From Publishers Weekly
Crossing the U.S.-Canadian border today is a simple, uncomplicated process. But as LaDow shows in this earnest and lively account of the frontier during the 19th and early 20th centuries, crossing the border was not always so trivial. LaDow, a historian and commentator for National Public Radio, focuses on a 100-mile stretch between Montana and Saskatchewan, called the "medicine line" by Native American tribes because of its seemingly magical potential to correct wrongs and reverse fortunes. For example, after the Battle of Little Big Horn, LaDow writes, Sioux chief Sitting Bull and many followers fled across the line into Canada, securing the personal freedom and political asylum they lacked in the United States. Nevertheless, because the buffalo were as scarce in Canada as they were to the south, Sitting Bull and his starving tribespeople eventually had no choice but to cross the border again and surrender to U.S. troops. During Prohibition, bootleggers (including the father of Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Wallace Stegner) loaded barrels of Canadian whiskey into model Ts and drove them across the border to thirsty American cities. In the 1880s, tycoon James Hill pushed the transcontinental Canadian Pacific Railway across the prairie into British Columbia; just a decade later, he crossed the border to build the competing Great Northern Railway just 100 miles south in Montana. LaDow leaves no aspect of life along the medicine line unexamined, addressing everything from folklore and literature to economics and political leadership. Sometimes this leads to an overload of distracting details; on the whole, however, this a well-written and thoroughly researched history uncovers the forgotten dramas that once played out along what is today the most peaceful border on the planet. Illus.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Relié .From Library Journal
A portion of the Montana-Saskatchewan prairie border known as the "medicine line" has been described as "terrible," "sterile," and "unfit for civilized men." LaDow looks beyond these physical shortcomings to investigate its history and reveal the growing pains of two nations. The battle for supremacy between natives and whites on both sides of the line predominates her story of this once-contested land, and native icons such as Sitting Bull and Louis Riel are considered in detail. The rivalries among the United States, Canada, and the Native Americans who lived there are examined as two competing railways are built, redirecting the North American economy from north-south to east-west. And while the British-inspired RCMP patrol the Canadian communities, the American outlaws take pride in challenging authority. Despite the countries' differences, LaDow always comes back to the similarities that transcend this boundary. All settlers share a "speculative spirit," enduring the loneliness, drought, and broken dreams that plague them, while recognizing the cultural interests that bring them together. This scholarly and philosophical study is recommended for large public libraries. Isabel Coates, Boston Consulting Group, Ont.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Relié .
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Relié .
