Giants in the Earth Themes

When you're living out on a desolate prairie, family is really all you've got to keep you company… unless you really like badgers. Or prairie dogs. Or, hey, locusts.And even when someone's not re...

Isolation can definitely do weird things to the human mind. Beret, for example, pretty much loses her sanity out on the vast prairies.The prairies make her feel completely isolated from civilizatio...

Folks back in settler time were pretty religious to begin with. But add to that the fact that there's not much to do on the prairie other than work and pray, and you're bound to get some hardcore p...

O.E. Rölvaag goes out of his way to make you feel just how crazy-vast and open the great American prairies truly are. And nestled in all of this giant vastness are a handful of Norwegian families...

Living on the American prairie puts a lot of strain on Per Hansa and Beret's marriage. For starters, they have completely opposite reactions to prairie life. While Per feels totally fulfilled and h...

It's not easy to communicate with outsiders when you're a Norwegian moving through the American prairies. But there are some people who travel with per Hansa's crew who know English… and it's a g...

You don't move to the frontier because you're unmotivated. You move there because you've got a fire in your belly and you want to carve out some territory for yourself. Well Per Hansa is no excepti...