" which is richer with anecdotes and better writing. also led me to "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" which is a must-read for any Jefferson-loving American. all three titles made me interested in the lives of the Indians before 1800: was their life as brutal when the enemy was other tribes rather than white goldseekers, homesteaders et al? or were they at peace with the earth and each other?

This is a lyrical, vividly written narrative history in a style which will appeal to a general audience. The author has closely studied an area along the Montana-Saskathewan border beginning with Sitting Bull's surrender to the U.S. Cavalry in 1881 and ending with the post World War I influenza pandemic. Although largely empty now, in the early 20th Century this vast dry-land prairie was home to many thousands of small-scale homesteaders struggling to wrest a living from an unforgiving landscape. The author includes interviews and correspondence with the late author Wallace Stegner, whose family attempted to make a living on both sides of this borderland. The numerous photos and illustrations are great, and along with the text give the reader an evocative sense of the hard life on the high western plains.