Tom Isern, NDSU

Coming up this summer, with registration beginning 30 March: an original course offering combining study tours with on-site experience. "Prairie Earth, Prairie Homes: A Field School" focuses on earth and sod houses on the plains of western North Dakota. Participants will visit and study earth buildings ranging from Mandan earth lodges to the Scoria Lily Ranch, an earth-brick country home built in the Moderne style. In the ghost town of Haley and other locales we will find cut-sod houses that were occupied late into the 20th century. Most salient on the northern prairies are the earthen homes of the Germans from Russia; participants not only will visit and study these wondrous buildings but also take part in the restoration of the historic Hutmacher farmstead in Dunn County.

3 to 6 hours of credit, undergraduate or graduate

A website for the field school is under construction here - www.ndsu.edu/instruct/isern/earth

To express interest or get further details: isern@plainsfolk.com

Congratulations to my friend and colleague John Helgeland on publication of his thoughtful essay, "Defining Lincoln's Religion," in On Second Thought, magazine of the North Dakota Humanities Council.