Not second fiddle

The Flint Hills are a unique landscape

So what’s the big deal about the Flint Hills anyway? For many years, the hills have attracted artists and photographers. In recent years, the national media has started paying attention. And lately, the number of blogs and photo Web sites focusing on the Flint Hills has grown. So what’s the deal?

If you ask me – and thanks for asking – I know how I would answer the question, at least from my perspective. I know what attracts me to this region and what parts of the Flint Hills’ story interest me, but that’s just my opinion. I’m guessing that if I ask you what you like about the hills, I’ll get an entirely different answer.

Before I ask you what you feel, however, let’s think a bit about all this attention being lavished on the hills. Sometimes, being from Kansas, we doubt any outsider really likes our state, sorta like wondering why someone would date our little sister. We listen to others talk about how the state is flat and boring and there’s nothing to do here and we have a hard time refuting the perceptions.

There are people, however, who refute the perceptions simply through the way they look at the hills and how they share what they see. I’ve sometimes heard it said – although I forget where I heard it first and who said it – that you can’t swing a dead cat in the Flint Hills without hitting an artist. I’m still not sure why you would want to fling defunct felines, but I do know there are many artists who find inspiration in the Flint Hills.

Take for example – one example from many, many possibilities – the paintings of Louis Copt, a Kansas artist who frequently works in the Flint Hills. His works on prairie fires always moves me. Louis has also expanded his work to a new medium: video. He has created a 12-minute documentary about prairie fires. Well, actually it’s 12 minutes of prairie fires set to music, but it captures the power of fire in the prairie through some great photography.

To many who live in the Flint Hills, controlled burns on pasture land are really just a lot of work and not the source of wonderment. To many outsiders, however, it’s a fascinating event. Many are familiar with Jan Jantzen, a Flint Hills landowner and naturalist who runs an annual prairie burning festival that introduces folks to fire on the prairie. That’s a perfect example of what folks find interesting in the Flint Hills, a way of looking at life that’s not found elsewhere. I recently had a phone conversation with a Californian who was planning a trip to Kansas for the annual flower walk at the Konza Prairie. She was amazed when I tried to explain the purpose of burning the prairie. In California, you see, wild fires make national news as a very bad thing and she couldn’t figure out why we would start one on purpose.

Fires aren’t the only thing that draw folks to the prairie and outsiders are starting to take notice of what’s here. Back in 2006, Midwest Living ran an article about Kansas, entitled “Finding Passion for the Plains.” The author of the story led by stating, “Despite growing up on the plains, I suffered from a common bias: the belief that prairies are something to drive across, not through.” A trip down K-177, the Flint Hills National Scenic Byway, and a visit to the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve stripped away that bias and opened some eyes about the beauty of the Flint Hills.

About the same time, the Boston Globe ran a story about the Flint Hills, entitled “Under the Rainbow” (The Boston Globe, September 3, 2006). Like the Midwest Living story, the author began with the cliché and had a change of heart after seeing the tallgrass prairie, saying “Kansas is known by politicians as a flyover state, by cross-country travelers as the stretch where a 400-mile drive seemed like 800, and by much of the world as the black-and-white place where a tornado snatched up Dorothy Gale from her family farm and launched her toward the colorful land of Oz.” From there, the article goes on to describe the Flint Hills and how the prairie in these hills looks much as it did long ago.

The importance of those articles was dwarfed, however by the arrival of Jim Richardson’s photo exhibit about the Flint Hills in the April, 2007 edition of National Geographic. Jim wanted that article, “Splendor of the Grass,” to show off the Flint Hills to the world and show Kansans they had no reason to look elsewhere for a great landscape. In the online field notes to the article, Jim says, “I come from Kansas, so I’ve always known that my state suffers from an inferiority complex. I went out determined that the Flint Hills … wouldn’t be playing second fiddle to other, more famous American landscapes in the pages of the National Geographic.“

Hard rocks and soft grass create the Flint Hills' unique look.

So – to go back to the question about why I like the hills, and thanks again for asking – what is it that pulls me to the hills? I have to say it’s something about the hills themselves. I deeply appreciate the ranchers who have worked in the hills and learned how to keep the prairie going. I admire the scientists at the Konza Prairie that study the grasslands of the tallgrass prairie. I like big bluestem and switch grass and all the flowers of the prairie. I even stand in awe at the power of the bison in the hills. But my favorite images of the Flint Hills involve the hills themselves. There is something in the shape and power of the hills, with their curves and stair-step slopes. The powerful rock outcrops of flinty limestone add to the shape and stand in contrast to the softness of the grass covering the hills. The connection between the grass and the hills intrigues me. Without these Flint Hills, the tallgrass prairie would be a thing of the past, lost forever. Also, the hills are in exactly the right spot to save the tallgrass. Move them to the west and it would be too dry for the tall grasses. Move them to the east and the excess moisture would have led to forests, not grasses.

The hills and the rain aren’t the only things needed for the prairie, however. The grasses need fire – not too much but not too little either. It’s a unique balancing act, one that ranchers and prairie managers have participated in and are learning about.

But that’s just me. I want to hear what others think about the hills, so please tell me. Send me an e-mail from my contact page or leave a comment below. Some day soon, I’ll compile the answers and we’ll see what we discover.