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Imagine! Imagine a place where giant clear-water lakes feed sparkling mountain rivers, ancient towering bluffs rise above rushing waters, magnificent underground caverns are preserved forever, record-breaking trout play in cool mountain streams, abundant wildlife roam in mountain forests, the night sky shines with the brilliance of the heavens.
Your Destination… The Ozark Mountain Region.
Most of the novel, “Where the Red Fern Grows” is set beside the Illinois River in the Ozark Mountains of northeastern Oklahoma. Although the year is never specified, the time appears to be the late 1920’s or early 1930’s.
Place Where the Red Fern Grows is set in the mountain country of the Ozarks. The word “Ozark” is the French name for the region Aux Arks, which means “at the bows.”It is an area of astonishing beauty.
The Ozark Plateau • Deep valleys contrast with low mountains and are cut by winding rivers and deep caves.
Natural Resources • Thick forests of oak, maple, hickory, and pine • Mountain Streams • Deep Caves • A Vast array of plants and animals
Map It! • The Ozarks are surrounded by five major rivers, the Mississippi, the Missouri, the Osage, the Neosho, and the Arkansas Rivers. The Ozarks cover 50,000 square miles. The area in green shows where the story takes place.
The Cherokee Strip in Oklahoma • The land Billy lived on was Cherokee land, allotted to his mother because of the Cherokee blood that flowed in her veins.
Time • It is the late 1920’s- early 1930’s and the world was in an economic crisis. This crisis was called the Great Depression.
Nearly everyone in the Ozarks was poor. • In 1929, the New York stock market crashed. • The stock market crash affected everyone around the world. • Almost overnight, the world plunged into the Great Depression. • Stores, companies, and banks went out of business. People lost their jobs, homes, and savings.
Daily Life for Billy • There was not much running water, indoor plumbing or electricity • There were few cars or outside contact. People walk to get places such as the fields, farms, and to town.
In the winter, the family shivered in the chilly wind and crackly frost.
In the spring, the family woke up to the rich smell of the earth after a gentle rain.
Billy loves the land. “I had never seen a night so peaceful and still,” he says. “All around me tall sycamores gleamed like white streamers in the moonlight.”
Credits Wilson, R.(1961). Where the Red Fern Grows. New York:Bantam. http://www.akc.org/breeds/recbreeds/redbonecoon.cfm http://www.ozarkgateway.com/ http://www.eduplace.com/kids/hmr/mtai/rawls.html http://kclibrary.nhmccd.edu/decade30.html http://www.mce.k12tn.net/dogs/fern/rawls.htm http://www.ozarksnaturalistsnotebook.com/PAGE040112-ozarks.html http://www.todaysteacher.com/TheGreatDepressionWebQuest/briefoverview.htm
