Flint Hills, Tall Grass

The Flint Hills invite you to come closer and take a look.

Maybe I think too much, but lately I’ve found myself wondering about the attraction of the Flint Hills, at least what I find attractive. I can only speak for myself and I fully realize what appeals to me likely will not work for others. Still, I write this in the hopes some of you will relate in some way to my appreciation for this region and share your experience.

The Flint Hills are an unusual place. I have lived in many places and visited many, many more, each place possessing unique qualities. After a childhood spent in central Missouri, a decade in northern Indiana, and another decade in northern France, I have called many places home. I find myself, however, comparing those places to the Flint Hills, a region I called home only for a few short years while I attended Kansas State.

My Missouri home, as I have written here before, was once tallgrass prairie, but now is dominated by woodlands and farms. Where I lived in Indiana has also undergone a transformation from prairie to industrial development and agriculture. In France, I lived in the plains of the Normandy beaches and the woodlands of the Contentin Peninsula, areas vastly different from the Flint Hills in dozens of ways.

Now, however, I make my home in the Flint Hills and I find myself wondering about what makes this place so special.

Often, in books and articles praising the qualities of a landscape, authors employ vivid metaphors to bring that region to life. I am not interested, however, in personifying this landscape and I am certainly not willing to romanticize the place. To me, the Flint Hills are too real, too down-to-earth, to waste such literary devices on a description.

That’s part of the appeal of the Flint Hills, I guess. I feel no need to pour out some spiritual description on these hills and the grass. The reality of the place is good enough for me. Like a friendly uncle that always made me feel accepted when I was a kid, the Flint Hills are warm and inviting just as they really are, without adding a lot of imaginary, metaphorical qualities.

Then there’s that transformation-at-the-hands-of-man thing, or to be specific, the lack of human change on the landscape. Of all the locations I have called home, the Flint Hills are most like the landscape that existed before the industrial age came around. Missouri, Indiana, and France have each undergone such a radical change that I am sure I would not recognize those places had I seen them before Western culture’s influence.

In the Flint Hills, however, I can go for miles and see prairie-covered hills much the way Zeb Pike or Thomas Say saw them. There is still that “raw” element in the landscape. Sure, there are roads and fences, but I can squint a little and ignore that. Of course, the hills have been grazed and occasionally overgrazed, but the native grasses still flourish on these hills. The hills beat back the plowshares.

Even though the landscape is still close to a natural state, it is not frightening or overwhelming. I have visited mountain landscapes from the Rockies to the Swiss Alps and those places can likewise look untouched by human hands. Those places, however, do not look as inviting as the tallgrass prairie. When I see the rugged mountains, I have the impression nature wants to crush me. I wouldn’t survive long there. When I see the prairie, however, I feel I have been invited to spend some time exploring what the tall grass is covering. I am not daunted by the Flint Hills. Instead, I am attracted to walk in their midst and learn their secrets.

Where else in this world can I find a natural landscape that still bids me to come and visit? Most landscapes have been industrialized by development or the plow. Of the landscapes that have resisted this industrialization, most of those have beaten back every attempt and crushed those who tried.

Only the Flint Hills, of every place I know on earth, have fought back human conquest while welcoming those who would seek to conquer.