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South of Lethbridge, Alberta, Highway 62 climbs
from the floor of an ancient glacial lake to the crest of a low
ridge, crosses a continental divide and drops to meet the Milk River
arching up from Montana.
The austere, dry land within this great three-hundred-mile
ellipse is home to the continents last vestiges of shortgrass plains
and holds a history unique in all the Americas.
Now parts of Montana, Alberta, and Saskatchewan,
Milk River country has been at the centre of the epic boom-and-bust
extremes that gave final shape to the Prairie West. It was the place
where the last continental glaciers stalled and began to die. It
was the ancient domain of the Blackfoot and Assiniboine peoples,
and then, in the 150 years it took to settle the course of European
empire in North America, it lived under the flags of five nations—France,
Spain, Great Britain, the United States, and Canada.
It was here, as European settlement encroached,
that the remnant buffalo, the prairie wolf, and the plains grizzly
waited out their final days. It was here that Sitting Bull and Little
Soldier and Chief Joseph drew the final curtain on the brilliant
horse cultures of the plains nations, here that cattlemen found
their last free range, and here that the brief dreams of the last
homesteaders dried up and blew away.
Originally published in 1995 and short-listed
for the 1996 Writers Guild of Alberta’s award for nonfiction,
Hope's Last Home is one of the very best books ever written
about the West, an intimate journey into the fascinating history
of a final frontier.
"Anyone who reads Hope's Last Home will never again be able
to dismiss a region so rich in history and pre-history."
—
Bob Blakey, FFWD
"He writes with a clarity of style that
makes this book a pleasure to read. He displays an intimate knowledge
of the country and its people … From the wanderings
of Lewis and Clark expedition that gave the Milk River its name,
to the petroglyphs of Writing-On-Stone, Rees takes us on a journey
into the heart of this country. … Rees succeeds admirably in
giving us a glimpse into this harsh, beautiful place."
— Larraine Andrews, Chinook Country Historical Society
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