The Origins Of Dune
Before you watch part 2 of Dune, learn about the inspirations and origins of Frank Herbert’s classic SciFi novel
In 1953, a journalist by the name of Frank Herbert traveled to Florence, Oregon to write an article about the coastal dunes that had become a big tourist destination and a site of a long-standing environmental struggle.
The Oregon Dunes span over 30,000 acres and still attract over a million and a half tourists to this day. But long before Herbert was a journalist and before environmental issues were everywhere in the news, the coastal communities in the 1920s were struggling with the impact and movement of these dunes.
High coastal winds shifted the dunes constantly, swallowing roads, railroad tracks, homes, and more. To combat this constantly shifting landscape, the US Department of Agriculture planted European Beach Grass in hopes of stabilizing the dunes.
Although the grass worked in some areas there simply wasn’t enough to cover the huge footprints of the dunes — the type you’d expect to see in African deserts.
In the areas where the grass was working, a new problem arose: the grass itself was an invasive species and soon the area was overgrown and the landscape shifted.
