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Redefining The Dust Bowl Region Via Popular Perception And Geotechnology, Jess C. Porter, G. Allen Finchum

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

The Dust Bowl is a historical vernacular region that has been delimited by a diverse group of academics, literary authors, and popular cultural voices. However, the general public’s perception of the Dust Bowl region has not been mapped and analyzed. This research queried residents of 93 Great Plains counties in order to ascertain their perceptions and knowledge of the vernacular Dust Bowl region. Analysis of the responses via the application of geographic information system mapping reveals striking differences between respondents of varying age and place of residence. Findings suggest that spatial understanding of the Dust Bowl phenomena is eroding among …

Book Review: Survival Or Gradual Extinction: The Small Town In The Great Plains Of Eastern Montana By Marvin Gloege, Lyn C. Macgregor

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Marvin Gloege has assembled an impressive array of information about demographic trends affecting the small communities of eastern Montana. Survival or Gradual Extinction examines the state of 22 communities and poses a question of deep importance both to their residents and to those who believe there is value in preserving America’s small communities and the way of life they afford: will they be able to retain populations of sufficient size to survive? Though the title of the book indicates that Gloege’s primary concern is about the future of these communities, he does a better job of documenting the historical conditions …

Book Review: Daschle Vs. Thune: Anatomy Of A High-Plains Senate Race By Jon K. Lauck, Thomas D. Isern

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Historian, political operative, and blogger Jon K. Lauck offers an insider’s account of the 2004 United States Senate race in South Dakota. Democrat Tom Daschle, leader of his party in the Senate, sought reelection and was challenged by Republican John Thune. Lauck seeks to explain Thune’s surprising victory—or rather, as the account unfolds, Daschle’s bitter loss. As is the way with insider accounts, this one produces some striking insights, but is also somewhat limited by its perspective.

Daschle in 2004 struggled, as Lauck puts it, with “the LBJ dilemma”—how to lead a liberal party in Washington while campaigning back home …

Abundance And Distribution Of Lesser Snow And Ross’S Geese In The Rainwater Basin And Central Platte River Valley Of Nebraska, Mark P. Vrtiska, Susan Sullivan

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

The number of lesser snow geese (Chen caerulescens) and Ross’s geese (C. rossii), hereinafter called “light geese,” staging during spring in the Rainwater Basin and Central Platte River Valley of south-central Nebraska has dramatically increased since the late 1980s. However, there has been no documentation of the abundance or distribution of light geese across the Rainwater Basin and Central Platte River Valley and the relationship of distribution to conservation-order activities. We used aerial transect surveys and distance sampling methodology to estimate abundance and distribution of light geese in the Rainwater Basin and Central Platte River Valley …

Cover And Contents Great Plains Research Fall 2009

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Table of Contents

NATURAL SCIENCES

Abundance and Distribution of Lesser Snow and Ross’s Geese in the Rainwater Basin and Central Platte River Valley of Nebraska
Mark P. Vrtiska and Susan Sullivan. . .. 147

Predicting Lesser Scaup Wetland Use during Spring Migration in Eastern South Dakota
Sharon N. Kahara and Steven R. Chipps. . .. . 157

A Taxonomic Study of Populations of Tiger Beetles in the Cicindela longilabris Complex from the Black Hills of South Dakota
S.M. Spomer. . .. . 169

The Grasshoppers Arphia xanthoptera and Dichromorpha viridis Prefer Introduced Smooth Brome over other Grasses
Sean D. Whipple, …

Book Review: Collaborating At The Trowel’S Edge: Teaching And Learning In Indigenous Archaeology Edited By Stephen W. Silliman, Joe Watkins

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

This book is an outgrowth of a symposium presented at the 2005 Society for American Archaeology annual meeting and judged by the Amerind Foundation as the conference’s outstanding symposium. The original symposium papers, further refined during an Amerind Foundation-sponsored seminar held in October of the same year, form the book’s chapters. The volume’s rather lofty goal, as set out in Silliman’s introductory chapter, is to “redirect contemporary archaeology in many ways that are more methodologically rich, theoretically interesting, culturally sensitive, community responsive, ethically aware, and socially just.”

The chapters in part 1 focus on field schools and workshops conducted in …

Czech And Slovak Americans: International Perspectives From The Great Plains

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS:

Toni Brendal, author, Phillips, Wisconsin

Martin Mejsttfk, former Parliament Senator, Czech Republic

Daniel E. Miller, Professor of History, University of West Florida

Martin Palous, Czech Republic Permanent Representative to the United Nations

Milada Polisenska, Vice-President for Educational development, Chair, School of International Relations & Diplomacy, New Anglo-American College, Prague.

SYMPOSIUM THEME

IMMIGRATION

FINE & PERFORMING ARTS

POLITICS

POPULAR CULTURE

RELIGION

EDUCATION

TECHNOLOGY

TOURISM

GENDER STUDIES

FARMING

Book Review: The Guide To Kansas Birds And Birding Hot Spots By Bob Gress And Pete Janzen, William E. Jensen

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Some newcomers to—or even long-time residents of—Kansas (or the Great Plains in general) need an inspirational introduction to the wonderful natural history offered by midcontinental North America. The Guide to Kansas Birds and Birding Hot Spots by Bob Gress and Pete Janzen accomplishes such an introduction. Though photographic bird guides have their limitations in illustrating plumage variation, the outstanding color photographs by Gress are exceptionally sharp, colorful, and do well in depicting field marks with frame-filling views of each species profiled. The photos are vast improvements over any preceding bird guide specific to Kansas (e.g., Thompson and Ely, Birds in …

Book Review: Comanche Ethnography: Field Notes Of E. Adamson Hoebel, Waldo R. Wedel, Gustav G. Carlson, And Robert H. Lowie Compiled And Edited By Thomas W. Kavanagh, William C. Meadows

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

This work presents a body of edited ethnographic field notes on the Comanches, the majority of it from the field notes of the 1933 Santa Fe Laboratory of Anthropology “Field Training Course in Anthropological Field Methods,” popularly known as the “Field Party.” This party consisted of five male graduate students (Waldo R. Wedel, E. Adamson Hoebel, Gustav G. Carlson, James Nixon Hadley, and Henry C. Lockett) and two female graduate students (F. Gore Hoebel and Martha Chapman), under Dr. Ralph Linton who conducted six weeks of ethnographic fieldwork with eighteen Comanche elders in June and July of 1933. The surviving …

Tourist Attitudes Toward Elk Management In The Pine Ridge Region Of Northwestern Nebraska, R. Daniel Crank, Scott Hygnstrom, Scott R. Groepper Mr.

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

We interviewed 200 tourists at Fort Robinson State Park and Chadron State Park in the Pine Ridge region of northwestern Nebraska during July and August of 1997 to determine attitudes toward elk (Cervus elaphus) and elk management in Nebraska. Fifty-nine percent of the respondents were aware that elk occupied the Pine Ridge, 95% favored free-ranging elk, and 55% favored hunting as a means of managing the population. Nebraska residents were more aware of elk and elk hunting in the Pine Ridge than were nonresidents. Also, more residents had observed elk and were willing to drive longer distances to …

Book Review: Wildlife Science: Linking Ecological Theory And Management Applications Edited By Timothy E. Fulbright And David G. Hewitt, Craig R. Allen

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Wildlife Science stems from the 25th Anniversary Symposium of the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute in April 2006, the topic of which furnishes the book with its full title. The symposium’s organizers celebrated the occasion by inviting “a group of the best and brightest minds in wildlife science” to participate. The edited volume, with 38 authors contributing to a total of 20 chapters, is weighted towards Texas (23 of its authors are from the state), although there are examples from the rest of the U.S. and the world.

The book is organized into five parts: “Birds,” “Mammals,” “Habitat,” “Animal Health …

Long-Term Agricultural Land-Use Trends In Nebraska, 1866–2007, Tim L. Hiller, Larkin A. Powell, Tim D. Mccoy, Jeffrey J. Lusk

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Although landscape changes from anthropogenic causes occur at much faster rates than those from natural processes (e.g., geological, vegetation succession), human perception of such changes is often subjective, inaccurate, or nonexistent. Given the large-scale land-use changes that have occurred throughout the Great Plains, the potential impacts of land-use changes on ecological systems, and the insight gained from knowledge of land-use trends (e.g., to compare to wildlife population trends), we synthesized information related to land-use trends in Nebraska during 1866–2007. We discussed and interpreted known and potential causes of short- and long-term land-use trends based on agricultural and weather data; farm …

Book Review: Aboriginal Oral Traditions: Theory, Practice, Ethics Edited By Renée Hulan And Renate Eigenbrod, Maureen Simpkins

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

This collection of essays acknowledges and celebrates Aboriginal oral traditions in contemporary Aboriginal communities. Furthermore, many of these articles also tackle issues of appropriation, oral tradition in the courts, the effects of intellectual property rights, and the electronic media while drawing on the experience of Aboriginal community members themselves. In the cases and examples cited, the theory is not separated from practice, which helps ground the articles in current realities and pushes ethical discussions in empowering directions.

These essays are the result of a conference held in 2005 inspired by the archived work of Silas T. Rand, a missionary who …

A Taxonomic Study Of Populations Of Tiger Beetles In The Cicindela Longilabris Complex From The Black Hills Of South Dakota, Stephen M. Spomer

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Three phenotypes within the Cicindela longilabris complex are present in the vicinity of the Black Hills in South Dakota: Laurent’s boreal long-lipped tiger beetle, Cicindela longilabris laurentii; the prairie long-lipped tiger beetle, Cicindela nebraskana; and a third phenotype that shares characteristics of both species. By comparing morphological and ecological characteristics between these three phenotypes, I was able to separate C. longilabris and C. nebraskana using ventral and proepisternal color, presence or absence of a middle band on the elytra, elytral luster, labral width:length ratio, and hind tarsal length. Somewhat less useful characters were labral color and total length. The …

Book Review Of Imagining Head-Smashed-In: Aboriginal Buffalo Hunting On The Northern Plains By Jack W. Brink, David Hurst Thomas

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Jack Brink has written an important and engaging book, his personal tribute to the Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump in southern Alberta, Canada. This is an easy-going, almost conversational narrative, but it’s easy to detect the author’s passion and the solid science that lies behind his simple words.

Imagining Head-Smashed-In boasts a remarkably broad and well-crafted table of contents. Brink begins with an overview of Head-Smashed-In, patiently explaining to professional and lay reader alike why this particular archaeological site should command our attention. As an admitted zealot, he doesn’t shy away from occasional hyperbole: “If hunters of the Plains were engaged in …

Book Review: Battles Of The Red River War: Archeological Perspectives On The Indian Campaign Of 1874 By J. Brett Cruse, With Contributions By Martha Doty Freeman And Douglas D. Scott, Thomas W. Kavanagh

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

The Red River War of 1874-75—also known as the Buffalo War after its principal cause, the invasion of the Southern Plains by non-Indian buffalo hunters—was the final phase in the military subjugation of the Comanches, Kiowas, and Southern Arapahos and Cheyennes. This book examines six of the 20-some battlefields and skirmish sites; as most of those sites are on private property, the selection of which sites to examine was based as much on access as on importance.

The book is divided into 12 chapters of varying lengths. Following a short introduction, chapter 2 gives a superficial historical overview of the …

Book Review: Sharing Our Stories Of Survival: Native Women Surviving Violence Edited By Sarah Deer, Bonnie Clairmont, Carrie A. Martell, And Maureen L. White Eagle, Roe Bubar

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Sharing our Stories of Survival is a heartbreaking and compelling presentation of Native women surviving violence. The text is a timely collaborative offering of essays and poetry, given the international attention on human rights and violence plaguing Indigenous women. Its appeal, as Tillie Blackbear says, is the spirit in which the book was written, with “survivors at the center of the analysis.” There are a multitude of writers, yet it is the voices of Native women and survivors that compel us to consider the circumstances out of which the volume arose and for what purpose is was meant. Native women …

Book Review: American Indian And The Law By N. Bruce Duthu, David E. Wilkins

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

“. . . [T]he question is whether the law ought to be praised or cursed for what it has done to the Indian.” This was the seminal and troubling question raised by Petra Shattuck and Jill Norgren in their well-constructed book Partial Justice: Federal Indian Law in a Liberal Constitutional System in 1991. It is a question that has bedeviled Native peoples and non-Natives for decades.

N. Bruce Duthu is the latest academic to weigh in on this contentious debate. Drawing on a wealth of historical, political, and especially legal data, Duthu charts a balanced course through the uneven ground …

Book Review: The Land Where The Sky Begins: North America’S Endangered Tall Grass Prairie And Aspen Parkland Photography By Dennis Fast. Text By Barbara Huck, Nicola Koper

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

The Land Where the Sky Begins is a small coffee-table book, elegantly illustrated with photographs and a few drawings of the critically endangered tallgrass prairie, and the more extensive neighboring aspen parkland. It covers, in surprising detail given its diminutive size, the evolution of grasslands and aspen parkland and describes, primarily by season, a number of typical plant and animal species that inhabit these systems.

The photographs are absolutely exquisite and far more than simply a backdrop to the lyrical text. They are really responsible for developing the images of the complex habitats described. The photos are beautifully composed and …

Book Review: High Plains Horticulture: A History By John F. Freeman, Dale E. Herman

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

High Plains Horticulture is an outstanding historical review of the amazing challenges and environmental constraints homesteaders, early settlers, and visionary plantsmen faced head on in their noble efforts to establish horticultural pursuits in the High Plains. Its historical documentation is noteworthy, its author’s treatment commendable. Anyone reading this book will gain renewed respect for the sheer grit, patience, endurance, passion, and leadership sacrificially offered by early plantsmen, horticulturists, and community pioneers, including early horticultural society and governmental leaders.

The text describes early vegetable- and fruit-growing efforts and clearly paints the definitive, yet intangible, role horticulture plays, in all its facets, …

Book Review: The History Of Nebraska Law Edited By Alan G. Gless. Foreword By John V. Hendry, Ann C. Kitchel

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

More an anthology than a systematic history, The History of Nebraska Law represents a significant contribution to the legal history of the state. Editor, author, and judge Alan G. Gless compiles a series of legal history vignettes that do well to illustrate the unique development of Nebraska law. Each chapter, written by a different author, focuses on a single event, person, or institution that influenced the development of the law and the legal profession in Nebraska.

The subjects are as varied as they are fascinating. The book begins with a lively account of the contentious process involved in ratifying a …

Book Review: Genetic Glass Ceilings: Transgenics For Crop Diversity By Jonathan Gressel, George Acquaah

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

In what is destined to become a classic, Jonathan Grassel’s Genetic Glass Ceiling: Transgenics for Crop Diversity is a carefully crafted book that is firmly rooted in science, engaging and thought-provoking, very bold in its assertions, and yet not overly alarming. Throughout, its author challenges his readers to think outside the box. Cognizant of the fact that genetic engineering as a tool in the plant breeder’s toolkit has its ardent proponents as well as detractors, Grassel, who obviously belongs to the former camp, devotes the first nine chapters to a thorough review of the science, showing how plant breeders are …

Book Review: Remaking The North American Food System: Strategies For Sustainability Edited By C. Clare Hinrichs And Thomas A. Lyson, Patricia Allen

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Today’s food system is in need of remaking, to be sure. There is a sense that we have lost our way, as food-related health problems, environmental destruction, and food insecurity call into question the very premises of our contemporary food system. Remaking the North American Food System provides an excellent inventory and assessment of the ways in which people are working to solve these problems in different places and within different modalities. It draws on the vast experience of a number of the key experts in the world of alternative food systems, many of whom are pioneers in the field. …

Annual Index

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Aboriginal Oral Traditions: Theory, Practice, Ethics, edited by Renée Hulan and Renate Eigenbrod, reviewed by Maureen Simpkins, 19:242

“Abundance and Distribution of Lesser Snow and Ross’s Geese in the Rainwater Basin and Central Platte River Valley of Nebraska,” Mark P. Vrtiska and Susan Sullivan, 19:147

Acquaah, George. book review by, 19:256

Adams, Clark E., and John K. Thomas. Texas Rattlesnake Round­ups, reviewed by Carl J. Franklin, 19:259

The Alberta Supreme Court at 100: History & Authority, edited by Jonathan Swainger, reviewed by James Muir, 19:138

Allen, C.R. book review by, 19:258

Allen, Patricia. book review by, 19:255

The …

Book Review: Plains Apache Ethnobotany, Aaron M. Lampman

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Prior to resettlement and assimilation, Plains Apaches had sophisticated knowledge of the plants that sustained their way of life in the Great Plains. This book by Julia A. Jordan is the only extensive work that documents Plains Apache ethnobotanical knowledge. Jordan’s research relies on interviews with six elders who experienced traditional plant use during a time of cultural transition from the 1890s to the 1960s. The book is divided into two parts, with the first part focused on methods, history, and plant conceptualization, the second on plant names, descriptions, and cultural use. The data collected from these elders represent an …

Predicting Lesser Scaup Wetland Use During Spring Migration In Eastern South Dakota, Sharon N. Kahara, Steven R. Chipps

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

The relative influence of physical, chemical, and biotic wetland characteristics on wetland use by spring migrating lesser scaup (Aythya affinis [Eyton]; hereafter “scaup”) is not well understood. We compared characteristics of used and unused wetlands in eastern South Dakota. Used wetlands were larger (>2 ha; P = 0.05), with higher amphipod densities (>500 individuals m^-2; P = 0.01) and higher chlorophyll-a concentrations (>0.2; P < 0.05). These wetlands had lower ionic conductivity (1.8 mS; P = 0.02), lower nitrates (1.0 ppm; P = 0.01), lower submerged aquatic vegetation density (P < 0.01), and lower fine sediment proportions (≤150 μm grain size; P < 0.01). Wetland use was best described by amphipod and submerged aquatic vegetation densities. The predictive model explained 50.4% of the variation in scaup use in a reserve dataset. Thresholds of tolerance by amphipods in relation to wetland habitats in the upper Midwest should be investigated further as indicators of a broader range of water and habitat quality characteristics for scaup.

Book Review: Grappling With Demon Rum: The Cultural Struggle Over Liquor In Early Oklahoma By James E. Klein, Davis D. Joyce

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

When asked to review this book for Great Plains Research, the first thought to cross my mind was of Jimmie Lewis Franklin’s Born Sober: Prohibition in Oklahoma, 1907-1959, for Franklin set a high standard on the subject of prohibition in Oklahoma with that 1971 work. Indeed, Franklin, now retired from Vanderbilt University, provided one of the endorsements for the dust jacket of James E. Klein’s work, calling it “An engaging study of the intense battle over liquor in the early years of the Sooner state. In a careful and sophisticated analysis Klein shows that tensions over prohibition arose …

Analysis Of Aquifer Depletion Criteria With Implications For Groundwater Management, Jesse T. Korus, Mark E. Burbach

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Groundwater is critical to many aspects of life on the Great Plains. Overdevelopment of this resource can have serious social, economic, and environmental consequences. Aquifer depletion criteria are used in many areas of the Great Plains to implement management responses and limit groundwater development. This study addresses groundwater-level triggers and depletion limits—criteria commonly used in Nebraska—within the context of interconnected ground- and surface-water systems. Generic models are used to calculate transient water budgets in three hypothetical systems given depletion limits of 5%, 10%, 15%, and 25%. In each simulation, the source of water to the wells changes from aquifer depletion …

Book Review: Ecology Of The Shortgrass Steppe: A Long-Term Perspective Edited By William Lauenroth And Ingrid C. Burke, Richard K. Sutton

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

Ecology of the Shortgrass Steppe represents the newest in a series of books detailing the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites found throughout the United States. The book’s editors, associated with the on-going interdisciplinary research at the Central Plains Experimental Range and nearby Pawnee National Grasslands, bring 40 years of work to understanding this unique ecosystem.

The book proceeds from general overview chapters about the context, climate, soils, and plant community of what the editors call the shortgrass steppe (shortgrass prairie) to more detailed chapter reviews of its disturbance regime, faunal communities, primary production, organic and gas exchanges, grazing, and finally …

Book Review: Food And The Mid-Level Farm: Renewing An Agriculture Of The Middle Edited By Thomas A. Lyson, G.W. Stevenson, And Rick Welsh, Richard A. Levins

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences

The central question of Food and the Mid-Level Farm is both complex and fascinating: how can we renew an agriculture of the middle? To a large degree, the answer lies with what we think an “agriculture of the middle” is.

For decades, we have heard of a trend toward “bimodal agriculture” in which there are very many small farms, relatively few giant corporate operations, and not much in the middle. Most discussions of this “middle” go no farther than the scale of the operation, that is, the acreage, number of animals, and that sort of thing. The approach here moves …