Annotated bibliography

A B C E G H J K L M N P R S T V W
Bezener, Andy and De Smit, Ken. Manitoba Birds. Edmonton: Lone Pine Publishing, 2000.
A field guide to Manitoba birds including a map of the top birding sites in Manitoba and a colour coded guide for quick identification.
Bredin, Errol J. "Biology of the Northern Prairie Skink, Eumeces septentrionalis". Previously published by NatureNorth.Com (www.naturenorth.com) Summer edition, 2001.
This article informs us of the type of habitat sought by the Northern Prairie Skink, the only lizard native to Manitoba, found only in the Carberry Sandhills
Butler, William Francis. "Chapter XIII". The Great Lone Land: A Narrative Of Travel And Adventure In The North-west Of America. 4th ed. London: S. Low Marston Low & Searle, 1873. 195-209.
“The title of Butler’s most popular book, The Great Lone Land, entered the language of the day, and no reference to Western Canada had seemed complete without it. The book ran through nineteen official printings—four in a single year—and an unknown number of pirated printings in Canada and the United States. In Britain alone the book had been read by several hundred thousand people.” (Ronald Rees, New and Naked Land)
Calder, Alison. "Who’s from the Prairie? Some Prairie Self-Representations in Popular Culture". Previously published in Toward Defining the Prairies: Region, Culture, and History. ed. Robert Wardhaugh. Winnipeg: The University of Manitoba Press, 2001. 91-100.
This article questions the regionalism which has contributed to identity politics within the literature of some of the best known publications in Saskatchewan.
Collicutt, Doug. "The Lazy Gardener" Previously published in The Prairie Garden, (2003): 25-27.
Collicutt conveys his disdain of conventional lawns in this light-hearted article describing how he converted his "boring" yard into a "naturalized" patch of happiness.
Collicutt, Doug. "Crocuses in Spring". Previously Published in Winnipeg Free Press, Sunday Magazine, What’s Outdoors Section as "Our Prairie Crocus" by Doug Collicutt, May 6, 2001.
A short article illustrating some of the confusion and misinformation acquired about Manitoba’s floral emblem, the Prairie Crocus, in addition to pointing out some reasons for its hardiness.
Evans, Terry. Prairie: Images of Ground and Sky. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1986.
Images of the prairie, primarily in Kansas, by photographer Terry Evans. Also includes interesting essays by Evans and others.
Francis, R. Douglas. Images of the West: Responses to the Canadian Prairies. Saskatoon: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1989.
Excellent general history of the Canadian prairies including an extensive selection of historical texts and images.
Gass, William H. In the Heart of the Heart of the Country. New York: Harper & Row, 1968.
Collection of short stories set in the Midwest by American novelist and essayist William Gass.
Grant, Tim and Littlejohn, Gail eds. Greening School Grounds: Creating Habitats for Learning. Toronto: Green Teacher magazine and New Society Publishers, 2001.
This guide was developed for schools aiming to incorporate green school yard education in their curriculum. The authors outline details such as obtaining grants for projects as well as safety concerns. www.greenteacher.com
Grove, Frederick Philip. A Stranger to My Time: Essays by and about Frederick Philip Grove, ed. Paul Hjartarson. Edmonton: NeWest Press, 1986.
———. Over Prairie Trails (1922). Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1970.
The bibliographic entries included here are just a couple of samples featuring the prairies selected from Grove’s body of work, which is suffused with the Manitoba prairie landscape.
Heat-Moon, William Least. Prairyerth (a deep map). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1991.
Literary, evocative consideration of geographical, botonanical, social and historical aspects of the prairie, focusing on a single county in Kansas. Also includes many short exceprts from various historical texts.
Hodgins, James. "Propagating Wildflowers". Previously Published in WILDFLOWER. 4:3 (1988): 28-32.
Jim Hodgins introduces the Midwestern American gardener to different methods of wildflower propagation. His descriptions of the processes and recommended references provide a stepping stone for newcomers to this process.
Holm, Bill. The Music of Failure. Marshall, Minnesota: Plains Press, 1985.
Collection of essays by Minnesota writer Bill Holm, with a tone and mood as evoked in the title of the collection that is very characteristic of the Midwest and the prairies.
Johnson, Derek; Kershaw, Linda; MacKinnon, Andy; Pojar, Jim. Plants of the Western Boreal Forest & Aspen Parkland. Edmonton, Vancouver and Washington: Lone Pine, 1995.
A comprehensive pan-Canadian plant field guide including trees, shrubs, wildflowers, graminoids, ferns, mosses and liverworts and lichens.
Keane, Kahlee and Howarth, Dave. The Standing people: Field Guide of Medicinal Plants for the Prairie Provinces. Saskatoon: The Root Woman & Dave & Save Our Species, 2003.
A field guide of prairie plants that can be used for medicinal purposes. www.connect.to/rootwoman.
Kershaw, Linda. Manitoba Wayside Wildflowers. Edmonton: Lone Pine Publishing, 2003.
This field guide organizes the plants in five general categories: two-sided flowers, tiny stalkless flowers in compact heads, tiny stalked flowers in branch cluster, circular flowers with distinct petals and circular flowers with fused petals.
Kindscher, Kelly. Medicinal Wild Plants of the Prairie: An Ethnobotanical Guide. Kansas: University of Kansas Press, 1992.
Kindscher, Kelly. Edible Wild Plants of the Prairie. Kansas: University of Kansas Press, 1989.
This work includes the documentation of the medicinal use of some 203 native prairie plants by the Plains Indians. Research from archives, interviews, and fieldwork provide the basis for plant-based treatments for ailments ranging in both scope and nature.
Kipp, Sarah and Callaway, Clive. On the Living Edge: Your Handbook for Waterfront Living. Regina, Saskatchewan: Nature Saskatchewan, 2003. www.livingbywater.ca/main.html, www.fanweb.ca/book/.
This is a practical guide for those who live on water front property. Not only does it give practical advice for making your shoreline more eco-friendly, but also provides information about federal and provincial law pertaining to shorelines and bodies of water.
Klassen, P., Westwood, A.R., Preston, W.B.,and McKillop, W.B. The Butterflies of Manitoba. Manitoba: Manitoba Museum of Man and Nature, 1989.
This book is a resource and information guide to all 144 butterflies native to Manitoba.
Kroetsch, Robert. "Don’t Give Me No More of Your Lip; or, the Prairie Horizon as Allowed Mouth." Previosly published in Toward Defining the Prairies: Region, Culture, and History, ed. by Robert Wardhaugh. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2001.
Manitoba novelist and poet Kroetsch discusses, in his inimitable way, certain characteristics of prairie literature, particularly a kind of ambiguous, garrulous reticence, which is influenced by the prairie landscape.
Kurelek, William. Kurelek Country: The Art of William Kurelek. Toronto: Key Porter, 1999.
———. Kurelek’s Canada. Toronto: Pagurian Press, 1975.
Many of Manitoba artist William Kurelek’s (1927-1977) paintings feature evocative and/or humorous scenes of the prairies and prairie farmers and settlers.
Looman, Jan and Best, K.F. Budd’s Flora of the Canadian Prairie Provinces. Ottawa: Research Branch, Agriculture Canada, 1987.
Two experts, Jan Loom and K. F. Best, took A. C. Budd’s years of taxonomical research findings, edited and expanded the information and produced a veritable taxonomical “bible” of prairie plants.
Looman, Jan. Prairie grasses identified and described by vegetative characters. Ottawa: Agriculture Canada, 1982.
A comprehensive guide to grasses across the prairies with illustrated plant pictures, including an index. http://www.agr.gc.ca/
Madson, John. Where The Sky Began: Land of the Tallgrass Prairie. Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1995.
A very well-written botanist-naturalist’s description of the prairie landscape, intented for a general, non-specialist audience.
Manitoba Avian Research Committee. The Birds of Manitoba. Winnipeg, MB: Manitoba Naturalists Society, 2003.
Certainly one of the comprehensive avian field guides regarding birds in Manitoba. This book also includes information about bird populations, extinct birds, weather in Manitoba and suggestions for places to go birding in Manitoba. http://www.manitobanature.ca/birder/
Marles, Robin J., Clavelle, Christina, Monteleone, Leslie, Tays, Natalie and Burns, Donna. Aboriginal Plant Use in Canada’s Northwest Boreal Forest. Vancouver and Toronto: UBC Press, 2000
A collaboration of university scholars and First Nations peoples has produced this guide to medicinal and food uses of plants in the northwest boreal forest region of Canada. http://www.ubcpress.ubc.ca/
McLachlan, S.M. and Knispel, A. Impacts and management recommendations regarding long-term prairie restoration at Beaudry Provincial Park, 2003. Submitted to Manitoba Conservation March 5, 2003.
The tall grass prairie which once dominated the North American Midwest is now at less than 1% its original extent. McLachlan and Knispel reveal some strategies and obstacles encountered in the evaluation of tall grass prairie ecological restoration.
Morgan, John P. "Gardening with Native Manitoba Plants: For Conservation & Backyard Wildlife". Previously published by Nature North Magazine (www.naturenorth.com), April, 1999.
The author explains the benefits of gardening with native Manitoban plants, while illustrating how some commonly known plants are assumed to be from the area, so great is their presence. Morgan also provides some awareness to the problems of conventional wildflower seed mixes.
Nero, Robert W. "The Prairie Still Lives in Winnipeg". Previously published by The Beaver, Spring, 306:4 (1972): 26-29.
Nero pieces together a first-person account of the preservation of the tall grass prairie at the Living Prairie Museum in the 1970s. In addition, he informs us of the species and habitat complexities of the area.
Petch, Virginia. Excerpted from "Aboriginal People and Birds: A Brief Cultural History of Manitoba’s First People". The Birds of Manitoba. Winnipeg: Manitoba Naturalists Society, 2003. 56, 59-60
This piece illustrates how the knowledge we have of the history of Manitoba has been retained by Native cultures based in oral tradition. Petch also explores the importance of birds in terms of history and significance to Native communities.
Preston, William B. The Amphibians and Reptiles of Manitoba. Winnipeg: Museum of Man and Nature, 1982.
A field guide of amphibians and reptiles in Manitoba written by one of the foremost scholars in Manitoba in this field. http://www.manitobamuseum.ca/mu_natural_hist.html
Reaume, Tom. Manitoba’s Tall Grass Prairie: a field guide to an endangered space. Winnipeg: Manitoba Naturalists Society, 1993.
A coil bound book sold by Living Prairie Museum. A great field guide of representative species in the Living Prairie Museum region. http://www.manitobanature.ca/
Rees, Ronald. Land of Earth and Sky: Landscape Painting in Western Canada. Saskatoon: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1984.
Includes many paintings featuring the prairie landscape.
———. New and Naked Land: Making the Prairies Home. Saskatoon: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1988.
Well-written, engaging and nuanced history of the Canadian prairie landscape and settlement. Highly recommended.
Ross, Sinclair. As For Me and My House (1941). Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1957.
This novel set in a small-town on the Canadian prairies during the 30’s drought and depression is rightly considered a classic in the prairie realist tradition.
———. "The Lamp At Noon." In Isolation in Canadian Literature, ed. by David Arnason. Toronto: Macmillan, 1975: 31-43.
Short story which powerfully evokes the experience of farming on the prairies during the 30s drought.
Royer, France and Dickinson, Richard. Weeds of Canada and the Northern United States. Edmonton: Lone Pine Publishing and The University of Alberta Press, 1999.
Colour photos identifying over 175 weed species. It contains photos of plants at various stages of growth for easier identification. http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/, http://www.lonepinepublishing.com
Rubin, Carole. How to Get Your Lawn Off Grass: A North American Guide to Turning Off the Water Tap and Going Native. Madeira Park, British Colombia: Harbour Publishing, 2002.
A guide to converting conventional lawn into a xeriscape. Not only does Rubin give practical advice for this conversion but outlines reasons to make the change. www.harbourpublishing.com/index.php?s=book&id=411
Shay, Thomas C. and Kapinga, Margaret. "The First Manitoba Farmers: Plant Remains from the Lockport Site". Previously published in The Prairie Garden: Western Canada’s Only Gardening Annual, 2003. 131-134.
Shay and Kapinga describe how Lockport is believed to be the most northern point of pre-European agriculture in North-America thanks to the collection of charred seeds found in the area. The paper elaborates on the process used to unearth and to analyze these archaeological findings.
Stegner, Wallace. Wolf Willow: A History, a Story, and a Memory of the Last Plains Frontier (1962). New York: Penguin, 1990.
This elegiac memoir by American novelist Wallace Stegner (1909-1993), who grew up in Whitemud, Saskatchewan, contains some of the most evocative and beautiful descriptive prose ever written about the prairie landscape.
Sveinson, J. and McLachlan, S. Role of seedbanks in the restoration of tallgrass prairie (Manitoba). Ecological Restoration. 21(1)(2003): 43-44.
This paper highlights the advantages of characterizing aboveground and seedbank species in the restorative work of tall grass prairies in Manitoba, as well as their likelihood of success.
Taliman, Valerie. "We Never Take Before We Give". Previously published in Indigenous Woman, IV: 2. Austin, Texas: Indigenous Women’s Network, 2002. 18-19.
This article portrays the motivations and history behind Janice Longboat’s practice as a traditional Mohawk herbalist and healer. It is a reflection on western and native medicine, the preventative and healing qualities which herbs contain and the knowledge of which Native Canadian communities were on the verge of losing.
Thompson, John Herd. Forging the Prairie West. Toronto: Oxford University Press Canada, 1998.
Well-written general history of the Canadian prairies.
Vaillancourt, Gerard, ed. Weed Seedling Guide: Early Identification of Grass and Broad-Leaved Weeds. Edmonton: Albert Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, 1996.
A field guide to common weeds in their seedling state. www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/agdex41?opendocument.
VanCaeseele, Rachel. "Bigger Doesn’t Always Mean Better: Climate Change and Grasslands". Previously published in "Prairie Breeze", the Living Prairie Museum Newsletter, Winter 2003.
General Circulation Models (computer programs aiding in predicting the changes in the earth’s climate) have indicated that southern Manitoba will be hard-hit as greenhouse gases continues to trap heat. Although forest species are predicted to be pressed north, the grasses which will emerge will not be of the quality otherwise observed, due to the reduced ‘potholes’ (wetlands) and the existing introduced species.
Vance, F. R., Jowsey, J. R., McLean, J. S., and Switzer, F. A. Wildflowers Across the Prairies. Vancouver: Greystone Books, 1999.
A comprehensive field guide for prairie wildflowers. Also included are sections on grasses, sedges and rushes. www.douglas-mcintyre.com/book_details.asp?b=563.
Wadhaugh, Robert, ed. Toward Defining The Prairies: Region, Culture, and History. Winnipeg: The University of Manitoba Press, 2001.
A collection of essays resulting from the interdisciplinary conference, “Defining the Prairies,” held at the University of Manitoba, September, 1998. www.umanitoba.ca/publications/uofmpress/excerpts/defining_introduction.html.
Webb, Walter Prescott. The Great Plains. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1931.
The classic early historical, geographical and social survey of the Great Plain of the Midwest stretching from Canada to Texas.
Welsted, John, John Everitt, and Stadel, Christoph. The Geography of Manitoba: Its Land and Its People. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1996.
A solid introductory textbook which includes ab abundance of useful information on the prairie landscape and weather.
Westwood, Richard A. and Borkowsky, Christie L. "Sphinx Moth Pollinators for the Endangered Western Prairie Fringed Orchid Platanthera praeclara in Manitoba, Canada". Previously published in Journal of the Lepidopterists’ Society 58:1 (2004). 13-20.
This work is based on the western prairie fringed orchid, Platanthera praeclara which is not known to have existed in Canada prior to its discovery in the 1980s near Tolstoi, Manitoba. This study identified the pollinators of this endangered species.
Winnipeg Free Press. The Way We Live in Manitoba. Winnipeg: Winnipeg Free Press, 1998.
Coffee-table book featuring photographs and writing about the Manitoba prairie.