The bad end of beyond
The National Parks system was created a hundred years ago to protect America’s wild places from encroaching development. Simon Barnes understood their value when he met a buffalo at Badlands in South Dakota
By Simon Barnes
The Oglala Lakota people called it Mako Sica, the land that is bad. French fur-trappers of the 18th century called it La Mauvaise Terre. The federal government called it “sub-marginal land”. These days it’s the Badlands National Park.
So how come this land is now good?
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