Buffalo Heartbeats Across the Plains
Buffalo Heartbeats Across the Plains
By: Francie M. Berg
Buffalo Heartbeats Across the Plains" is the companion book to the "Buffalo Trails" tour guide. With a wealth of history, stories and events it explains in fascinating detail the rest of the story. Hardcover, full-color, 8 1/2" x 9 1/2" format.
Title information
Buffalo Heartbeats Across the Plains, a large companion book for those who choose to dive deeper into the buffalo experience. It is truly an American story and an Indian story. With a wealth of history, stories and events, you’ll learn even more about the majestic beast so closely entwined with the American experience, both Native and non-Native. Buffalo Heartbeats explains in detail the rest of the story and how it played out across the Great Plains and prairies of North America. A beautiful book, richly illustrated. Hardcover, full-color, 8 1/2" x 9 1/2" format.
Francie M. Berg
Francie M. Berg is a teacher, historian and author of fifteen books, with strong homestead and ranching roots in the Old West. Born at home in the Missouri River Breaks, she grew up on a Montana ranch and lives in Hettinger, North Dakota, within a few miles of her grandparents’ South Dakota homestead and the center of a fascinating buffalo heritage of which she writes in Buffalo Trails in the Dakota Buttes and its companion book Buffalo Heartbeats Across the Plains. Her books on western history include: North Dakota Land of Changing Seasons, South Dakota Land of Shining Gold, Wyoming Land of Echoing Canyons, Ethnic Heritage in North Dakota and the Last Great Buffalo Hunts: Traditional Hunts in 1880-1883 by Teton Lakota. She has worked as a county extension agent, and taught high school, college and adult education. A graduate of Montana State University in Bozeman, Berg has a master’s degree in family and anthropology from the University of Minnesota.
REVIEWS of Buffalo Heartbeats
A new book detailing the history of the American buffalo is telling the story of the last great bison hunts in the western Dakotas and efforts to restore the animals that were on the brink of extinction. Buffalo Heartbeats Across the Plains, released in June 2018 by author Francie Berg, takes a deeper dive into the people and places featured in her previous tour book.
–Houston Chronicle, Houston, TX
Buffalo Heartbeats Across the Plains tells more about the history behind how bison were saved from extinction. At a book release Wednesday, Berg said, “The buffalo were saved just by chance from extinction. And I think people don’t appreciate how close they came to being extinguished.”
–Andrew Horn, KFYR -TV, ND
North Dakota author Francie Berg’s last book about the American buffalo was a guide for adventurers eager to get out on back roads to see the historic sites where the great animal once flourished. Then she found she had more to say.
The result is Buffalo Heartbeats Across the Plains a deeper dive into the stories and trails of the last book, with colorful illustrations, historic paintings and photographs for the history buff who may never leave her armchair.
Bison, or buffalo, once thundered across the heart of North America in the tens of millions. But overhunting saw their numbers plummet to a few hundred by the late 1880s.
“I could see our country was changing fast,” reads an excerpt from the new book quoting Plenty Coups, the last chief of the Crow Nation in 1898. “Anybody could see that soon there would be no buffalo on the plains, and everybody was wondering how we could live after they were gone.”
Inspired by Berg’s books, Hettinger Public School Principal Darin Seamands said students at the high school will soon have the option to study the subject in a local history class. Seamands said it gives students the opportunity to learn about Native American culture and history “in our own backyard.”
–New York Times, NY
“It is a good day,” said Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Chairman Mike Faith, who lauded Berg for her work in spreading the history of the buffalo and working with his tribe to tell of the animal’s importance. “She does so much for buffalo by just putting this together … On behalf of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, I say thank you.”
North Dakota Indian Affairs Commissioner Scott Davis also thanked Berg for including his tribe in her buffalo history narrative, which touches current tribal lands and former tribal lands around Hettinger,
Both books are being introduced into the curriculum of Hettinger public schools, giving students an account of centuries of tribal history that happened just outside their back doors. Hard copies of the book can be purchased for about $35 at various Hettinger businesses, the Hettinger Chamber of Commerce and the North Dakota Heritage Center. There is also an e-book available at www.hettingernd.com/buffalotrails.
–Jessica Holdman, Bismarck Tribune
The books are illustrated in full color and written by Francie Berg, who discovered the new information on last hunts buried in dusty memoirs by Indian Agent James McLaughlin of Ft. Yates, and Congregational Missionary Thomas Riggs of Pierre who went on the hunts.
The 10 tour sites in the Hettinger area include three last great hunts, including at Hiddenwood, the Slim Buttes and the final killing of 1,200 buffalo by Sitting Bull and his band on October 12-13, 1883, an authentic buffalo jump at Shadehill, a full buffalo mount at the Dakota Buttes museum in Hettinger, modern buffalo ranches, and a likely spot on the South Grand River where the Native American Dupree family rescued 5 calves, mothering them with range cows and growing a herd of 83—they gained international acclaim for helping save the buffalo from extinction. Sites 9 and 10, somewhat northeast of the area, encourage tourists to visit the Standing Rock Tribal herds near Fort Yates and the white buffalo at Jamestown.
–Adams County Record, Hettinger
An Associated Press story on the release of the two buffalo books Buffalo Heartbeats and Buffalo Trails was published throughout the United States and several foreign countries, including in the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, NY Daily News, US News and World Report, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Daily Mail London, UK, The Times of India, IOL of South Africa, and a French translation in Victoria Actualites, Vancouver, Canada.
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