“In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are only consequences.”
Robert G. Ingersoll

The Solace of Open Spaces: Essays by Gretel Ehrilich is a rich collection of essays about life in Wyoming’s ranch country in the 1970s.

Author Gretel Ehrilich has captured the essence of living in a world filled with sheep, cattle, faithful dogs, Wyoming badlands, long winters and tough, weathered people. It’s a place where people were outnumbered by animals, where sagebrush covered 58,000 of the state’s 97,063 square miles.

The author came to Wyoming only for a visit, but then couldn’t convince herself to leave. She worked a variety of jobs, moving thousands of sheep into shearing sheds, helping round up cattle, sorting and branding, finally becoming a rancher herself.

The essays in this book are rich with descriptions of beauty, unbelievably harsh weather with never-ending wind, tough people who will always stop to help a friend, and who have rich kinship to the land. Wyoming cowboys claim that the road to success is not toughness but “toughing it out”—putting up with the discomforts of the weather and land; to just keep on keeping on. Here winters are so severe that it’s hard to know who suffers more—the livestock or the ranchers who feed and care for them. The hardships of winter are often expressed by “froze in,” “froze up,” or “froze out.”

The Solace of Open Spaces reads like a memoir rather than what I think of as essays. Gretel Ehrilich writes about the habits of cattle, sheep, dogs, wild animals, even insects. She explains the world of rodeo, not only as an observer, but the behind-the-scenes business of rodeos. She describes attending a Plains Indian Sundance, a serious ceremony that involves repetitive dancing and fasting to regenerate the power to restore health, vitality, and harmony to the land and tribes. This book is rich in detail, holding nothing back, both good and bad. I highly recommend The Solace of Open Spaces.