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Trevor Herriot

Teoksen River in a Dry Land: A Prairie Passage tekijä

8 teosta 143 jäsentä 4 arvostelua

Tekijän teokset

Merkitty avainsanalla

Yleistieto

Sukupuoli
male
Kansalaisuus
Canada
Maa (karttaa varten)
Canada
Asuinpaikat
Saskatchewan, Canada

Jäseniä

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I know Trevor Herriot as a person concerned about songbirds on the prairies through Grass, Sky, Song and as a person concerned about the transition of grassland to farmland in River in a Dry Land but in this book he takes all those concerns and weaves a personal philosophy. It is a personal journal that he opens up to us. I am in awe of his writing ability and his depth of introspection.

Herriot walked 40 miles from Regina to the Qu'Appelle Valley over three days in September of some recent year. As he walked he observed his surroundings and mused about his place in the world. He was 52, a husband, a father, a technical writer to make money and an observer of the birds, plants and wildlife of the prairies for the good of his soul. Each chapter is separated from the next by a vignette about other people who have written about walking. Herriot used this time to try to discover how to be an adult male as opposed to an adolescent driven by lust and desire. I don't think I have ever been privy to such a window into the mind of a male adult because most males I know don't talk about their innermost thoughts. (Women, on the other hand, frequently discuss these intimate details.) I imagine a lot of men think about these things but lack the vocabulary or the desire to speak them out loud. I know I will be trying to figure out what my significant other thinks about even more than I already do but at least, after reading this book, I have some discussion points.

There are many passages in this book that I would love to quote but I think I will restrict myself to just one. Herriot heard a sandhill crane while he was walking on the second day and that caused him to discuss the crane's mating behaviour and how long sandhills have existed in North America (since the Miocene age).
If I had to guess what it is about cranes that has allowed them to rise above the ebb and flow of this land's many passing forms, and say what most signifies their tenacity and endurance as a species, I would look to their annual renewal of mating bonds within the presence of the larger community, to their attentive child-rearing, and to their fidelity to one another and to the places where they nest, stage, and winter. Choosing one and forbearing others, the bond of two cranes is a psalm written anew by the wind in river mud each spring. If we could listen what would we hear? That community life protects the nuptial bond, shared well-being, and child-rearing? That life is served best when you are faithful to the partner and place you choose, when you guard the sanctity of your courtship, mating, and family, and dance now and then in the larger circle of your tribe?

Great stuff. Herriot has a blog that I read faithfully to keep me going between his books.
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gypsysmom | Apr 26, 2016 |
I don't know much about the prairie birds Herriot describes. In fact, I had never heard of a pipit until I read this book. However, up in the parkland area of Manitoba where I grew up the meadowlark was a constant source of joy each spring. I didn't realize how much I missed that when I moved to Winnipeg until one spring day when I was on my way into a meeting at a hall on the edge of the city. As I stepped out of the car, my head full of the details of the meeting (which I was chairing), I heard that unmistakable call and my heart lifted. For a few moments I forgot the meeting and just revelled in the sound and the smells and the breeze blowing past my cheek. That occasion was at least 20 years ago and yet I recalled it vividly when I read Herriot's description of the meadowlark.

Herriot refers often to the "canopy of sound" that early explorers discovered when they first came to the prairies. I want to experience that. About halfway through the book I was quite depressed by all the reports of falling bird counts and I thought that it was too late for me or anyone else to experience the canopy of sound. Even at the end of the book, Herriot is not reassuring about saving all the birds but some have started to come back. He even mentions some burrowing owls being found in Manitoba near Spruce Woods Park years after they had apparently disappeared from the province. So maybe, just maybe, with the encouragement of champions like Trevor Herriot, we can bring back a semblance of the "canopy of sound". I'm certainly going to source out meat grown on grassland as my small start.

I think this book is as important to our understanding of human impact on nature as Rachel Carson's "The Silent Spring" was when it came out in 1962. As Wikipedia says about The Silent Spring "The book is widely credited with helping launch the environmental movement." Maybe Grass, Sky, Song will help launch a new commitment to environmental management.
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gypsysmom | 1 muu arvostelu | Mar 11, 2012 |
Trevor Herriot is passionate about the natural world and it comes through loud and clear in this book. Part history, part field guide, part memoir and part community exploration it follows the Qu'appelle River of Saskatchewan from its Western source to the eastern edge of the province. Herriot's roots are firmly dug into the soil of the Qu'appelle Valley. He only lived there a brief time but both his parents grew up there and he spent many weekends and summer holidays with aunts and uncles in the Valley. Now he has a cabin in the Valley that he "spends as much time as possible at" according to the author notes at the back of the book.

Before reading this book I had no idea how extensive the Qu'appelle River was. I've travelled through what I now realize was just a small portion of the Valley and I thought it was beautiful. Now that I've read this book I want to explore more of it.

I imagine this book created something of a stir when it was first published. Herriot has decided views about how people should live on the prairies and it has nothing to do with agribusiness. In fact, he would be happy if people still lived as the natives did, moving with the seasons and the game. He sees how the land has been abandoned by the immigrant settlers and how modern farmers are losing touch with the earth.

I too have witnessed that. My father managed to feed a family on a half section of land, leaving river bottoms to be pasture for the cows and letting land lie fallow every few years. We had milk cows and horses and pigs and sheep and chickens so that there was always something to do even when there were no crops in the field. My mother kept a huge garden and sold eggs in town. We kids did farm chores from the time we were young. But my mother was also one of the first farm women I knew who took a job off the farm after a dry spell destroyed the crops. Three of the four children went off to university and never returned to the farm except for visits. The home I grew up in is owned by someone else although the land is still farmed by my nephews. But in order to make ends meet they have jobs off the farm, they no longer keep cattle except to sell and most of the river bottom land has been cleared for crops.

Reading this book made me long for those simpler days of my youth. When Herriot got to talking about his relatives he could have been describing mine. "Listening and taking pleasure in the cadence of their descriptives, rising and falling in talk of last night's storm, this fall's deer hunt, or the prospects for a wedding. An oozing sore was 'mattery,' calm was pronounced cam, the Palmers were the Pammers, and deer were always 'jumpers'."
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gypsysmom | Dec 7, 2011 |

Listat

Palkinnot

Tilastot

Teokset
8
Jäseniä
143
Suosituimmuussija
#144,062
Arvio (tähdet)
4.1
Kirja-arvosteluja
4
ISBN:t
26

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