Actor Barry Corbin is host and narrator of Fate of the Plains, a new Nebraska ETV documentary about the struggle to survive on America's last frontier. The special will be broadcast at 9 p.m. Nov. 1 and will be repeated at 11 a.m. Nov. 19. The program also will air at 8 p.m. Nov. 18 on EduCable stations.

Spirit of the Buffalo Infuses 'Fate of the Plains'

Producer Learns Lessons From the Hunt

By Christine Lesiak, UNL Television

I saw my first buffalo in the 1950s when I was 12 years old. My parents piled all six of us rowdy kids into a station wagon and we headed west. I remember how the air turned light and dry somewhere in the middle of Nebraska. Though I didn't realize it at the time, we had entered the Great Plains.

At a tourist stop somewhere on the Plains, I saw a real buffalo. It was standing alone, behind a fence. Nearby was a brightly decorated cement teepee. I posed for a picture there in my brand-new cowboy hat. We drove on, but I couldn't forget that buffalo. It seemed so pathetic and lonely. To me it was a symbol of a way of life that had vanished forever.

Now on the Great Plains, the buffalo are returning. That story is at the heart of a documentary I recently produced for Nebraska ETV called Fate of the Plains. The original idea for the program was sparked by an outrageous proposal that came from a pair of New Jersey professors, Frank and Deborah Popper. The Poppers had studied the declining population of the Great Plains and proposed that we turn huge chunks of the Plains into a national park -- complete with buffalo and tourists. They called it the Buffalo Commons.

Plains people were outraged at the proposal. A cowpuncher in West Texas told us that he'd lived on the Plains all his life -- if the government wanted him to leave they'd have to pull him out feet first. At a cafe in North Dakota a group of businessmen told us, "This is the breadbasket of the United States! Why would you want to give it back to a bunch of buffalo!" But everywhere we went, we saw small herds of buffalo grazing on private land. We talked to ranchers who were turning from cattle to buffalo. And I realized that it wasn't the idea of buffalo that bothered Plains people. It was the idea of outsiders telling them what to do.

But there's another group of Plains people who see the return of the buffalo as key to their own survival. On the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota we met Lakota Indian rancher Fred DuBray. Fred manages 500 head of bison for his tribe. He believes that the fate of his people is tied to the fate of the buffalo. A Tatanka (the Sioux word for buffalo) returns, the spirit and culture of the people are renewed. Fred told us this while leaning against his pickup on a hot June day, surrounded by a herd of friendly bison. They rubbed up against our van, tried to chew on our cables and punctuated our conversation with their grunts.

And then Fred invited us to witness a modern-day buffalo hunt. We arrived at dawn, along with carloads of men, women and children. A Lakota teacher had brought her students. Medicine man Harry Charger came with his lance, his shield -- and a sense of humor that added a playful note to the seriousness of the occasion. Charger admitted he'd never seen a traditional buffalo hunt, but he'd heard countless stories of how it was -- the thundering of hooves, the dust and the sheer fun of it. On a hillside sheltered from the wind, he performed a ceremony to ready the spirit of the people and the buffalo. He burned sweet grass and we all breathed the smoke. He passed the pipe. He smiled as he told us that Indians believe in reincarnation. If we do the ceremony right, he said, the spirit of the slain buffalo will return.

We rode in pickups to the open prairie where the herd grazed. It was Fred's job to kill the chosen buffalo. He drove into the peacefully grazing herd, stepped from the pickup and killed a young bull instantly with one shot from his high-powered rifle. Later, he told us that this is the only part of his work he dislikes. To him, it always feels like a betrayal.

During the next two hours, we saw a remarkable thing. In the middle of the prairie, under the hot summer sun, men and women expertly butchered the buffalo. The young people watched, listened and learned. Harry shared a piece of raw liver with our cameraman, Terry Hatch. When Fred sliced open one of the buffalo's two stomachs, out came nothing but grass in the most intense shade of green I've ever seen. It reminded me of what Mari Sandoz once said -- that no animal was better adjusted to its environment that the buffalo to the Plains.

Back at Fred's house we ate buffalo burgers. Susan Thompson, our vegetarian audio engineer, ventured a taste and pronounced it good. And then we packed up our gear and headed back home, to Nebraska. We had captured the scene on videotape. But, more importantly, we had seen it with our own eyes and would remember the experience forever in our hearts.

New Nebraska ETV Documentary Looks at American's Great Plains Region

The Great Plains make up one-fifth of the continental United States, but contains only 2 percent of its population. Stretching from Mexico into Canada, spanning the center of the United States from the 100th meridian to the Rockies, the Great Plains was the last region of the country to be settled. These days, it takes more land to make a living on the Plains. But there's hope . . . and it lies in the visions of the people who live there.

A new Nebraska ETV Network documentary, Fate of the Plains, looks at the future of this vast region and its people, from the perspectives of ranchers, farmers, Native Americans, historians . . . and a pair of New Jersey academics who've proposed giving the Plains back to the buffalo. The special will be broadcast 9 p.m. Nov. 1 and 11 a.m. Nov. 19 on all Nebraska ETV Network stations.

Fate of the Plains takes viewers down the least traveled roads in America, looking for the future of the Plains Indians who are bringing back the buffalo, cowboys who haven't forgotten the dream of a free and open land and pioneers inventing new ways to survive on America's last frontier. Residents of Western Nebraska, the prairies of South Dakota and Kansas and the "staked plains" of West Texas all live in the region known as the Great Plains, and each of them has a story to tell, about their past and their plans for the future.

Actor Barry Corbin of Northern Exposure fame hosts and narrates Fate of the Plains.

Future of Nebraska National Forest Examined on 'Statewide'

Some hard choices face Nebraska about the future of the century-old Nebraska National Forest near Halsey. As the hand-planted pine grove reaches the end of its natural life span, federal forestry officials will be reviewing whether the land should be used primarily for recreation, for ranching, as a wildlife preserve, or even for logging. In the coming months the public will be asked for their opinion.

Statewide correspondent Bill Kelly speaks with rangers and ranchers about the factors affecting Halsey's future on the "Perspective" segment of this week's episode of Statewide, the Nebraska ETV Network's weekly news series. The program airs at 8 p.m. Nov. 3 and repeats at 7 p.m. Nov. 4 and 1:30 p.m. Nov. 5.

Fall Seminar Series Theme Highlights Grassland Importance

Promoting Nebraska's grasslands and grasses is the theme of a fall seminar series sponsored by the year-old UNL Center for Grassland Studies.

"The center was created to give more visibility to the importance of grasses and grassland in Nebraska," said Martin Massengale, center director.

Grasslands cover 50 to 60 percent of Nebraska's land surface, Massengale said. They support a strong livestock industry, provide shelter and food for wildlife, prevent soil erosion, and provide the basis for home lawns and leisure activity.

The seminars are at the East Union and cover a wide range of topics from forages to turf to wildlife conservation.

The seminars, offered every Monday at 3:30 p.m. follow:

• Nov. 6, "Breeding Improved Forage Grasses for the Central Great Plains," by Ken Vogel, UNL professor of agronomy.
• Nov. 13, "Buffalograss Establishment and Cultural Practices," by Kevin Frank, horticulture graduate student at UNL.
• Nov. 20, "The Impact of the National Turf Evaluation Program (NTEP) on the Grass Industry," by Bob Shearman, UNL professor of horticulture and executive director of NTEP.
• Nov. 27, "Grass Seedling Growth and Establishment," by Lowell Moser, UNL professor of agronomy.
• Dec. 4, "Ruminant Grazing Influences on Prairie Restoration," by John Ortmann, agronomy graduate student at UNL.

The seminar series is open to anyone and is expected to be a regular fall event.

For more information contact Pam Murray at the Center for Grassland Studies, 222 Keim Hall, 2-4101; fax 2-4104; e-mail cgls001@unlvm.unl.edu

For questions regarding these Scarlet pages, contact:
dtaurins@unlinfo.unl.edu
(402) 472-8518, Fax: (402) 472-7825