In words that are as clean and precise as his haunting, starkly beautiful photographs, the author vividly recreates the life and times of the Western Homestead Era, that period beginning around 1885 when the prairie lands lying westward from the longitude of the western Dakotas became available to pioneering farmers. Some 70 black-and-white duotone photographs, with detailed captions, record the bleak landscapes and the abandoned farms, outbuildings, farm implements, and hand tools that are mute testimonies to the failed hopes of several million families who settled on these arid and semi-arid lands.
The author explains how their failure resulted from a deadly combination of natural and economic causes. Neither the federal government nor the homesteaders themselves were aware that some of the western homestead land was so dry that artificial irrigation often was required. But irrigation was unavailable to most of these farms, and many thousands of them failed within a few years. On most of the homestead lands, however, dry farming--by which crops are watered by falling rain and snow--permitted the newcomers to plant and reap a variety of crops. For several decades, these regions produced flourishing farms, towns, railroad lines, and dirt and gravel roads.
Meanwhile, and again unanticipated by both government and the prospering farmers, the climate of these productive regions was becoming increasingly dry. This was the natural phenomenon that culminated in the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, which was coincidentally accompanied by the Great Depression. Crops went begging for lack of water, banks closed, railroads were abandoned, and the formerly prosperous homesteaders went broke by the several millions.
Historians of the Western United States have largely ignored the homesteaders. There is little romance in farming, especially when compared with that attached to cowboys, Indians, explorers, and fur traders. Still, the homesteaders were heroes in their own right. Theirs was the last great endeavor in the opening of the West, and this book, with its moving text, historical introduction, and stunning photographs, tells their story.

"In a Hungry Country" catalogues the extraordinary knowledge of Simon Paneak (1900 - 1975), a Nunamiut hunter who served as a vital source of information on inland Eskimo history and cultural heritage.
Paneak had an intimate understanding of the natural world- the plants and animals vital to existence, as well as of the land itself. Provided with paper and pens by Jack Campbell, Paneak drew a series of pictures documenting Nunamiut life from 1969 until 1971. He also recorded his own earliest memories of life in the Brooks Range before the disastrous dispersal of his people to the coast in the early 1900s. Paneak's narratives include legends of flying whales as well as grim stories of warfare and hunger.
In this well-illustrated volume, the words of Simon Paneak are presented in his own unique English. Campbell, his friend and editor, offers historical context and background that enhance Paneak's words and make them accessible to a wider audience. Robert L. Rausch offers a detailed list of the plants and animals that Paneak knew, listing them in English and IAupiaq and giving their scientific names. Stephen C. Porter supplies an Anaktuvuk genealogy and Grant Spearman contributes an insightful Foreword.
This volume is a treasury of Paneak's words and drawings and will be an invaluable addition to the literature on the culture and history of northern Alaska.