Unto the Least of These

Unto the Least of These

Author: Prairie Public December 27, 2025 Duration: 4:12
This short item from the Fargo Forum of 11 December 1916: “The towns of the state seem to have taken up well with the community Christmas pageant idea.” The “idea” of a Christmas pageant—the phrasing intimates that in 1917 Christmas pageants were not traditions, but a new thing, catching on.

The written essays of historian Tom Isern, long enjoyed in regional newspapers, find a new voice in the Plains Folk podcast from Prairie Public. This isn't a sweeping historical documentary, but a series of intimate, thoughtful commentaries rooted in the everyday rhythms and deep memories of the North Dakota plains. Each episode feels like a conversation with a neighbor who has spent a lifetime observing and cherishing the details that define a place-the shared meal of a fall supper, the weathered boards of a homestead, the collective energy of a barn dance. The podcast moves beyond geography to explore the intangible character of the region, asking what it means to live and persist here. Listening, you'll hear stories that connect the past to the present, finding the extraordinary within the ordinary landscape. It’s a quiet celebration of the patterns, traditions, and people that shape this particular corner of the world, offering a gentle reminder that a sense of place is built from countless small, enduring things. The Plains Folk podcast provides a regular moment of reflection on the culture and society of the plains, one carefully crafted story at a time.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 23

Plains Folk
Podcast Episodes
An American Spectacle [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 4:30
“The spelling bee at the Baptist church Tuesday evening was quite a lively entertainment,” so says a press report from Jamestown in April 1885. “Rev. S. N. Griffith acted as umpire, Professor Clemmer conductor and Profes…
Fish Fries [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 4:30
In a lovely book of 2008, America Eats, author Pat Willard puts fish fries into her subtitle, but hardly mentions them in her book-length discussion of food events in American culture. Examining the custom in our own reg…
The Knights of Leisure [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 4:10
In Bottineau during the late 1880s, there emerged an association of men “on the ragged edge of civilization,” as one of them said, in a boom town on the Manitoba Railroad. They determined to have some fun poking fun at t…
Layers of Memory [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 4:38
After spending a couple of days reading the Pioneer Mother narratives written by members of the Gardar Homemakers Club, all descendants of Icelandic immigrants, their stories preserved in the collections of the Institute…
Horseback, Trains, Boats, and Wagons [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 4:26
Trans-Atlantic immigration to America in the nineteenth century was truly a daunting decision, a severe test of body, spirit, and resolve. I’m reading about it in the Pioneer Mother narratives set down by the Gardar Home…
Pie Melons [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 4:23
Since I spend a ridiculous amount of time reflecting on the character of regional identity, as an intellectual obsession, but also think a lot about food, as a personal obsession, it is no surprise that these two preoccu…
Venison Chislic [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 4:12
It’s the best week of the year for our two dogs when I’m breaking down quarters of venison in the kitchen. It’s good for their keepers, too, for as with many prairie households, venison becomes our primary protein in win…
On Their Terms and in Their Words [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 3:58
Echoes of the Old Country: Growing Up German-Russian on the Northern Plains, by Jessica Clark, is a landmark work in German-Russian history published this year by North Dakota State University Press. The book launched to…
Frozen Charlotte [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 4:00
A dangerous storm has swept in today, a harsh coda to a two-day chinook that caused us to let our guard down. It puts me in mind of a favorite ballad of mine for the season, “Young Charlotte.”
Terroir in Grassy Places [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 6:05
“Terroir” is a term deployed by wine enthusiasts often with more mystique than precision. There is a sort of magic by which the environmental qualities of a particular place are supposed to pass through into the aestheti…