Webblog

We once again talked how not only does the environment and culture form a region, but it's the stories from the past that also play a very pivotal role. Stories of the past can be scene in films. For example, The Plow that Broke the Plains was filmed in 1936 in the midst of the Dust Bowl on the Great Plains. I found it truly amazing that this period of high winds and heat blew over 400,000,000 acres of topsoil off of the landscape. This film's theme was based on "high winds and sun, a country without rivers and little rain," this was the grassland region of the plains that endured the Dust Bowl. Once the war hit, the plains were transformed into endless fields of plowed soil planted with wheat to help "win the war". This exhausted the land, and then came no moisture; finally the wind started to blow. In 1936, the Federal Government attempted to lure people back into the plains with the resettlement program, by re-educating them and giving them a new opportunity. The purpose of the film was based around the idea of capitalism spreading across the nation.
The second film answered my main question regarding the first film. Was there any use of underground water sources? Why didn’t people survive off of that? Obviously, with no precipitation and dry conditions the underground aquifers have difficulty re-charging, but were people on the plains attempting to dig their existing wells deeper to find that water? In the film, "Rain for the Earth", farmers were adapting to the environmental conditions via dams to savor the limited water. I found it very appropriate that the film mentioned how sheep (diversity) got the plains' folk through the hard times. They grazed about everything and used very little water. Finally, is there a future in my former prairie town? Probably not with the urbanization increase and the disappearance of small farms and small town elevators, the era of small town ND based around agriculture is diminishing.