Re-Bisoning the West. Kurt Repanshek

are similar in appearance, though the plains bison are a bit smaller and stockier with thick “chaps” of hair down their forelegs. The taller, more angular wood bison carry a more square hump, have a darker pelage, and tend to have straighter, less frizzy hair on their heads. While Yellowstone is home to the largest wild herd of plains bison, Canada’s Wood Buffalo National Park claims that distinction for wood bison. But outside of national parks and some state parks, the loss of grasslands to settlement and agriculture has affected many of these species. Bison, of course, have lost vast landscapes they once roamed at will. So, too, have black-footed ferrets, small, slinky, carnivorous cousins of weasels, that were thought extinct until 1981. That’s when a ranch dog in Meeteetse, Wyoming, trotted home with one in its mouth, happy but ignorant of the significance of its catch. An ambitious captive breeding program has boosted their numbers. And yet, while recovering ferret colonies today can be found in Badlands and Wind Cave national parks in South Dakota, the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation and the UL Bend National Wildlife Refuge in Montana, and more than a dozen other locations in the Plains states, they remain endangered as a species.

      The examples of negatively affected species go on. The US Fish and Wildlife Service considers swift fox populations to be ample, but their natural habitat on the Plains has been cut by about 60 percent due to growth of the human footprint.³⁵ Also struggling to survive against this loss of room is another Great Plains native, the mountain plover. The transformation of grasslands into industrial agricultural plots and asphalt rectangles surrounding big box stores has plovers heading toward threatened species status, something their East Coast and Great Lakes relatives already have. These diminutive birds are known to some as “prairie ghosts,” as their dusky coloration helps them blend almost seamlessly into the landscape. The name could be prophetic if their habitat continues to shrink.

      As land has gone into agricultural production, or been cleared for other development, non-native bird species in the Plains have increased in number as the native vegetation that many species evolved with has been lost. Ring-necked pheasants, gray partridges, and house sparrows are among the invasive species competing with native species.³⁶ But if we could give bison a larger slice of the public landscape, some of these other species just might expand, as well. Because bison utilize the landscape differently than cattle—moving more often, not lingering around water sources, favoring a different vegetative menu—native vegetation would gain an ally against invasive species, riparian areas wouldn’t be so trampled, and the prairie not so heavily grazed. Wildfires, more likely in a warmer, drier climate, might not be as destructive on the Plains thanks to the vegetative patchwork left by bison.

      Though the Great Plains is defined by prairie and sometimes referred to as the Great American Desert, it is an arid but not a waterless region. The Missouri and Platte rivers and their tributaries funnel snowmelt through the Plains. For early nineteenth-century explorers, these rivers provided access to the unknown West as they traveled by canoe, keelboat, and pirogue. These waters also provided the explorers’ larder, as lakes, oxbows, and kettle ponds lured deer, elk, and bison, as well as mallards, pintails, teal, and Canada geese, among other species. Beavers were the engineers of the water world of the Plains. Their dams affected water flows, created ponds that in turn became lush riparian areas, and even “managed” woodlands to a certain extent by chewing downing trees.

      Considering their size, horns, demeanor, and long, indomitable presence on the continent, it’s understandable that bison for so long have been held in esteem. We marvel at their long history, how their very being exudes the concept of wildness in today’s over-populated and developed world, their encapsulation of raw power. They appeared on the back of the Indian Head nickel that was minted from 1913 to 1938, became a symbol of the Interior Department in 1917, and have been part of the National Park Service arrowhead emblem since 1952 because of bison’s reflection of conservation. They were designated the national mammal of the United States in May 2016. But admiration for bison goes much further back. They played a key role in nourishing civilizations, literally and figuratively. For more than ten thousand years they were a veritable cupboard for Paleo-Indians, Native Americans, and settlers, providing food, clothing, and shelter. At day’s end, Native Americans would return to tepees made with bison hides, use bison robes as insulating carpets and as blankets, and cook meals in massive bison stomachs. They and mountain men alike would use bison sinews for thread; turn horns into goblets, powder horns, and ladles; and reduce hooves through boiling into glue for attaching arrow points to shafts. Bison fur—fine, insulating hairs close to the body covered by more coarse outer hairs that provided a layer of protection against rain and snow—filled pillows, was woven into ropes, and adorned headdresses. For some, it even found new life as human hairpieces.³⁷ The coarser outer hairs also were used to fashion horse halters. Not overlooked were bison tails, which became fly swatters.³⁸ Portions of hide served as saddle blankets, were fashioned into moccasins as well as drums, and used as palettes. Bison brains tanned these hides, while hearts became pouches. The animals’ manure, plopped down as patties on the prairie, when dried became fuel for fires when wood was not available.

      Meat was not just a given, it was survival and a daily meal for many native cultures.³⁹ That which wasn’t to be eaten promptly had to be cured, and that meant hours carving thin strips from the carcasses to hang in the sun. This work was done by the women, who also spent hours fashioning tools and utensils from bison bones, and more time adding artistic flare to both clothing and tepees.⁴⁰ Sections of the hide were fashioned into “parfleches,” early storage trunks. In North Dakota, I gazed at one of these handsomely decorated bags that was hanging from the roof of an earth lodge at Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site. Geometric designs painted in vivid reds, blues, oranges, and whites covered the hide. These nineteenth-century suitcases safely stored clothes, dried foods, and trade items. In an effort to keep the parfleches safe from rodents and any rain that might leak through the lodge ceiling, rawhide swatches were threaded onto the cord that suspended the bags.⁴¹ Two centuries ago, George Catlin saw parfleches and more in person. Raised in the heart of New York State on the family farm, he set out in life to follow in the footsteps of his father, a successful attorney. But his passion to paint prompted Catlin to shelve his law books and take up brush and palette with a studio in Philadelphia. Though he initially concentrated on small portraits, one day he was awestruck by a delegation of Native Americans that passed through Philadelphia on their way to Washington, DC.

      He recalled this incident in Letters and Notes on the North American Indians:

      A delegation of some ten or fifteen noble and dignified-looking Indians, from the wilds of the ‘Far West,’ suddenly arrived in the city, arrayed in all their classic beauty—with shield and helmet—with tunic and manteau—tinted and tasseled off, exactly for the painter’s palette. In silent and stoic dignity, these lords of the forest strutted about the city for a few days, wrapped in their pictorial robes, with their brows plumed with the quills of the war-eagle.… Man, in the simplicity and loftiness of his nature, unrestrained and unfettered by disguises of art, is surely the most beautiful model for the painter—and the country from which he hails is unquestionably the best study or school of the arts in the world … and the history and customs of such a people, preserved by pictorial illustrations, are themes worthy the lifetime of one man, and nothing short of the loss of my life shall prevent me from visiting their country, and becoming their historian.

      Catlin let go of miniatures and instead worked on detailing the history of Native Americans by traveling the West.

      From 1832 to ’37 Catlin made forays into the West and Midwest, visiting dozens of tribes to record their lives on canvas. He spent time with the Blackfoot, Crow, Cree, Sioux, Mandan, Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Osage, Chippewa, Sauk, and Fox. The artist produced more than three hundred portraits during his journeys, as well as a couple hundred related paintings. He marveled at the native languages, noting at one point that the Crow and Blackfeet speak completely different languages, that the Dakotas have a different language than the Mandans. His portraits of two Mandan chiefs on the Upper Missouri so impressed the chiefs that they named Catlin Teh-o-pe-nee Wash-ee, or medicine white man. Catlin’s words and paintings captured the Great Plains in its pre-development rawness and magnificence before settlers swept over it.

      “In looking back from this bluff, towards the West,