NEWS for North Dakotans
Agriculture Communication, North Dakota State University
7 Morrill Hall, Fargo, ND 58105-5665

March 23, 2000

Plains Folk: Husbandry from a Husband and Wife

Tom Isern, Professor of History
North Dakota State University
©2000 Plains Folk

I'm looking at this photo I took of Elaine and Don Elijah at their home in the Sheyenne River valley of North Dakota, and I think maybe there's something to learn from it. The lesson comes from the way the two of them hold their heads, attentive to one another, even as they look at the camera. I've seen the same sort of posture between two experienced dance partners on a Legion dance floor.

My Lotte and I came to see the Elijahs because they are pioneers in the modern revival of bison culture on the northern plains. In about 1970 they bought a young buffalo bull from a fellow in South Dakota, and the next year six heifers.

Don says, "We started out first just to have something different."

Why people got into bison culture in those days, when it wasn't much of a commercial proposition, is an interesting question, and I think I know part of the answer. It seems quite a few of the early bison ranchers have historical interests. They like good stories, and they like old stuff, and bison were a living piece of history that they wanted to have around.

There is material evidence of this sort of motivation when you look around the Elijah place. The mailbox at the end of the drive is an old walking plow. There's a restored tractor in the shed, various antiques around the yard, petrified wood in the flower garden, a painted wooden buffalo nickel hung by the door. Inside the house--a log cabin of utility poles--there is a buffalo head over the mantel, and a bison skull Don painted, and trunks full of Indian artifacts and oddities of natural history. History everywhere.

This is a clear case of people being a little nutty about history and that eccentricity having turned out to be a great thing for the country. A lot of people, for their own curious reasons, adopted bison, and the darned things, survivors that they are, proceeded to be fruitful and multiply. As bison turned into a commercial proposition, the bison historians like the Elijahs were providers of breeding stock to the new buffalo entrepreneurs. They played a crucial role in the takeoff of the industry.

By and large, the development of the modern bison industry has been a guy thing. Bison ranchers are almost all men, and in most cases, the women of the house have little involvement with the bison operation. There are exceptions, though, and Elaine Elijah is one of them. She's always been involved with field work, bison work included--"I have driven everything but the corn chopper and the baler," she says. Don says, "Her and I get up and go out the door the same time. Outside all day."

Partners. That's what I was talking about with the photo I mentioned.

Back in the early days of their bison herd, the Elijahs were having trouble getting the calves weaned. Those bison cows could be fooled once, but after being caught in the corral the first time, they weren't about to come in again. So Elaine pulled some ears of sweet corn and laid a trail into the corral. She tied a rope to the corral gate and ran it to her kitchen window. It took a while, but those cows finally followed that corn into the corral--and she had them.

The point is you don't drive bison, you entice them. Over time, too, they come to know their owners. "They follow us all the time," Elaine observes. "They seem to know our pickup. When we drive down that road and they're on the hills, they stand and look at us. The boys can drive around with their pickups, but they don't pay any attention to them. All we got to do is call `Come buffs' or honk the horn and they come running."

On the other hand, she says, "When you crowd them, then you need something strong."

You know, we hardly ever use the word "husbandry" any more. We used to say "crop husbandry" and "animal husbandry." Now we say "science." But if you'd like to see a definition of animal husbandry, go visit the Elijah place.

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Source: Tom Isern (701) 231-8339
Editor: Dean Hulse (701) 231-6136

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