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The Great Lakes Water Wars
Some books you read because you should. Some books you read because you want to. With this book, you can satisfy both.
If you love Lake Superior and intend on being prepared to protect it, you should read this book. If you’re intrigued by what has happened to water resources in other parts of the world and about the history of how water became worth more than its weight in gold, then you’ll enjoy these stories.
For the record, I first met Peter Annin when he worked for the Chicago bureau of Newsweek magazine. Knowing of his honesty and thoroughness assured me that he would deliver a thoughtful book about this complex topic. He has.
By examining mistakes of the past around the country and the world and explaining the current situation, Peter gives the context necessary for those of us who will help to frame direction for use of Lake Superior - and the other Great Lakes.
He tackled the book, Peter explained in a conversation with me, because the subject of water usage and the dangers of unregulated release of water resources is too large for most newspaper, TV or magazine reports.
“I’ve followed this issue for years. I saw how difficult it was for journalists to get their arms around it. … It’s a natural book.”
Peter wanted his book to be a comprehensive resource and he is an obvious advocate of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact as a beginning tool to protect our inland seas.
“We’re really at this important juncture in Great Lakes history. We’re entering a period of increased water tensions. Almost everyone agrees that the current system to protect the Great Lakes is dysfunctional.”
Only two of the eight Great Lakes states have passed the compact restricting water removal into law - Minnesota and Illinois. All of the other states, except for Wisconsin, have active bills before their legislatures. (You can follow the progress through www.greatlakeswaterwars.com.
Two parts of the book talk directly about Lake Superior. One chapter explains how the Waboose Dam, completed in 1943, diverts water from the Hudson Bay system into Lake Superior from Long Lac and Ogoki in Ontario. The dam came 17 years after the recorded lowest lake levels in 1925 and 1926 - so should that 2.4 inches added to the lake by the diversion be subtracted from current lake levels to determine whether it’s gone below the records? The lake may be lower than we know.
Another chapter talks about the Nova Group project that would have sent overseas bottled water from Lake Superior. A last-minute fuss reversed initial permitting for the plan.
Peter deftly weaves the human cost of water wars into his reporting. Diverting water into Lake Superior flooded out lands of the First Nations people in the Long Lac and Ogoki watersheds. In the story of the Aral Sea - or what remains of it - is a horrifying lesson about what can go wrong with water diversions.
By encouraging understanding of how to protect Lake Superior’s future, this book deserves its place on your coffee table beside those photo books showing the beauty of what Lake Superior is now.
– Konnie LeMay
A Country Doctor's Journal
It’s like sitting down to a comfortable cup of coffee with a friend who happens to be a rural doctor and a heck of a storyteller.
These short recollections of an obviously lively and caring career - actually of several careers because other doctors contribute - will warm your heart, make you smile and occasionally cause you to shake your head and cluck your tongue. People are just fascinating and who can see that better than their doctor.
And as you would expect of a coffee conversation, these stories are not ponderously told or laden with either angst or epiphany. There are insights and quite a few chuckles - not unusual since the memories that last with us the longest tend to make us laugh or cry.
This could be the Doctors’ rather than Doctor’s journal because Dr. MacDonald’s medical friends add stories of rural practices around the state. Most, however, ring true north. My favorites involve “old country” folk with those musical and familiar accents of their usually Scandinavian roots - along with the practical wisdom of that age and that original address.
You’ll enjoy the conversation between the commercial fishing brothers and the itinerant missionary hell-bent on adding a Norwegian soul to his flock. Asked which Lutheran congregation he belonged to, the old fishing fellow says: “Ve never choosed up sides.” It almost reads like an ethnic joke; but I’m assuming it’s a true story - or at least pretty true.
The tragedies are in here, too, as there must be in the reminiscences for any doctor concerned about his patients and their lives beyond the medical problems they present.
In the end, that is why this book makes such a great friend to invite over for coffee.
– Konnie LeMay
Celebrating Birch
This is a book celebrating one of the most giving of all trees. Crossing cultures and continents, the birch has for tens of thousands of years aided people by providing shelters, containers to preserve foods, methods of transportation and, into the future, perhaps life-saving medicines.
So how appropriate that for its 10th anniversary, the staff at North House Folk School in Grand Marais, Minnesota, produced a book celebrating not its own accomplishments but the history, story and utility of the birch.
This book is a wonderful mix of materials. Woven between sections of projects using birch bark and wood, the text covers the ancient history of the tree, the legends from many cultures about it and its biology, ecology and future.
The projects, beautifully and clearly illustrated with photos, are ones that students of the folk school would tackle and range from the simple and small to the more complex. In the bark section, projects feature, to name just a few, baskets, boxes, ornaments and an intriguing “seven deadly sins” rattle into which are placed seven pebbles. Shaking it is intended to keep the rattler on the straight and narrow.
Wood projects also have a wide range from wall hangers to carved bowls and spoons to even a Scandinavian Dala horse.
Even if you won’t grab up the tools and dive into these projects, the other parts of the book brought fascinating insights into this most identifiable and memorable tree.
The birch shares a lifespan similar to people, reaching 60 to 80 years - a relatively short existence among other long-lived tree species. Its generosity in providing necessary materials for people has been honored in stories, a few of which are related here.
After all, birch and people go way back together, as far back as the Neanderthals who found birch tar and beeswax useful.
One of my favorite narratives is about Nanabozho being saved by a birch that refused to give him up to the attacking thunder birds. It is how the black markings came to be on the white bark, so the story goes.
While this is a softcover volume, the heavy flap-folded covers, high-quality pages and good binding are meant to stand up to use.
The book does not focus on the North House Folk School and its 10 years, but a small piece introduces the school, sets the stage for the projects and whets your birch whistle for a chance for a hands-on visit.
– Konnie LeMay