Stepping Twice Into the River: Following Dakota Waters
by Robert King
University Press of Colorado, 2005 Paper: 978-0-87081-792-2 | eISBN: 978-0-87081-841-7 Library of Congress Classification F642.S53K56 2005 Dewey Decimal Classification 978.476
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
What happens when an English professor takes a year off to explore a tiny prairie creek? Between mishaps with the canoe, long walks to the sites of Cheyenne villages and cavalry trenches, and gallons of coffee with isolated farmers, what happens is insight. In Stepping Twice Into the River, Robert King recounts his exploration of the "almost unnoticeable" along North Dakota's Sheyenne River, from its headwaters to river's end. With each experience along the way - tracing a military campaign, canoeing the river, visiting a ghost town and even trying to sleep in an ancient Cheyenne village - King examines a different aspect of the plains: Native American culture, pioneer society, religion, war, agriculture, and nature.
Blending travel narrative and poetic reflection, Stepping Twice Into the River takes readers on a journey through time, revealing both stability and change and offering prairie wisdom. An affectionate and shrewd observer, King illuminates the ordinary from the perspectives of history, science, and literature. In the hands of this gifted thinker and writer, local facts yield universal metaphor.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Robert King's poems, short fiction, and essays have appeared in numerous journals and magazines, including The Missouri Review, South Dakota Review, and Weber Studies. He has published five chapbooks and is the winner of the National Writer's Union Prize for Poetry in 2000. He lives in Greeley, Colorado.
REVIEWS
"King undertakes a classic river journey, not in a land exotic to him but in North Dakota, his longtime home. And instead of traveling a fabled river, he follows the meandering Sheyenne, an "intermittent," even "ephemeral," waterway that threads across glacier-carved terrain that feels, as King notes in his low-key yet resonant way, remote even "when you're in the midst of it." His journey across the sparsely populated prairie inspires musings on why North Dakota's population is decreasing, and forays into little-known corners of the region's somber history. As he ponders the struggles of homesteaders and the cruel war waged against Native Americans, he captures the aura of a profoundly elemental place afflicted by both drought and flood. Although he's thwarted in his plan to canoe on the Sheyenne when he finds after a few days that more portage than paddling is involved, King absorbs "the silence of the open land and mute river," and acquires fresh understanding of the North Dakotan character, the life of a modest river, and the nature of change."
—Donna Seaman, Booklist
"Reading Robert King's Stepping Twice Into the River: Following Dakota Waters is stepping bravely into the past and seeing the true face of the North Dakota prairie...His journey starts in the center of the state, where many towns reached their zenith in the early 1900's. Today, some are ghost towns. In these small, surviving communities, King pulls up a stool in small family cafes or friendly local bars and listens to the stories...His adventure is beyond a hike in a reclusive land, it is understanding the mind and heart of the Prairie and seeing it come to life. It is well worth reading."
—Grand Forks Herald
"King introduces a year-long exploration of nowhere - that is, North Dakota - and deftly leads us from reflections on the past of the entire Great Plains to reflections on the future of the area. Nowhere is also Everywhere; this writer's thoughts subtly encompass the history of decline and growth in the plains, and their relevance to the future - and this is the main topic of discussion everywhere in the West at this time."
—Linda Hasselstrom, author of Between Grass and Sky
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
CHAPTER 1 Around the Beginning in Sheridan 1
County
CHAPTER 2 Continental Divide: Looking Back 15
Across the Years
CHAPTER 3 Faith in North Dakota 35
CHAPTER 4 Spirit Lake, Spirit Heart 53
CHAPTER 5 With Heraclitus and Nicollet on the 73 Sheyenne
CHAPTER 6 Lost in the Bottomlands 89
CHAPTER 7 Following General Sibley 107
CHAPTER 8 At the Fort, At the Village 125
CHAPTER 9 Past and Future in the Grasslands 143
CHAPTER 10 River End: The Bonanza Valley 161
CHAPTER 11 The Winter Houses 177
Annotated Bibliography 197
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
Stepping Twice Into the River: Following Dakota Waters
by Robert King
University Press of Colorado, 2005 Paper: 978-0-87081-792-2 eISBN: 978-0-87081-841-7
What happens when an English professor takes a year off to explore a tiny prairie creek? Between mishaps with the canoe, long walks to the sites of Cheyenne villages and cavalry trenches, and gallons of coffee with isolated farmers, what happens is insight. In Stepping Twice Into the River, Robert King recounts his exploration of the "almost unnoticeable" along North Dakota's Sheyenne River, from its headwaters to river's end. With each experience along the way - tracing a military campaign, canoeing the river, visiting a ghost town and even trying to sleep in an ancient Cheyenne village - King examines a different aspect of the plains: Native American culture, pioneer society, religion, war, agriculture, and nature.
Blending travel narrative and poetic reflection, Stepping Twice Into the River takes readers on a journey through time, revealing both stability and change and offering prairie wisdom. An affectionate and shrewd observer, King illuminates the ordinary from the perspectives of history, science, and literature. In the hands of this gifted thinker and writer, local facts yield universal metaphor.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Robert King's poems, short fiction, and essays have appeared in numerous journals and magazines, including The Missouri Review, South Dakota Review, and Weber Studies. He has published five chapbooks and is the winner of the National Writer's Union Prize for Poetry in 2000. He lives in Greeley, Colorado.
REVIEWS
"King undertakes a classic river journey, not in a land exotic to him but in North Dakota, his longtime home. And instead of traveling a fabled river, he follows the meandering Sheyenne, an "intermittent," even "ephemeral," waterway that threads across glacier-carved terrain that feels, as King notes in his low-key yet resonant way, remote even "when you're in the midst of it." His journey across the sparsely populated prairie inspires musings on why North Dakota's population is decreasing, and forays into little-known corners of the region's somber history. As he ponders the struggles of homesteaders and the cruel war waged against Native Americans, he captures the aura of a profoundly elemental place afflicted by both drought and flood. Although he's thwarted in his plan to canoe on the Sheyenne when he finds after a few days that more portage than paddling is involved, King absorbs "the silence of the open land and mute river," and acquires fresh understanding of the North Dakotan character, the life of a modest river, and the nature of change."
—Donna Seaman, Booklist
"Reading Robert King's Stepping Twice Into the River: Following Dakota Waters is stepping bravely into the past and seeing the true face of the North Dakota prairie...His journey starts in the center of the state, where many towns reached their zenith in the early 1900's. Today, some are ghost towns. In these small, surviving communities, King pulls up a stool in small family cafes or friendly local bars and listens to the stories...His adventure is beyond a hike in a reclusive land, it is understanding the mind and heart of the Prairie and seeing it come to life. It is well worth reading."
—Grand Forks Herald
"King introduces a year-long exploration of nowhere - that is, North Dakota - and deftly leads us from reflections on the past of the entire Great Plains to reflections on the future of the area. Nowhere is also Everywhere; this writer's thoughts subtly encompass the history of decline and growth in the plains, and their relevance to the future - and this is the main topic of discussion everywhere in the West at this time."
—Linda Hasselstrom, author of Between Grass and Sky
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
CHAPTER 1 Around the Beginning in Sheridan 1
County
CHAPTER 2 Continental Divide: Looking Back 15
Across the Years
CHAPTER 3 Faith in North Dakota 35
CHAPTER 4 Spirit Lake, Spirit Heart 53
CHAPTER 5 With Heraclitus and Nicollet on the 73 Sheyenne
CHAPTER 6 Lost in the Bottomlands 89
CHAPTER 7 Following General Sibley 107
CHAPTER 8 At the Fort, At the Village 125
CHAPTER 9 Past and Future in the Grasslands 143
CHAPTER 10 River End: The Bonanza Valley 161
CHAPTER 11 The Winter Houses 177
Annotated Bibliography 197
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE