The focus of the study are small rural communities of Bohemian homesteaders in Buhl, Southern Idaho and Judith Basin, Montana. Although the presence of the Czechs in these communities is not widely known, they played a significant part in the American dream of Manifest Destiny. In the last decades of the 19th century Bohemian homesteaders were among the first ethnic group of the Euro-Americans to settle the western frontier. They were an integral part of the historical and environmental changes within these two arid environments. The study will compare the landscape they left behind with the new land they encountered on the frontier. I will explore their contribution in reshaping and impacting these environments and how did the character of the place contoured their narratives. With the diminishing natural resources and hostile environmental conditions most of these western communities were gradually disappearing and with them the homesteaders' ties to their original ethnic cultures.
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