Black-robed Jesuits were the first Europeans to see it, and named the place as best they could. Prerie was their word for it.
Back in France and parts of Belgium it had meant grassland, a grassy orchard, or perhaps a park with scattered trees. A good word, with the sound of home in it. So when Pere Jacques Marquette emerged from dark northern forests into the sunny, game-rich savannas of the Mississippi valley in 1673, it may have been something like coming home—and he lovingly noted les belles preries in his journal.
Pere Claude Jean Allouez retraced Marquette's route down the Illinois River, adding extravagant praise of his own:
We proceeded, always continuing to coast along the great preries, which extend farther than the eye can reach. Trees are met with from time to time, but they are so placed they seem to have been planted with design, in order to make the avenues more pleasing to the eye than those of orchards. The bases of these trees are often watered by little streamlets, at which are seen large herds of stags and hinds refreshing themselves, and peacefully feeding on the short grass. . .
Prerie it was then; prairie it would become when the word was adopted (somewhat grudgingly) and anglicized by the English. So it has been ever since. There was no better name for the rich grasslands that were first met by those early explorers. But while the word may have had European roots, the place did not, for it was wholly unlike anything the newcomers had ever seen.
GORP has compiled information on several great American grasslands. First stop is the Nature Conservancy's Osage Preserve in northeastern Oklahoma. The Osage's staff is attempting to reintroduce the full ecological interaction of range fires and bison on a large piece of rolling tall grass prairie. Iowa's Walnut Creek National Wildlife Refuge is another wonderful place to encounter the tallgrass prairie and its fascinating wildlife.
Moving west, the Great Plains become drier and the grass grows shorter: hence the term Shortgrass Prairie. Buffalo Gap National Grasslands in South Dakota is perhaps the best place to experience this austere expanse—not least because of the enthusiastic staff at the National Grasslands Visitor Center. And if you're up North Dakota way, explore Theodore National Park, our great grasslands national park, or the three grasslands that are part of the Custer National Forest: Sheyenne, Grand River & Cedar River, and Little Missouri.
They call America's Great Plains the "heartland," and that it is: expansive, diverse—a place to roam and, perhaps, find a hidden part of your own heart. . .
