Trevor Herriot, a prairie conservationist based out of Saskatchewan, has just come out with a new book called The Road is How. He is the author of several books about various aspects of the prairie ecosystem in Canada, the best known being One Day, Grass, Sky, Song, which deals with the dubious fate of grassland birds. He is also the author of the excellent blog: Trevor Herriot’s Grass Notes.
Below is a brief description of the new book (which I do not think is available just yet) copied from Harper Collins – Canada:
“Prairie naturalist Trevor Herriot decides “the road is how.” Recovering from a misstep that could have been his last, he decides to go for a three-day walk to sort through questions that rushed in upon the enforced stillness as he waited for his body to heal.
The author sets off down an ordinary prairie road and then detours along railbeds, over hills and into fields—sitting next to sloughs, waiting for a sparrow to sing to the dusk. Each step takes him further into a territory where imagination and experience carry us beyond the psychological imprint of our transgressions to the soul’s reconnection with a broken land.”
It sounds like he covers some territory very similar to what the Great Plains Trail will be covering, and it shows the power of landscape and nature to deliver answers to us – if we take the time to listen well . . .
3 Responses
I always look forward to and enjoy your posts. Before you began this project, before you began rhapsodizing on the treasures and loveliness of the Great Plains, they existed to me as a part menace, part tedium, a penance to pay for leaving my verdant Appalachian hills to see the great grey Rockies. Its’ difficult to explain the tramontane sword I felt hanging over me, all that space with me hunching vulnerable in the center. And now it seems a place of wonder–what a marvel to accomplish with a stubborn old
…jackass. That’s the word I meant for the finish. But you’ve known me a quarter-century, so I’m pretty sure you’d guessed that already.
I’ve seen plenty of jackasses, and you’re certainly not one of them. A true jackass feels nothing in any place, verdant or otherwise.
It’s funny, though, how I had the exact opposite reaction on my shorter treks from MN to WY. The Rockies were supermodel gorgeous, anyone could agree, but the Great Plains were that cool, smart girl that I just had to get to know somehow . . .