Northern mixed-grass prairie stretches in all directions here, a place of exceptionally clean air, sparrows and western meadowlarks, and people and animals enduring harsh conditions beneath a giant sky. Though these sweeping rangelands have changed very little over hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years, the area has taken part in a rich and transformational history with effects far beyond its remoteness. At the confluence of two rivers known to aboriginal people who followed the bison, and near a Yellowstone River campsite used by the Corps of Discovery as they explored, cataloged, and helped open the region to development, and beside the Powder River where military troops regularly camped during the government's conquest to subdue native people and ease settlement, the region also saw riverboat traffic give way to railroads and irrigation broaden how people survive on vast, dry landscapes. Today, through a program called Undaunted Stewardship, ranchers preserve historic sites and work to maintain the landscape's body and soul.