WILDLIFE

In a recent post I talked about the similarities between New Zealand and Wyoming in the late 1800's. Today I'm going to explore one of the differences: wildlife.

New Zealand is a country of birds. The Kiwi of course being one of the most well known. (Not to be confused with the green fruit). The Kiwi, along with many other of our native birds is flightless. The reason being we have no native mammals. Once the white settlers arrived they brought stoats, weasels, rats, cats, rabbits, deer etc, which is why many of our birds are endangered.

So back in the 1800's or even today, we can go out into the countryside in New Zealand with no fear of wildlife. We may get stung by a bee or a wasp, or on a rare occasion a grumpy seal might give chase across a beach.

Things are rather different in Wyoming. I make no claim to be an expert on their wildlife and I've never  been there, but the following is a list of animals that I know are in the vicinity of the setting of my novel and that I have mentioned in my writing.

Bears - very large and very dangerous.

Mountain Lions - also called cougars, pumas, panthers,
  catamounts or painters.
Wolves
Coyotes
Big Horn Sheep
Pronghorn deer
Elk
Deer
Skunks - sometimes called polecats. (Black and white
  stink bombs.)
Beaver - although they were almost trapped to
  extinction by the mid 19th century.
Prairie chickens
Jack rabbits
Rattle snakes
Eagles
Meadowlarks
Blue jays, and of course the Red-winged Blackbird. (Blackbird being the title of my novel.)

One of the things I have really enjoyed while researching my story has been finding out about these creatures. Their habitats, habits, life cycles and how they affected the people they lived beside. Many of them provided food and clothing, others were a colourful or entertaining distraction, but some of them were dangerous, to the point of death.

LIFE IN THE LATE 1800'S

As a writer of historical fiction I spend a lot of time in the past - whether it's reading novels, reference books, surfing the net, or watching movies and documentaries. I love the old-fashioned lifestyle, or the idea of it. At this stage I should point out that I can't live without a car, dishwasher or hairdryer.

Whether it is my novel, or short stories, I seem to always end up in the late 1800s, with a particular attachment to the decade of 1880. I have set my short stories in New Zealand, but as you may already know, my novel is set in Wyoming with a few excursions to San Francisco. What has surprised me in my research, is how similar life was for Americans and New Zealanders at this time. Although New Zealand did lag behind a little in industry and technology. (I'll keep their differences for another post.)

In rural areas life was simple but hard. Heating and cooking came from wood stoves or coal ranges. Food came from the garden or the end of a rifle, supplemented by very basic supplies from the store. No five minute noodles for these cooks.

Clothes were made from natural fibres, wool, cotton and linen. They needed a good deal of ironing and took much longer to dry. My skin crawls at the thought of wearing woollen long johns (or union suits) all through the year. The luxurious softness of Merino was untapped at that stage.

Entertainment came from family members with an ability to play the fiddle or the piano, or from sing alongs. Books took pride of place and families might sit around the fire at night to listen to the latest serial edition of a Charles Dickens novel.

And they worked hard. For the women there were cows to milk, butter to churn, meals to cook from scratch and endless sewing and mending. For men there was hunting, ploughing, haymaking and the endless chopping of wood.

In the cities, during this period, the industrial revolution was well under way. Telephones and electric light were common place in the bigger cities. Some of the poshest hotels even had elevators. There were cable cars, steam ships and of course the train was well established. Refrigerated ships transported meat around the world and many homes sported treadle sewing machines.

The same people who lived through the gold strikes and the cattle drives, experienced the first motor cars. Some may have lived long enough to witness the first airplanes. The technology race we are entrenched in now, had its beginnings in the 19th Century. It truly was an exciting time to live in.