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311reviews1
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Cook County Historical Society
311reviews1
John Beargrease and daughter, Mary Ann, in a photo from around 1897. Courtesy Cook County Historical Society3 of 3
311reviews2
John Beargrease: Legend of Minnesota’s North Shore
The best telling of history is through the stories of people and Daniel Lancaster masterfully weaves the life of John Beargrease through the history of other people arriving to or already living on the Minnesota shores of Lake Superior in the late 1800s.
This book convincingly depicts the tough but colorful lives of our community groundbreakers and the challenges faced in a Lake Superior wilderness. It also is one of the few books I’ve read that explains the close neighborly interactions of early European settlers and the Ojibway population living here. Daniel’s research - including conversations with Beargrease family descendants - gives bones to this story while his writing fleshes out the history with vivid images of the times. Actual images of the times, some never published before, can be found here.
Besides the adventures of John Beargrease (both father and son), the book describes the exploits of other early northern mail carriers and while those pony express riders get all the press, their story has nothing on our local heroes.
This is not just a book for those interested in our region’s history; it’s simply a good story of an intriguing man, his family and era on the shore.
- Konnie LeMay
A Hard-Water World: Ice Fishing and Why We Do It
If you’re not a Northlander, ice fishing is easy to ridicule, difficult to fathom. It’s crazy, right? Sitting around a hole in the ice inside a shack, or sitting outside in bitter cold, waiting for a nibble.
Turns out, there’s more to this ritual. Greg Breining’s charming essays and Layne Kennedy’s captivating images easily make the lure of ice fishing a lot less mysterious.
It’s a social activity. When not tending their lines, anglers may be tossing a football, playing hockey or gathering around a football game on TV (an indication of the creature comforts in ice houses). For others, it’s a retreat from the stress of family, jobs and the problems of the world.
Layne’s portraits allow you to meet some of the folks - from Minnesota and Wisconsin to Greenland and Russia - who share in the joy of ice fishing. A frozen lake is like another world, and his stunning work reveals great beauty and often softens the harshness of the landscape.
I love Greg’s skillful mix of facts, lighthearted perspective and description: “On our own little lake, after a couple weeks of cold thickens the ice, fish houses erupt like pimples on the pure skin of a young face.” Combine his delightful writing with Layne’s masterful visual record and you have an essential volume about ice fishing. It may even get you out on the ice. Really.
– Bob Berg