Propelled by wings, fins, legs, and the wind, life has found a way to Minnesota's North Shore for more than twelve thousand years. Some plants and animals have taken up residence in the region's ancient mountains, others in its lakes and flowing rivers. Together, they weave a living fabric of sublime and fascinating beauty. These organisms come to life in North Shore, a comprehensive environmental history of one of Minnesota's most beloved places.

The story of this region unfolds through the five interconnected areas of Minnesota's North Shore watershed--the meandering rivers of the Headwaters, the deep and dense forest of the Highlands, the rocky Nearshore, the drama of Lake Superior, and its mysterious islands, including Isle Royale and Susie Island archipelagos. Each section begins with an overview of the forces that have shaped the area, then the focus turns to a wide range of inhabitants, such as chorus frogs and star-nosed moles, butterworts and coaster brook trout, jeweled diatoms and pitcher plants, black bears and blue-spotted salamanders. Each chapter links to the region's broader history, from the sculpting of the land by mile-high glaciers to the role of scientific exploration, the advent of logging, the development of tourism, and the changing global climate.

North Shore reminds us that the natural history of this extraordinary region is still being created and that each of us--individually and collectively--are the authors of this ongoing narrative. Compelling and accessible, the book will provide readers with a science-based knowledge of the Minnesota North Shore watershed so that together we can write a new, hopeful chapter for its inhabitants, both human and wild.

Author: Chel Anderson, Adelheid Fischer
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Published: 05/01/2015
Pages: 632
Weight: 4.9lbs
Size: 10.20h x 8.30w x 1.80d
ISBN: 9780816632329


Award: 2016 Minnesota Book Award Finalist - Minnesota Subject


Review Citation(s):
Choice 02/01/2016

About the Author

Chel Anderson came to live and work on Minnesota's North Shore in 1974. Since then she has worked in various positions in the Superior National Forest, as a consulting ecologist and botanist in the private and public sectors, and with the Minnesota Biological Survey. In 2001 she received the Minnesota Chapter of the Nature Conservancy's Conservation Award for her "tireless efforts to inventory northeast Minnesota's plant communities, her work to support conservation action with sound science, and her extraordinary ability to inspire passion for wild things and wild places."

Adelheid Fischer is a writer who focuses on natural history, ecology, and environmental history. She has written for many publications, including Utne Reader, Orion, Conservation, Places, and Arizona Highways. She is the coauthor of Valley of Grass: Tallgrass Prairie and Parkland of the Red River Region, winner of a Minnesota Book Award for Nature Writing. In 2014 she received the Ellen Meloy Desert Writers Award. A sixteen-year resident of Minnesota, Fischer now makes her home at the foot of South Mountain in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona.