Published Oct 21, 2009
Published Wednesday October 21, 2009

Book is more than just pretty pictures
By David Hendee
WORLD-HERALD BUREAU

PHOTO BY MICHAEL FORSBERG
A burrowing owl stretches on a cool evening above a prairie dog town in the Buffalo Gap National Grassland of South Dakota.

LINCOLN — Laid out prone in South Dakota’s Badlands, wildlife photographer Michael Forsberg focused on burrowing owls in the prairie dog town far down the prairie.

During weeks spent hunkered in Dakota dirt, Forberg’s aim shifted.
“I was amazed day after day at all the wildlife I saw,’’ he said. “Not just the amount, but the diversity. Everything from dragon flies to pronghorn and a bunch in between. But I knew that people in cars screaming by off in the distance were looking over this landscape and thinking there wasn’t anything there.’’

Forsberg set out to challenge the notion that the Great Plains is a place to drive through or fly over by revealing the region in ways rarely seen or thought about.

He tucked away the idea for about five years and refocused on it in 2005. More than 100,000 traveling miles later, the result is Forberg’s latest book, “Great Plains: America’s Lingering Wild.’’

The 260-page, large-format volume is Forsberg’s attempt to remind Plains people what’s out there in their big backyard — and to point out its fragility.

“Less than 200 years ago, this was one of the greatest grassland ecosystems on the face of the planet,’’ Forsberg said. “It was a place of massive migrations ... and in the blink of an eye, most of it was gone after America moved west.’’

To chronicle what was left, Forsberg searched out survivors and used photographs to cobble together a vision of a 1-million-square-mile landscape where people and animals are bound together by an ecosystem stretching from Canada to Texas.

“Great Plains” isn’t simply a coffee-table book featuring Forberg’s images of big skies, endless horizons and glimpses of creatures. Nebraska geographer David Wishart and South Dakota writer-rancher Dan O’Brien add brief essays describing the beauty and perplexities of the Great Plains. Nebraska poet Ted Kooser wrote the forward. Forsberg wrote field notes.

“I didn’t want people to thumb through the pictures, close it and say that’s nice,’’ Forsberg said. “I wanted them to read the words. I wanted the words to matter.”

Lincoln naturalist Paul Johnsgard — the author of books about Plains birds, prairie dogs, the Sand Hills and the Platte and Niobrara Rivers — said no one has produced a more visually spectacular book on the region than Forsberg’s “Great Plains.”

“He spent more time and effort in getting photographs than I would in three lifetimes,’’ Johnsgard said, “and he teamed up with very good people for the narrative. It’s quite significant.’’

Forsberg started the project believing he knew something about conservation challenges.

“At the end, I knew even less,’’ he said. “You think you can come up with a sweeping solution that makes sense. But there are no easy answers out there.’’

Great Plains rivers have run dry. Aquifers have been mined. Wildlife populations have disappeared. Top soil has blown away. And native grassland continues to be turned under by plows.

“This is a working (farming) landscape and always will be,’’ Forsberg said. “But we have choices to make about whether we want wildlife to have a seat at the table. If we don’t value this natural heritage — and there will continue to be change if we don’t value it — we could lose it altogether.’’

Forsberg said nearly every creature that evolved in the Great Plains migrated. Today, the Plains landscape is altered and fragmented.
Forsberg said he isn’t proposing turning the Plains into a big wildlife preserve.

“It means being thoughtful stewards of the land and understanding what this place is and how it works. It means making it part of our culture,’’ he said. “I don’t want conservation to just be a nice idea. I want it to be part of who we are here.’’

Nebraska’s Sand Hills region is a good model of the conservation ethic, Forsberg said.

“I’ve never come across anything like it in all my travels,’’ he said. “Good stewards of the Sand Hills kept the grass intact. They know that if they don’t, they won’t be on the ranch any more.’’

Forsberg, who lives in Lincoln, said most people who live in the Great Plains care about the land. Walking on prairie trails, wading through river shallows, canoeing a stream or watching migrating cranes roost at sunset stirs something deep inside Plains people.

“We’re hard-wired for nature,’’ he said. “The land is important to who we are.’’

The Great Plains will continue to be one of the world’s bread baskets and relied upon increasingly to fuel America’s energy needs, he said.
“I just don’t want to squander it away,’’ he said. “People live in the Plains because they value grassland, wildlife, open space, solitude and quiet. But we have to remind each generation why the land is important.’’

“Great Plains’’ is Forsberg’s second book to connect the vast landscape in the heart of the continent to people and wildlife. “On Ancient Wings: The Sandhill Cranes of North America’’ was published in 2004.

“Most of us think of nature as in a box, based on the Platte River, the Sand Hills or where it is we’re from,’’ he said. “I want to get folks to think about this landscape not just from what’s on the edge of their town, but to see those places as important in a much larger geographic context.’’

 

Contact the writer: 444-1127, david.hendee@owh.com

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