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Wallace Stegner Essay Contest 2003: The Northern
Plains in Transition
Gallatin Writers, Inc. announces an essay
contest for U.S. and Canadian college students in the Northern Plains
The rural portions of the plains states and prairie provinces of North America are experiencing a serious population exodus. This is an inherently harsh environment, not a place people choose to winter. Most important, agricultural production is a declining industry. The original settlement patterns are clearly nonviable. For generations, people adjusted to these realities by out-migration.
Farms and ranches consolidate, towns lose vitality and even viability. Schools, churches, and banks close, and depression replaces enthusiasm. This is unsettling to those with an affinity to, and affection for, the region and its citizens. This situation is most unpleasant but not surprising.
Since John Wesley Powell released his Report on the Arid Region of the United States in 1878, the Western Great Plains region of North America has been politically contentious. Due to the aridity of the region west of the 100th meridian, Powell recommended that the settlement pattern be different from that in eastern North America. His recommendations were largely ignored, the victim of politics.
In the century and a quarter since, it appears Powell was quite prescient. This region was settled last, and those who settled it faced great hardship. Most failed. The population of many areas peaked before 1920. There has been a serious decline since, leaving abandoned farms and deserted schools, churches, and stores. The infrastructure, both social and physical, is crumbling.
Forty years ago Wallace Stegner wrote in Wolf Willow:
The old-timers have lost any expectations they may once have had that Whitemud
would become a sun-kissed prairie Athens, and the second generation, which
is mine, is ninety percent dispersed, and releasing whatever intellectual
and cultural potential it has into other communities…. [O]nly a limited
number can make a living in Whitemud, and those who go hunting wider opportunities
are nearly always the brightest and most energetic, as well as the most restless.
Time acts like a great slow cream separator.
Whitemud was a small town in southwestern Saskatchewan, but it could just as easily have been any number of rural communities in the Northern Plains. With the increase in international competition, small-scale farming and ranching in the region have become less viable. This has lead not only to consolidation -- or abandonment -- of agricultural lands, but to an inexorable exodus in search of better opportunities.
The agrarian struggles raise important questions: Is settlement of the Northern Plains a grand expression of the indomitable American spirit or a failed experiment? Should conventional agriculture even continue in such hostile country? Are there constructive alternatives which better respect ecology and humanity?
We see three things happening:
• Wealthy people like the Walton family of WalMart are purchasing huge ranches,
essentially buying a part in their own Western movie. This provides an opportunity
for conservation groups and land trusts to negotiate conservation easements on
these lands, preserving them as habitat and open space.
• The emptying of the region is opening a niche for groups like the Hutterites.
Their religion dictates voluntary poverty, an agricultural way of life, and isolation
from mainstream society. For such groups, the empty expanses of the Northern
Plains are advantages, not liabilities.
• Some in the national media claim it is also attracting dead-end people,
losers, the dregs of society. This would include retired drug dealers and fringe
groups. They apparently see it as a place to live cheaply and start a new life.
The question is, Where lies the region's future? Some
possibilities might include:
• Advances in biotechnology may make farming viable, providing niche products
or strains that are tolerant of the harsh conditions found here.
• With modern communications technology like satellite Internet connections
and FedEx and UPS, the costs of distance have greatly decreased. This provides
an opportunity for remote, isolated communities to become attractive places to
live for people drawn to their wildness and open spaces but unwilling to relinquish
all ties to "civilization."
Gallatin Writers invited essay submissions from undergraduate and graduate students exploring the future of the Northern Plains region.
Presenting the winners of the Wallace Stegner
Essay Contest
Click on the names to read each essay.
1. Emily K. Goodling,
University of Montana, Resource Conservation 
2. Aaron Thompson, University
of Wyoming, Agricultural Business
3. Isaac Kantor, University
of Montana, Environmental Studies
