Dorothy's Life and Work

Saving the Prairie

2009-07-05T15:21:00.000-07:00

I am honored to be on the National Council of the American Prairie Foundation (APF), which is dedicated to preserving the American prairie in central Montana, between the town of Malta in the north and the Missouri River to the south. Its goal is creation of a prairie-based wildlife preserve that will benefit not only wildlife but also local economies and will enable visitors to experience the wild prairie in all its beauty and diversity. In early October, people associated with the Foundation were able to visit the latest property added to the protected prairie, the first piece of APF land that fronts on the Missouri River.
We traveled there by jet boat, as that's the easiest way to get there, as this area is sparsely settled, with narrow, rutted dirt roads. As I stepped ashore onto this old homestead, with its deteriorating buildings and empty corrals, I felt a wonderful sense of possibility for the future of this place. Volunteers would clean it up, wildlife would wander down to the water to drink, people would come to enjoy the riverfront.
The native shortgrass prairie is an impressive and actually quite varied landscape with hills, creeks, prairie dog towns, and miles and miles of wildflower-strewn grassland. Abundant wildlife such as pronghorn, elk, and coyotes live there, and APF has acquired a herd of pure American bison, with no cattle genes mixed in, as there are in many bison herds.
After visiting the new property, we enjoyed a picnic in the nearby Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge, where impressive bull elk were courting the elk cows as they grazed among old cottonwood trees along the river. We are hopeful that all these lands--the wildlife refuges, parks, ranches with conservation easements, and other protected properties will become linked together to create an "American Serengeti," a wildlife preserve that protects not only the wildlife but also honors the human history of the area with restored buildings such as a one-room schoolhouse, a homestead cabin, and ranch buildings.

September at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center and Yellowstone

2009-07-03T13:11:00.000-07:00

I spent two weeks in September, 2008, at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming, mostly doing library research for my book on Indians and horses. The McCracken Library there has a treasure trove of memoirs, photos, and books old and new about the west, including many resources for my book. I rented a little house and spent most of my time pouring over books and photos in the library.
Cody is close to Yellowstone National Park, one of my favorite places, and I managed spend my weekends there. Usually, I focus on the Lamar Valley, where I'm most likely to see wolves, but this time I also hiked in the southeastern area of the park, where I was lucky enough to encounter these curious pikas along the trail.
The area around Cody is also great for hiking and biking, as the town has many nearby trails and is surrounded by mountains. I developed a fondness for the town's many waterfront trails, where I found these lovely fall wildflowers blooming. As you can see, Cody is quite a dry, desertlike place.
The Wild Bill Historical Center surprised me--I had imagined it as a fluffy touristy sort of place, but I was wrong. The Center has wonderful museums full of interesting information and artifacts, from the largest collection of firearms in the United States to a beautiful Plains Indian Museum and another museum filled with the art of important western painters, as well as one celebrating the life of Buffalo Bill Cody, an important figure in the history of the "Wild West," perhaps the most influential of all in forming the American vision of life in the Old West.

Catching up and Crow Fair

2009-07-01T09:06:00.000-07:00

I let time get away from me and neglected my blog, but after a very busy year, I'm back to it again. I will spend the next days getting caught up on what I've been doing, as I think much is of interest to others.
This summer, I'm finishing the manuscript for a book about Indians and horses, and my research for that book has taken me to special places in Montana, in books, and in my mind and spirit. For thousands of years, Plains Indians had no horses. When the Spanish came in the late 1500s, they brought horses with them, and by about 1750, all the Plains Indians had them, revolutionizing their cultures.
My first journey for this book was to Crow Agency, in southeastern Montana, for the annual August Crow Fair, nicknamed "The Teepee Capital of the World" because of the more than 1,000 teepees pitched there for the celebration. Indians from all over the U.S. and Canada come to participate in the rodeo and races and to socialize, and Crow families gather to catch up with their loved ones. Every morning the Crow people parade proudly through the camp, dressed in their finest outfits, riding their beautiful horses. It's a delightful occasion, and an opportunity to experience how this tribe has maintained its close relationship to horses despite all the horrors its people suffered as European Americans took over the prairies. My favorite part of the experience was watching the young people riding through camp bareback and hanging out on their horses around the rodeo grounds.

Visiting Schools

2008-05-01T13:22:00.000-07:00

I recently visited three schools in Granite Bay, near Sacramento, CA. Speaking to children about being an author and about the adventures my work takes me on is always a great pleasure. The enthusiasm I see in the students about nature and animals gives me hope that they will help keep our planet healthy enough that we can continue to share it with the wild world.

I stayed at a B&B in the countryside. There, on the outskirts of a major city, I saw springtime nature thriving, with tadpoles in the ponds, butterflies in the air, and birds like this egret fishing. I felt like my own childhood self again, exploring nature and being delightfully surprised by what I found. It was wonderful to see nature alive and well both in the outdoors and in the spirits of the children in the schools. I hope that the children, too, get opportunities to go outside and explore, to make their own discoveries about the wild world that shares their world.

2008-03-19T10:57:00.000-07:00

It's been too long since I've added to my blog. A few days after writing my last post, I watched the morning unfold from my bedroom window--yes, I do have this view!--and realized that winter DOES have color at times, even beautiful magical color. Now we're into the beginnings of springtime, with returning geese, ducks, and songbirds. A pair of blue birds has already claimed the nestbox on the meadow near our road, and small flocks of birds rise up from the trees and speed their way to another perch. Soon, the first shoots of daffodils and tulips will peek out from the soil and I will know I can look forward to the blooms of spring.

The importance of color

2007-12-16T10:05:00.000-08:00

Here I am, back in my home in Montana, happy to be back, but missing color in my environment. I look out my window and see the snow white meadow, with bunches of dead tan grass sticking up through the snow, and the blackish green ponderosa pines scattered about and forming the forest on the mountain. Instead of showing you a photo of this scene, I'm using a photo from our time in Hawaii, land of gorgeous color. Between sunsets like this one and the tropical flowers that blaze in gold, orange, cerise, and crimson, the island is awash in color. My love of color is one reason I've taken up watercolor painting as a hobby and been attracted to painting Hawaiian flowers. While we were there, I didn't lift a brush, except to paint the cabinet interiors of our condo. But now that I'm here, I am eager to paint again, maybe to conpensate for the lack of color in my environment.

Beautiful Hawaii

2007-11-13T15:00:00.000-08:00

We're now at our condo on the beautiful Kona coast on the Big Island of Hawaii, right on the oceanfront, where we can watch surfers, green sea turtles, and spinner dolfins every day. What luxury! We rent the condo out most of the time but reserve the month of November for ourselves. I see Hawaii as a place of special beauty--the flowers, the music and dance, and always the ocean. Then there's the drama of the volcano, Kilauea, which has been active now for about 20 years. While I'm here, I've been giving workshops and talks, too, so it's not all relaxation!

More travels

2007-10-27T21:26:00.000-07:00

A long time has passed since my last posting. I was on the road from mid-October, first for the wonderful Author Festival in Eureka, CA, where I spoke to children about my adventures with and books about wolves at Cutten Elementary School and Pacific View Charter School. The students were great! I also enjoyed seeing writer friends and making new friends and seeing the beautiful redwoods.
The volunteers who run the Festival are great--well organized and enthusiastic. I've been part of the Festival now for many years, and I always look forward to the next time. It's important for children to meet authors. The names on book covers don't mean much, unless the children can see that they are actual real people, with real lives. Meeting authors sparks interest in books and in reading, which is so important, and more difficult to promote to kids in this highly visual age.

Creative Break

2007-09-17T10:00:00.000-07:00

I've just received the first proofs for my book, "When the Wolves Returned: Restoring Nature's Balance in Yellowstone," which will be published by Walker this spring--it looks beautiful, loaded with photos by Dan Hartman and his daughter, Cassie. Here's the image that will appear on the dust jacket:

This book is my last contracted book. I've been taking a long break from book contracts and have only done short pieces for various venues for the last 18 months. I'm banking on this being a good way to revive my enthusiasm for writing, and it seems to be happening now, with a few ideas percolating. Significant rain finally came yesterday, clearing away smoke and worry, which also helps.

Smoke and Heat

2007-08-01T13:45:00.000-07:00

With the beginning of a new month, the figures are out about July here in Missoula, Montana--hottest July ever, 11 days at or above 100, new all time high of 107, and so forth, all accompanied by 0.03 inches of rain, when 1.04 inches is normal. I don't see how anyone can doubt climate change or deny that humans have something to do with the speed at which this is occurring. Sure, the climate has changed often in geological history, but now it's happening at an accelerated rate, way too fast for nature or humans to adapt. For example, when we moved to Montana in 1972, forest fires anywhere within the area were very rare. Now they are an annual occurrence. I'd be interested to know what other people who have lived in one place for a long time have experienced as changes in recent years.

Scotland and more

2007-07-21T17:06:00.000-07:00

In April, my husband, Greg, and I traveled to Scotland and spent most of the time with our friend, Jocelyn, who was there on an academic exchange program. The house she rented was in Dundee, a perfect place as headquarters for traveling around the country. After we came home, I wrote an article for our local paper, The Missoulian, about the castles we visited. You can see it at http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2007/07/19/territory/ter20a.txt.
While I loved visiting a new country, I had the same feeling there as I've experienced in continental Europe--people have been there so long and are so densely crammed into the landscape that they can't be escaped. The countryside is beautiful, but everywhere is the mark of humanity--roads, agricultural lands, forestry plots--where we went, nothing wild and natural is left, except on the barren, almost treeless island of Skye. I think I've become delightfully spoiled living in western Montana, where so much land is public and is wild and free, with bears, coyotes, cougars, and even wolves living nearby.

Connecting with Nature

2007-07-19T14:00:00.000-07:00

I found Larry's comment on my post "Life's Surprises" very wise. When I was young, I spent most of my time out-of-doors, chasing butterflies and exploring the woods. I developed a deep connection with nature, which I have done my best to express through my work. I believe children have a natural attraction to nature, especially to animals, and that they need to be able to experience the natural world first hand. Sadly, most children nowadays in the United States don't have this opportunity. I'm just beginning to read "Last Child in the Woods," by Richard Louv, which discusses this tragic trend. I would hope that children reading my books would respond to my love of nature by seeking out outdoor experiences for themselves. What could be more thrilling than the fox in the meadow
or the blackbird in the marsh?

Life's surprises

2007-07-18T10:47:00.000-07:00

After putting up my first post, I looked eagerly for comments and found that I already had one, and what an interesting and delightful surprise--a voice from the past, from when my husband and I were graduate students at the Friday Harbor Marine Laboratories on San Juan Island. At that time, he was expecting to spend his life as a scientist and teacher at a university. I thought I'd probably be doing the same thing, but I also wanted a family, so my expectations were less directed. Maybe I wouldn't have a dedicated scientific career, but if I got my Ph.D., I knew I wouldn't have to be working a 9 to 5 job for someone else! I knew that life was not for me.
Larry Read's comment mentions baby David--our first son came into the world while we were still students doing our Ph.D. research, so he became part of the very small year around community at the Marine Lab. My sister-in-law had given us a big banana box with handles on it, and it became David's portable bed at the lab. Luckily, he slept alot, and when he woke up hungry, Larry or one of the other students like Dan Hoffman, now retired from Bucknell, would hunt me down. Nice to have such helpful friends.
After another son, Jason, and getting our Ph.D.s, we spent a year in Detroit, then on Naples, Italy. Then Greg got a job at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. David was now 4 and Jason was 2, and I began to think about how I could use my scientific training and also be home with the boys. So many women are faced with this dilemna, and I think a lot of them don't realize it's necessarily an 'either or' choice. My solution was to use my knowledge and training in science to become a science and nature writer for children. It took awhile to find a publisher, but when I did, I began slowly, writing one book, then another two years later. We'd moved to Missoula, MT, where we still live, by then. Writing was parttime, and on my time--no one told me when I had to do anything, as I was my own boss. As the boys got older, I gradually increased my writing time so I could be both a mom AND a writer. Today, with the internet, there are more and more possibilities for women who want to raise a family and also do rewarding work, and I like to encourage women to think creatively about how to find a balance.

Starting out

2007-07-13T11:48:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm joining the 21st Century by beginning my blog. I'm a writer who has spent most of my career writing science and nature books for children, but also do travel and food writing for adults. I want to use this blog to communicate with people interested in my life and my work. so here goes.
My most recent published book is "The Buffalo and the Indians: A Shared Destiny," published by Clarion Books. My photographer, William Munoz, who took this photo, and I, have always had a special affinity for buffalo, and the relationship between these powerful animals and Plains Tribes has been going on for thousands of years. In the past, buffalo provided both physical and spiritual sustainance for the Indians. Then whites took over western North America and almost wiped out both the Indians and the buffalo. Today, many tribes are acquiring buffalo herds to help them reconnect with the natural world. This book gave us both the opportunity to get to know some wonderful tribal members and to learn more about Indian spiritual life. By the way, most Indians we know use that term to describe themselves rather than the term "Native American" which is considered correct in the general media.