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Sharp opens his book with some introduction of Whoop-up country. he is not trying to explain all of the plains but rather a certain part of the plains. The Northern plains and especially Montana and Canada. The trail its self reaches across Canada and America and to Sharp carries many interesting stories. Most centered around travel or life in Fort Benton. Stories as interesting as the ones Webb discussed in his book. That brings me to my next point. This man had to be aware of Webb. Right on page 206 last sentence is a direct response to Webb essentially calling him on his environmental determinism thesis, "Westerners, whether Canadians or Americans, built institutions only slightly influenced by the environment around them. I think Sharp was trying to shift focus from the southern plains to the northern plains since anything south of his "Whoop-up Country" receives little attention.

Again this is a regional book it talks a lot about Fort Benton and law enforcement, especially Canadian Mounties and American Federal troops. Some of the discussions on the degree of lawlessness in the frontier towns. If they were a lawless as shown in Gun smoke were there is violence in every day life, why did not the social fabric of the towns simply disintegrate? Sharp makes a good point they were no more violent than Chicago or New York and Prof. Isern points out they are less violent than the cities. Now my brother watches the History channel and has pointed out that some of the things they shoot each other over we just stupid, like loosing a game of cards. How much of this is true? How much of this is exaggerated? If I was in a cattle town and shot someone and I was a nobody would the town just live with me, or most likely run me out? Most of Sharp and class have focused on removing the myth of the Wild Wild West but I want to know what "real" (as best we can tell) events shaped these myths. If they were not, "eating a man for breakfast" were they eating on for dinner? On Fridays? The point is did violence happen enough in even one frontier town that you could be desensitized to it?