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New West Book Review

From Missouri to Montana, On Foot

By Traci J. Macnamara, Guest Writer, 3-19-10

Seldom Seen: A Journey into the Great Plains
By Patrick Dobson
University of Nebraska Press, 296 pages, $29.95

In Seldom Seen, author Patrick Dobson embraces Walt Whitman’s charge to “take to the open road.” He leaves behind a mind-dulling job in Kansas City, Missouri and sets out on foot for Helena, Montana, carrying only a backpack and possessing the resolve of a person who’s just made an abrupt about-face. 

When this story begins in the summer of 1995, Dobson needs a change.  He’s doing odd jobs for a hotel, sometimes repainting the same concrete floors month after month.  But he has a vague sense that there’s something else out there for him, or at least something more to life than the one he’s been living.  Dobson spends a year saving money for his epic adventure, and then he finally walks out his front door with sturdy boots on his feet and an overstuffed pack on his back. 

Day One: Dobson walks only five miles before hotfooting it back to his own porch by sundown.  But he starts out again the next day, and he keeps going.  Through violent rainstorms and squishy blisters, he struggles under the weight of his backpack until he learns how to whittle down his possessions—and his existence—to only that which he can sustain for the long haul. 

Dobson gives up his tent for a tarp and often sleeps under covered awnings at town parks.  He holds on to Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, but he abandons the idea of walking every step of the way to Helena.  Warily at first—and then unabashedly, he accepts rides in cars when drivers offer, and he rarely refuses the offer of a free meal or a bed for the night. The rapid dashing of Dobson’s ambitions is humorous, and it’s an uncannily human response.  Who among us hasn’t ever shifted under the weight of something too big to bear? 

As it turns out, the landscape Dobson traverses is one that’s seldom seen.  Not many people flock to the Great Plains for vacation, and Wyoming remains the least populated state.  Granted, the gigantic swath of land between Dobson’s starting point and his destination is familiar to those who live there, but Dobson moves through these places with keen eyes and shares his experiences with the rest of us. 

On the way to Wamego, for example, he meets an outspoken Christian conservative.  Near Lander, he dodges a married woman who’s desperate to bed him.  And in Yellowstone, he goes fishing with a man who lives in a van full of cats. 

Dobson doesn’t simply plod through the lives of those he meets along the way, however.  This fourteen-hundred-mile journey gives him plenty of time to process what he’s learning about the culture of the Great Plains and about how it relates to his urban life back in Kansas City.  From the outset, Dobson admits: “I was oblivious to the politics of relationships in small towns and the problems associated with small-town life.” But the “…boundaries between city and country, and separating human and nature, grew more indistinct and blurred” the further he stepped away from his home. 

Dobson’s journey takes him into himself as much as it involves a literal movement through place and time.  A self-described “part-time single father,” Dobson explains at the beginning of the book how he had used his daughter Sydney as an excuse for making the changes he knew needed to make in his life.  He’s stricken with guilt for leaving her to take this trip, but he also knows that he needs to escape the despondency and despair of his current position.  Dobson attempts to sort out this inner turmoil while he walks, and his boldness in confronting his personal demons is inspiring. 

One of the strongest aspects of this narrative is its attention to the natural world.  Dobson offers visceral descriptions of his surroundings, which draw readers into his story at a sensory level.  He begins walking in the morning with “the sun lighting flowing fields of wheat and multi-hued flowers,” and he retires late in the evening when stunning sunsets fade into “veils of stars.” Without a car window limiting his views on most days, “these aspects of land and sky were nakedly apparent,” Dobson says. 

Such beautifully written natural scenes will satiate those who come to this book hoping to be swept along with Dobson on his journey.  And the deeper questions that Dobson poses about purpose in work and life or about the connections between rural and urban landscapes will become seeds in the minds of his readers.  Even though Dobson’s approach to his life’s questions might not be the answer for everyone, his bold steps into the unknown will challenge anyone teetering on the verge of apathy. 

While there are some tense moments in the narrative, the majority of this book’s action remains slow and steady.  Dobson gets sniffed by a bear while sleeping under his tarp in Yellowstone, and he’s hassled by a few people he meets on the road, but this narrative is not the type that moves from one cliffhanger moment to the next.  Readers who like plots that advance at a steady clip will have a difficult time with this book’s pace, which moves a bit too leisurely at times. 

Those who remain with Dobson through the entire length of his journey will somehow feel like accomplices in this author’s achievements, co-conspirators in his fulfillment of Walt Whitman’s challenge to set aside all other occupations and simply travel the open road. 

Traci J. Macnamara is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in many magazines, journals and books, including Isotope and Backpacker.  She lives in Vail.

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