Wild Stone Heart: An Apprentice in the Fields

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University and an avid outdoor recreationist. She is the
author of several books, including The Mountain Is Moving: Japanese
Women’s Lives, Kurlek and Margaret Laurence: T

For some 20 years, Sharon Butala has lived with her husband in the
extreme southwest corner of Saskatchewan on a ranch that includes a
large area that has never been ploughed, fields still in their natural
condition of native grasses. The strange, austere beauty of this wild
prairie terrain moves Butala deeply and evokes reflections that range
from poetry, philosophy, and mysticism to science and economics.

Her decision to marry a rancher meant that henceforth Butala would
spend part of most days walking on uninhabited and unploughed land, and
thus free—or forced—to explore the meanings of the word “wild,”
a truly difficult concept, indeed a “great Mystery.” The wild became
her place of sanctuary, solace, and prayer.

Wild Stone Heart is divided into three sections, one for each word of
the title. Section 2, “Stone,” describes the unusual agreement the
couple signed in 1996 with the Nature Conservancy of Canada in order to
preserve the original prairie land. Meanwhile, neighboring ranchers
struggled with pollution, loss of biodiversity, and the difficulty of
paying taxes.

Wild Stone Heart is an unusual and impressive exploration of our
relation to the land, one that concerns us all. Butala takes the
discourse in many directions, none of them dull. She is a visionary
writer, full of poetry and profundity, as witnessed her earlier The
Perfection of the Morning: An Apprenticeship in Nature (1994). Wild
Stone Heart is moving, mystical, always intriguing.