Last week Jill and I …

Last week Jill and I went to Afton, Minnesota to participate in a buffalo release. Afton is on the St. Croix River a half hour’s drive from downtown St. Paul and I have to admit that I felt slightly disingenuous to accept a stipend for speaking at the repatriation of twenty-five yearling buffalo to what amounted to a clearing in the suburbs of the twin cities.

I was contacted months before by the executive director of a “nature preserve”, called Belwin, which had recently transformed itself from a private reserve to a non-profit. The fellows name was Steve Hobbes and he spoke earnestly about open spaces and the efforts to restore the tall-grass prairie that had dominated that landscape when Europeans first cast their acquisitive gaze over what they saw as potential farm ground. He was historically and environmentally knowledgeable and obviously dedicated to the cause of Belwin’s reclamation, but I had been in that country between the twin cities and Wisconsin and I knew what those European Farmers had done to it. They did the same thing at other places I have visited: Northfield, Minnesota; Grinnell, Iowa; Council Bluffs, and the banks southern stretches of the Missouri River. In all that country ñ indeed on the entire continent – the tall-grass is gone except for a few remnants in grave yards and along railroad tracks where plows were prohibited. In place of the switch grass, big blue-stem, and Indian grass were all manor of thorny invasive brush, weedy plants from the steps of Asia, and cultivated trees. In place of the endless vistas of grass that greeted nineteenth century immigrants were closed-in, over hanging acreages, cluttered with homes. It seemed a poor place for buffalo.

When I heard that all of Belwin was only 1300 acres ñ a fraction of what I see when I look out the front windows of this ranch ñ I had my doubts. I almost declined to speak, but Steve Hobbes seemed a professional conservationist and his dedication came through the phone at me in such a way that I agreed to come. Of course there was also that stipend, and it occurred to me that I might not be that much different from the Norwegian farmers who had plundered the breaks of the St Croix River two hundred years ago.

As the date of the buffalo release came closer I had time to think of what can be said to the residents of the suburbs of St Paul by an advocate of big scale conservation of mostly intact, prairie landscapes. I am used to thinking in terms tens of thousands of acres; of what can be done to preserve, forever, the burrowing owls, the side-oats grama grass, the solitude, and the endless sky that surrounds me. The tall grass prairies are foreign to me. Where does one begin when he looks around and finds so little is left? Where is the hope?

My whole life I have been blessed to walk over selected prairies from Canada to Mexico and cover my boots with much the same vegetation that covered moccasins for thousands of years. Daily I see animals that evolved to thrive on these grasslands. Most hours of most days I enjoy the peace that comes with “empty” spaces. It is not the experience of Steve Hobbes or of the people who live in the suburbs of St. Paul or a thousand other places much like it. I loose sleep thinking that my land could go the way of that St. Croix River country.

And I lost sleep trying to think of what to say to those people who were bringing twenty-five small buffalo to those devastated 1300 acres of Belwin Park. I couldn’t help thinking that the resources and energy to restore what we have ruined might well be a waste of what is needed to conserve what, due to serendipity, we still possess. Where does a nation draw the line? Where do a people cut their losses? It was a long drive to the twin cites. What to say when that sorry little herd of buffalo stumbled out of the trailer that was bringing them from somewhere in Wisconsin?

They put Jill and me up at the Afton Inn, a quaint and aged gathering spot not too far from the Yacht Club. I was up early walking the banks of the St. Croix River. To my amazement, I had the river pretty much to myself. My only companions were sea gulls and a single old couple, fishing a quarter mile out in the middle of more fresh water than I had seen for years. I got the cleaning man at the Inn to make a pot of coffee and he asked what I was doing in town. He was a swarthy man that could have been Italian. He wore an apron and leaned on his mop as I explained. I told him I was there to say a few words when they released the buffalo and then a longer talk to the members of Belwin. He nodded to show me that he knew of Belwin but he didn’t say anything. He stared intently and I felt pressure to explain that I was a writer and that I raised buffalo on ranch near the Black Hills. He nodded again, “You’re going to turn buffalo loose at Belwin?”

“Well, not me. The board of Belwin.”

His head continued to nod and I knew he was in deep thought. When he spoke he was brief. “That’s about the neatest God-damned thing I’ve ever heard,” he said. “Good for you guys.”

I drove out to meet Steve Hobbes and had to fight a rush of claustrophobia as the alien trees closed in around me. I actually got lost trying to find the sight of the buffalo release and in the process met several of Belwin’s employees: an older lady who helped with the educational programs and who called me sweetheart, the maintenance man who was proud to have built the fence that would surround the buffalo, a bright, young, woman who was in charge of the restoration of Belwin’s vegetation. They were thrilled to be part of bringing buffalo back to Belwin. I helped load a few tables into a pickup in exchange for a ride to the “release site”.

The sky was trying to rain but already there was a surprising crowd. I searched for Steve Hobbes among groups of school kids and interested citizens, and when I found him I was again surprised. He wore a straw cowboy hat, and smiled at me through a healthy mustache. He was older than I imagined. We shook hands warmly and I picked up on a twinkle in his eyes that was decidedly conspiratorial and hinted at wisdom known only to guerrilla conservationist. “There’s going to be a crowd,” he said. “All the TV stations are sending folks.” Only then did the potential of an event that I would ordinarily call ëtoken’ begin to come clear to me. There was still an hour to go before the buffalo would be released and people were already streaming in from the twin cities and the surrounding countryside.

I met the board of directors and the family who, many years before, started Belwin as a private nature preserve. The matriarch was an elegant, older woman who squeezed my hand and thanked me for coming to help. Help with what? I asked myself. But from the gooseneck trailer that would serve as a stage for the brief remarks that would precede the release, I looked down the county road and realized the answer to my own question. This was not so much an effort to re-establish buffalo in a degraded landscape ñ this was a foot in the door of the lives of the only force that could actually help in serious restoration. This was a step in a long term strategy to educate. I watched the cars streaming down the road, heard the mothers explaining rudimental conservation to their children, saw old couples bending stiffly to feel the grass that would sustain the buffalo.

By the time the buffalo arrived in a long trailer, driven by a quiet, sincere, and knowledgeable producer, rival groups of children were chanting, “Let them Loose. Let them loose. Let them loose.” The television cameras were rolling. Hundreds of people had turned out to see the trailer door open and the buffalo step out onto Belwin’s prairie, and I was scrambling to re-write my comments in my mind. I may be a sort of snob conservationist but I can count and I can add. There were more people standing around the tiny buffalo paddock waiting to see the gang of twenty-five than had seen my three hundred head of buffalo on their thousands of acres in fifteen years. The economic and philanthropic power that spread out before the stage was immense. Here, in this land that is often written off in terms of conservation potential, was real strength. Judging by the numbers that had sacrificed their Saturday morning, I had miscalculated the importance of this event. But there was no time to rethink. I stepped to the microphone and began my remarks. “You are standing on sacred ground,” I said. “It is about to become more sacred.”