Since the last wild bison found refuge on the back of a nickel, the public image of natural Kansas has progressed from Great American Desert to dust bowl to flyover country that has been landscaped, fenced, and farmed. But look a little harder, George Frazier suggests, and you can find the last places where tenacious stretches of prairie, forest, and wetland cheat death and incubate the DNA of lost, wild America. Documenting three years spent roaming the state in search of these hidden treasures, The Last Wild Places of Kansas is Frazier's idiosyncratic and eye-opening travelogue of nature's secret holdouts in the Sunflower State.
These are places where extirpated mammalian species are making comebacks; where flying squirrels leap between centuries-old trees lit by the unearthly green glow of foxfire; where cold springs feed ancient watercress pools; where the ice moon paints the Smoky Hill with memories of the buffalo wolf and the lonesome rattle of false indigo; where the blue lid of the sky forms a vacuum seal over treeless pastel hills, orange in winter; where bluestem rises. Some are impossible to find on maps. Most are magnificently bereft of anything beneficial to 99.9 percent of modern America. True wildernesses they may not be, but at the correct angle of light, when the wind blows pollen carrying biological memories of the glaciers, these places are a crack between the worlds, portals to the lost buffalo wilderness.
En route Frazier takes us from the unexpected wilds of the Kansas City suburbs to the Cimarron National Grassland in the far southwestern corner of the state. He visits ancient springs, shares a beer with prairie dog hunters, and fails in his mission to canoe the upper Marais des Cygnes--a trip that requires permission from every landowner on the route. Along the way we encounter a host of curious characters--ranchers, farmers, Native Americans, explorers, wildlife experts, and outdoor enthusiasts--all fellow travelers in a quest to know, preserve, and share the last wild places of Kansas.
George Frazier is an author of books about the environment and wild places. He lives in Kansas with his wife and daughter. His work has appeared in Wild Earth, National Parks Magazine, and many other magazines and journals.
This was a book club book recommended by another club member. But now I can recommend it too! It was a fun natural exploration of our state. I've been to a few of the places, and am inspired to explore others (where private landowners will permit). Truthfully, if you wish to explore more of the natural parts of Kansas, I suggest you join Kansas Ornithological Society, or your local Audubon society, or one of the native plant societies or mycological societies or a hiking or kayaking club. Many of those groups will be better connected to allow you to see beauty you didn't even know this state possessed. In the time of minimal physical contact with others, this is a lovely way to explore our state.
An interesting and well-written account of some of the natural and human history of Kansas, the book detailing a number of to me surprising wild places in the state ( defined as “undisturbed remnants of ancient ecosystems, habitats for rare or threatened species, pristine stretches of river, unusual geologic features, exclamations of topography – wild places aren’t merely beautiful landscapes”).
Finding, exploring, and conveying to readers the excitement of such places was definitely an uphill battle for author George Frazier. It wasn’t just that “Kansas is not known for its wild places,” that it is seen by many Americans and even those in Kansas as “a placeless farm-country landscape” or “flyover country.” No, part of the reason is that “wildlife areas and parks in Kansas suffer a credibility issue,” many “state parks, wildlife refuges, and public hunting areas were created adjacent to federal and state reservoirs,” that “leftover areas of federal flood control buyouts were allowed to grow up in jungles of scrub forest, poison ivy, and giant ragweed, and then were thrust forward as the face of “nature” in Kansas,” many areas “just thorny brambles on the wayside of declining rural Amercia,” all were presented to an absolutely underwhelmed public. Frazier wanted to show that Kansas “still has true wild places where the primordial landscape has touched generations, creating cultural and historical connections,” though he admits that “when possible we should build parks and refuges around true wild places, not arbitrary abandoned parcels.”
That is one hurtle, just getting people to accept that interesting wild places (and associated fauna and flora) exist. The other is access. Ninety-eight percent of Kansas is private property. Trespassing laws are a thing and the law is vigorously enforced, whether the property owner is “the Nature Conservancy and the Kansas Land Trust, railroads, scouting and religious organizations, Indian reservations, corporate farms and ranches, and certain tracts managed by the military and universities” or privately owned farms, so much of the natural beauty of the state can only be accessed after one acquires permission from the landowner. Frazier doesn’t write this to discourage people, as though one should always be prepared to accept a no, as he wrote “I’ve found that you won’t often have to,” and that “I’ve made lifelong friendships with people I originally met while seeking permission to explore wild places.” Having said that though, it can make awareness and access to many of the natural wonders of the state more than a little challenging. In one particular area the state had publicized the natural beauty of the area, about how it could be seen driving through it, but the brochures touting the beauty of the Arikaree Breaks warn motorists “to stick to public roads and stay in the car…Anywhere you set foot is trespassing”).
Ownership and control of the lands – and waters – was an issue Frazier came back to again and again in the book, not in a pedantic or tiresome way, but in an interesting exploration of a concept that touched on so many areas of conservation and restoration. The author explored it as a concept in everything from incentives to encourage farmers and ranchers to allow tourism on their lands as a supplemental income, to the many issues facing canoeists and other boaters trying to access Kansas rivers (including defining in Kansas what is a navigable river or stream, public access to such bodies of water, liability and trespassing issues for when streams pass through private lands, and the difficulty boaters have in trying to get permission to float down many bodies of water, where even one landowner saying no can torpedo an entire trip), to whether people have the right on their own land to allow thriving prairie dog colonies and even to restore the ultra-rare black-footed ferret (or stop the local government from forcibly destroying these animals as “threats” despite the wishes of the landowner and the endorsement of the federal government for such restoration efforts).
The book though is not an account of the many challenges facing conservation and recreation in Kansas. Instead, primarily it is an account of the natural and human history and the author’s (or the author and his family or friends) travels to the many wild places of Kansas, describing in vivid detail these excursions (with names of plants and animals seen) and with the occasional black and white photo in the text (and detailed on a map of the state at the beginning of the book). The entire state is visited, from urban areas of Kansas City, Kansas in the easternmost parts of the state all the way west to some lonesome and underpopulated areas in the northwest and southwest of the state. Sometimes the focus is a lot on geology, sometimes on botany, often on animals (especially birds and mammals), though again and again Frazier recounted the Native American history associated with a number of these places as well as the current residents, enthusiasts (my favorite was his humorous account of Edwin Smith, the Fox Mulder True Believer of mountain lion sightings in Kansas), and caretakers of such areas (again and again family-run ranches and farms were excellent stewards of the land). Some chapters were more about the overall natural history of certain animals in Kansas (particularly the big mammals like bison and elk) but even in these instances the author often still focused on one particular wild area.
So what were these areas? Too many to list in this review, but they include the “lonely emptiness” of Cimarron National Grassland in the southwestern part of the state (home to prairie dogs and a rare population of high plains black bears, a herd of elk, “the largest mammalian species ever successfully reintroduced to the wild in Kansas”; also the largest piece of public land in the state), the author’s epic quest to trek through flooded forest and wetlands to reach an ancient pecan grove that once hosted James Audubon and Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce (located on Fort Leavenworth), the Kansas Cross Timbers (“an entire ecosystem of wooded savannahs stretching from the Chautauqua Hills of southeast Kansas to central Texas, a span of more than 350 miles,” a forest with “the last substantial chunk of pre-settlement old growth in the eastern United States…older than virtually any virgin timber still standing east of the Front Range”), the much lesser known Badlands of Kansas, namely the Red Hills, Arikaree Breaks, and Schwartz Canyon (home to interesting geology, terrain that surprises most people when they think of Kansas, a diverse assemblage of bats including several species that occur nowhere ese in the state, a number of gypsiferous plants that thrive in gypsum soil such as gypsum blue-eyes and Steven’s nama, and the state’s largest bison herd; though all lands on private property, some are lands people can access), the Haskell-Baker Wetlands (where the author recounts his efforts to show that the wetlands was one of the areas where river otters had returned to Kansas), and the Kansas River (centered on the efforts of the author and his friend to float the entire length of the river - “the best known and most accessible wild place in Kansas - and to retrace the steps of rogue eccentric Etienne de Veniard Seiur de Bourgmont, who led a remarkable expedition deep into the homeland of the Kansa in 1724”).
The writing was good, witty without being too irreverent or too humorous, it showed a real appreciation of geology, botany, zoology, ecology, and Native American history and culture, I loved the recounting of the various people he met in his travels, he came off as very even-handed and balanced in talking about the pros and cons of conservation and public access issues to wild areas and private lands, and if he was an ambassador trying to get people to visit Kansas he was a very good one in this book. My only complaint if it is one is the very small amount of time (a paragraph or two, on I think two pages) devoted to the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, though to be fair overall the Flint Hills got a lot of coverage.
"The Last Wild Places of Kansas" is an interesting adventure into Kansas- its history and landscapes. The author takes us through the prairies, caves, badlands, and canyons. Each section is told with stories of their history and current locations. As described in the prologue, only 2% of Kansas is public, so most of these landscapes are privately owned. Even for someone who has not spent much time in Kansas, it's an interesting read, particularly with regards to history. After reading though, be warned- you will want to visit Kansas! Please note that I received this book through a goodreads giveaway. All opinions are my own.
Ahh...Kansas! Frazier celebrates the natural wonders in Kansas with a plethora of stories!
So far this book has earned 1. The Ferguson Book Award for Kansas History 2. The Hamlin Garland Prize for Midwest Popular History 3. The Midwest Book Award for Nature 4. The Kansas Notable Book Award
This was wonderful! It felt like a magical tour of the state. I've been to many of the places described and it was still interesting and educational to learn about them. Very well written with humor and care for this beautiful land. If you like natural history or Kansas, read it.
"But Kansas has the smallest percentage of public land in America - only 2 percent of total acreage - so it’s inevitable that many wild places are under private stewardship” (p. xii).
I wasn’t able to find where Frazier got his information about Kansas public land, but I did find one document that seems to support his claim. From my own experience being born and raised in Kansas, I agree that the state struggles with public land. What better way to alienate the population than removing access to its hills, valleys, unique geological features, and waterways by keeping it behind barbed wire, cows, and sorghum. Kansas has a bad rap of being flat and boring. Of course, it would appear to be that way to both residents and nonresidents when viewing from the blacktop. Sure we have scenic byways, but I want to get out and engage with the land.
Frazier’s book was heartbreaking and I’m sure that wasn’t the intent. It made clear how much of my state is inaccessible. On the other hand, Frazier’s stories of exploring Kansas reminds me of my own amazing experiences. I’ve seen the chalk pyramids in Scott City, Mushroom Rocks in Ellsworth County, collared lizards on the Konza Prairie, stood on Mount Sunflower, and more. There are some great folks in Kansas trying to get residents to engage more with the state like Marci Penner and WenDee Rowe. I encourage everyone to pick up The Kansas Guidebook for suggestions on where to start. And definitely read The Last Wild Places of Kansas. It’s a great blend of nature writing and history.
Topics discussed: Cross Timbers State Park, bears and wolves in Kansas, a time without deer, prairie dogs are a good thing, there's a lot of weird rules about waterways, caves, Z-Bar Ranch and Ted Turner, and the systematic removal of Native American Tribes from their lands.
Though we both call Lawrence home, to my knowledge, I’ve never met George Frazier, but the spirit that moves him to explore the wild places in our home state of Kansas, flyover country, courses through me.
As a grandson of Kansas ranchers, I was very fortunate to spend most of my weekends and weeks every summer making my own adventures through pastures, creeks, ponds, and the adjoining woods.
I would ride shotgun with my grandfathers and grandmothers who would drive me down country roads, paved and unpaved, through unplowed prairies pointing out natural springs, old homesteads, forgotten graveyards, and ancient Native American tribal homes.
Reading Frazier’s book brought many memories back to the surface. His stories of the last wild places in Kansas are inspiring and at times I felt like I was riding shotgun again down a bumpy gravel road, hearing my granddad recount forgotten stories of the land.
This book provides a very interesting look at many little known about places in Kansas. I grew up on the Marais des Cygnes River in east central Kansas, so it was especially interesting for me to read about his exploration in this part of the state. The author did an excellent job of incorporating history into his descriptions of the "wild" places he explored.
I especially liked the map that showed the locations of the places he visited. I referred to the map many times. The book also includes a bibliography and index.
I heard of this book through an authors' event at the Johnson County Library. Frazier is a local author and I was intrigued with the thought of wild places in Kansas. I started reading with the thought that I would visit the wild places he lists, but I quickly realized it takes more skill than I have to navigate these landscapes and rivers.
An interesting read about the changing landscape of Kansas, and also about a few hidden gems in the state that will hopefully remain hidden from developers and the general public. River otters are making a comeback, and deer, now everywhere, were once nearly gone. Flying squirrels (able to leap a hundred feet) once graced eastern Kansas. The black footed ferret is almost extinct.
really enjoyed this book of a guy trying to find the amazing places in kansas. he succeeds with great prose and tone and along the way highlights that kansas actually has some beautiful and historic countryside.
I am so happy someone wrote this book and did a great job with it! I have been to several of these places and as a native Kansan I understand the challenge of finding the natural world in this state, but also the importance of the wild.
Each chapter was a delight. In fact, each paragraph was a world unto itself.
I have now chased down a few of these locations, thanks to George. He really is a top-shelf adventurer and talented writer. I will probably read the book over and over throughout my remaining years.
If you love nature, wild places or Kansas this is a fascinating book. The only problem is so many trips and trails added to my already overly full bucket list! I would love to send a copy to each and every one of my state’s senators and congressmen.
I loved learning about the history, geology, wildlife, and people of Kansas. The author paints a picture of Kansas that left me feeling closer to the wild areas and curious to explore more.
The Last Wild Places of Kansas is a fascinating read for anyone that loves the state of Kansas and is interested in exploring it. As someone who moved to Kansas within the last couple of years, I enjoyed the book and am excited to try and explore some of the wild places of Kansas for myself. However, this book would benefit greatly from having another run though by an editor, as there are several grammatical errors and lapses in continuity.