New West Book Review

Where the Bison Roam: ‘Hard Grass’ by Mary Zeiss Stange

By Rachel Weaver, Guest Writer, 5-13-11

Mary Zeiss Stange opens her book, Hard Grass: Life on the Crazy Woman Bison Ranch (University of New Mexico Press, 256 pages, $27.95), with a description of how many ranching women also work “off the place” to help make ends meet. She is no exception. Except that she is. While most wives work in the closest town at the bank or hardware store, Zeiss Stange is a professor of women’s studies and religion at Skidmore College in upstate New York, two thousand miles from the ranch she and her husband, Doug, own in eastern Montana. When commenting on her particular situation, she states, “More recently I have noted the structural likenesses between the pecking order of a buffalo herd and power arrangements on a college campus.”

When Zeiss Stange and her husband, two academics from nonagricultural backgrounds, buy their approximately 4500 acre ranch in 1988, their neighbors immediately label them as “differnt,” which Zeiss Stange points out, isn’t exactly complimentary.  When they decide not to raise cattle in the midst of cattle country, but rather to restore the land to its natural ecological state, their reputation extends beyond their neighbors to residents in all of Carter County.

In an attempt to ease the strain on their overgrazed land, the Stanges first settle on raising llamas. They plan to sell the wool as well as market the llamas as sheep guards and pack animals. In a baptism by fire to ranching life, they lose llamas to rattlesnake bites, bloat, congenital heart defects and stillbirths as the market price for the animals falls steadily. Displaying her typical resilience, Zeiss Stange writes, “Our llama venture yielded a net loss of about twenty thousand dollars and we counted ourselves among the more fortunate llama folk. Spit happens as they say in the llama trade.”

In a continued effort to restore the natural balance on the land of which they have become stewards, the Stanges settle on raising bison after getting out of the llama trade. Bison are native to the area and require very little intervention and management when compared to cattle. Originally, they plan to sell their bison as breeders to ranchers who raise bison for meat, but eventually settle on offering guided bison hunts on their ranch.

Zeiss Stange’s strength in this book is the unique perspective she offers as someone who straddles often opposing worlds. As a rancher and academic, as a hunter and feminist, Zeiss Stange is as dynamic as the landscape she calls home. She is able to present a fascinating account of her relationships with her neighbors—people she respects, disagrees with, and comes to rely on in equal parts—as well as paint a compelling picture of the ranching culture of which they all are a part.

Hard Grass is equal parts memoir and a study of where the American West has been and where it is going. Zeiss Stange pulls from both her experiences as a rancher and as an academic to explore proposed ideas for how best to deal with the growing financial impossibility of ranching; among them subdividing the land, as well as turning much of eastern Montana into a national park. She is honest about the harsh realities of ranching, clearly showing that hardship and beauty often coexist, that the promise of a better year next year is always tainted with the fear that financial ruin is one snowstorm, one contagious disease away.

The result of Zeiss Stange’s diverse background is a diverse book that leaves the reader with a deeper understanding of the complexities of rural Montana culture, its people and the pressures they and their land face.

Rachel Weaver is a writer living in Louisville, Colorado.  Her work has appeared in The Gettysburg Review, The Blue Mesa Review, and The Ontario Review among others.

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