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As a westerner madly in love with mountains, deserts and history of my homeland, I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I haven't delved much into Wallace Stegner. I've read a tiny bit of his non-fiction, and none of his novels, but everybody who's anybody west of the 100th meridian knows all about this guy and recommends him...

And now I think I get it. Stegner nails the "sense of place" thing with this one, a combination of history and memoir, with an unforgettable novella dropped in smack dab in the middle of the book. All with the goal of painting a picture of the patch of Saskatchewan shortgrass prairie (right on the Montana border) he grew up on circa 1910 or so. He's writing decades later, after living, exploring and writing about the west, so when he goes back to visit and research he's looking through some interesting goggles. He and his family got to partake in the epic story that was the frontier: Trying to turn raw material into something that pays, and pays big, or at least better than whatever it was you left behind. Could be gold, furs, oil, or timber, but in this case it's the fertile topsoil of the plains and the rush to make it big with dryland wheat farms.

Stegner knows his family's experience was just one chapter of the history of that place, so he ties it into all the events that led up to his family's arrival. The usual suspects, albeit in very short order: beaver trapped out, bison killed off, Indians pacified, cattle put on to graze on open range, cattle killed off by horrendous winters, the arrival of the railroad, the land fenced and settled by the likes of the Stegner family...with some Canadian twists of course, such as French speaking tribes of "half-breeds" trying to remain independent, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and more.

Like almost everyone else, the Stegners failed miserably as wheat farmers. Not due to their incompetence or laziness, but rather for their inability to admit that THE DREAM of freedom and prosperity just over the next (western) horizon was often a mirage, and a wicked one at that. Some land just won't bend to the will of Manifest Destiny, not for long anyway, and many learned that lesson the hard way, including young Wallace Stegner.

The best part was the novella, a tale of cowboys trying to round up the strays and yearlings before the snows fly. I'll leave it at that. It may sound cliche-aren't all things cowboy cliche by now?-but know that a writer like Stegner isn't going to fall back on anything trite or silly. This part of the book packed a powerful punch, and put the rest of the tale, all that came before and after, into perspective, as the experiences of this bunch symbolizes the experiences (often, but not always, failures) of everyone else who tried to make a go of it in that region and others like it.

In the end, Stegner muses on the culture that was created in places like "Whitemud". What ideals and hopes did they bring? What happened when they got there? Did the open space and freedom lead to better things? Did they allow the best of human hopes and visions to take wing? Or did they hammer away at those dreams until nothing was left but provincial small mindedness and the ongoing, often bitter, struggle to get by?

If you're into the American west you simply must read this book. If you don't care one way or the other about the west but want to read an amazing memoir, read this book. And EVERYBODY should read it for the novella...would make a great movie.