[gentle music]
- Andy Soth: Picture rural Wisconsin,
and for many, a familiar landscape emerges,
one of farms with fertile fields,
cornstalks,
and cows.
This landscape can be an idyllic image,
but it doesn't reveal the ways
many rural areas struggle today,
as a slow economic recovery,
population decline,
and fleeing industry has led some
to worry that a quickly changing world
may be passing them by.
How people's lives are affected
by these many changes
may be hidden in the landscape
but revealed in personal stories,
in portraits, as in these
Portraits from Rural Wisconsin.
♪ ♪
- The portraits you're about to see
and the people you'll meet
come from a yearlong search for stories,
stories about rural Wisconsin
and the challenges its small farmers,
small-business owners,
and small-town residents are facing
and the ways they're meeting them.
[tranquil music]
The portraits come from travels
across western Wisconsin
up and down its winding roads
on an alphabet of highways,
through summer, fall,
winter, and spring.
I met people working hard to improve their communities
and people whose hard work might not be enough
to keep their farms.
- Some way. I just didn't know how.
- As you'll see, their stories are varied,
but they all share a single sentiment.
- Rural life is still the best life there is.
♪ ♪