Paul Bunyan in Michigan: Yooper Logging, Lore & Legends


Book Description

The loggers who settled Michigan's Upper Peninsula whiled away winter evenings with tales of extreme weather, strange geography, legendary beasts and improbable feats. One mythic figure strode confidently from one story to the next, his legend growing with each retelling. Soon, Paul Bunyan began to appear in newspapers, magazines, books and even a Walt Disney cartoon. In this first collection since 1946 set exclusively in the UP, author Jon C. Stott recaptures the oral tradition that cast Bunyan's shadow across the national imagination. Relive the winter of the blue snow and cross paths with familiar companions like Babe and Johnny Inskslinger, as well as odd creatures like the hodag and the agropelter.




Paul Bunyan in Michigan


Book Description




Yooper Ale Trails


Book Description

Craft Breweries and Brewpubs of Michigan's Upper Peninsula Follow Yooper Ale Trails to visit the 29 unique craft breweries and brewpubs of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Choose from among eight different Ale Trails for your personal journey. Explore the backstories of the breweries, brewers and owners, along with tasting notes on each brewery's most popular beers. Jon C. Stott, award-winning author of five beer travel books, provides expert guidance for both craft beer aficionados and tourists to enjoy one of 170 locally-brewed lagers or ales after visiting the many scenic wonders of the U.P.: 🍺 Tours are arranged geographically from the shores of Lake Huron, across the north of the peninsula close to Lake Superior and then east from the Wisconsin border to the shores of Lake Michigan. 🍺 Short essays on each brewery introduce you to the brewer's, the places their beers are served and the flavors of the beers themselves. 🍺 Complete contact details about each brewery and their available services (food, off-sales, accessibility, etc.), descriptions of beer styles with examples from UP breweries and a glossary of brewing terms. 🍺 Road maps for each ale trail and photographs of each establishment, making the breweries easy to find "Cheers to the Yooper Ale Trail! Jon's book is a fun and easy way to get a close and detailed offering from each brewery. The beer tastings are the heart of the book, and you will readily see how much Jon enjoyed each and every visit. After reading this book, you will want to make your own journey!" -- Lark Carlyle Ludlow, Owner and Brewster Tahquamenon Falls Brewery & Pub "Jon C. Stott's Yooper Ale Trails breaks down trips across the peninsula into easily traveled trails so that readers can take their time and enjoy the offerings of each one. Many of these breweries are outstanding restaurants with varied and interesting menus. It seems that in the U.P., all roads lead to beer, and Jon Stott hits these places on all cylinders, providing backgrounds, histories and recommendations for a complete and in-depth guide to U.P. beer. Whether you are a hophead, foodie or sightseer, this is an essential book for your travel library." -Mikel B. Classen, author of Points North: Discover Hidden Campgrounds, Natural Wonders and Waterways of the Upper Peninsula and recipient of the Charles Follo U.P. History Award "One of the distinct charms of Jon Stott's writing is his refusal to fall into the formulaic molds of beer tourism books. If you'd like to check out the superb local ales and breweries that have sprung up in the vast expanse of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, this fine book is an absolute necessity." --Michael Carrier, MA NYU and author of 15 U.P. Jack Handler mysteries From Modern History Press www.ModernHistoryPress.com




Summers at the Lake


Book Description

Paddling a canoe into sunrise on the longest day of the year... watching a child take her first kayak ride with her father... gazing at a bald eagle, riding air currents high above the lake... chuckling as a hummingbird defends his feeder against intruders... dodging campfire smoke while burning marshmallows and telling scary stories to wide-eyed kids. These are some of the moments and memories depicted in Summers at the Lake. The essays-often humorous; sometimes tinged with a sweet melancholy--celebrate the people and events marking the progress of the seasons--from the budding of the first green leaves of May to their falling, gold and scarlet, in September. These prose poems capture the joy of simple, lake-side living and quiet reflection. "Jon Stott is a masterful storyteller. In Summers at the Lake, he shares memories that read like prose poetry. Each story takes us to a place of solitude and beauty and will stir pleasant memories of our own." --Sharon Kennedy, author of The Sideroad Kids: Tales from Chippewa County "This gentle book by a gentle man is the kind that grows on you. Reading it will give you the same benefits as meditating in lovely surroundings in peace and calmness." --Bob Rich, author of From Depression to Contentment "In Summers at the Lake, much can be learned about life in the U.P. and its enjoyable places. You can explore the wonders of the U.P. while dipping your toes into the everyday experiences of life near Crooked Lake." --Sharon Brunner, U.P. Book Review "Jon C. Stott delightfully describes the many joys of lakeside living with the unchanging activities of summer. Deb Le Blanc's photos will make readers feel as if they are right there at the cabin, next to the author." --Carolyn Wilhelm, MA, Midwest Book Review From Modern History Press www.ModernHistoryPress.com




Michigan in Literature


Book Description

Michigan in Literature is a guide to more than one thousand literary and dramatic works set in Michigan from its pre-territorial days to the present. Imaginative, narrative, dramatic, and lyrical creations that have Michigan settings, characters, subjects, and themes are organized into sixteen chapters on topics such as Indians in Michigan, settlers who came to Michigan, diversity in the state, the timber industry, the Great Lakes, crime in Michigan literature, Detroit, and Michigan poetry. In this most complete work to date, Clarence Andrews has assembled the literary reputation of a state. He illustrates, with a wide variety of literary works, that Michigan is more than just a builder of automobiles, a producer of apples and cherries, a supplier of copper and lumber, and the home of great athletes. It is also a state that has played—and continues to play—an important role in the production of American literature. To qualify for inclusion, a work or a significant part of it has to be set in Michigan. Andrews shows how novelists, dramatists, poets, and short story writers have created their particular images of Michigan by using and interpreting the history of the state—its land and waters, people, events, ideas, philosophies, and policies—sometimes factually, sometimes modified or distorted, and sometimes fancied or imagined. Biographical information is featured about authors, editors, and compilers, who range in fame from Ernest Hemingway and Elmore Leonard to persons long forgotten. The published opinions and judgments of reputable critics and scholars are also presented.




Michigan


Book Description

The history of Michigan is a fascinating story of breathtaking geography enriched by an abundant water supply, of bold fur traders and missionaries who developed settlements that grew into major cities, of ingenious entrepreneurs who established thriving industries, and of celebrated cultural icons like the Motown sound. It is also the story of the exploitation of Native Americans, racial discord that resulted in a devastating riot, and ongoing tensions between employers and unions. Michigan: A History of Explorers, Entrepreneurs, and Everyday People recounts this colorful past and the significant role the state has played in shaping the United States. Well-researched and engagingly written, the book spans from Michigan’s geologic formation to important 21st-century developments in a concise but detailed chronicle that will appeal to general readers, scholars, and students interested in Michigan’s past, present, and future.




Imagining the Forest


Book Description

Forests have always been more than just their trees. The forests in Michigan (and similar forests in other Great Lakes states such as Wisconsin and Minnesota) played a role in the American cultural imagination from the beginnings of European settlement in the early nineteenth century to the present. Our relationships with those forests have been shaped by the cultural attitudes of the times, and people have invested in them both moral and spiritual meanings. Author John Knott draws upon such works as Simon Schama's Landscape and Memory and Robert Pogue Harrison's Forests: The Shadow of Civilization in exploring ways in which our relationships with forests have been shaped, using Michigan---its history of settlement, popular literature, and forest management controversies---as an exemplary case. Knott looks at such well-known figures as William Bradford, James Fenimore Cooper, John Muir, John Burroughs, and Teddy Roosevelt; Ojibwa conceptions of the forest and natural world (including how Longfellow mythologized them); early explorer accounts; and contemporary literature set in the Upper Peninsula, including Jim Harrison's True North and Philip Caputo's Indian Country. Two competing metaphors evolved over time, Knott shows: the forest as howling wilderness, impeding the progress of civilization and in need of subjugation, and the forest as temple or cathedral, worthy of reverence and protection. Imagining the Forestshows the origin and development of both.




Out of the Northwoods


Book Description

Every American has heard of the lumberjack hero Paul Bunyan and his big blue ox. For 100 years his exploits filled cartoons, magazines, short stories, and children's books, and his name advertised everything from pancake breakfasts to construction supplies. By 1950 Bunyan was a ubiquitous icon of America's strength and ingenuity. Until now, no one knew where he came from—and the extent to which this mythical hero is rooted in Wisconsin. Out of the Northwoods presents the culture of nineteenth-century lumberjacks in their own words. It includes eyewitness accounts of how the first Bunyan stories were shared on frigid winter nights, around logging camp stoves, in the Wisconsin pinery. It describes where the tales began, how they moved out of the forest and into print, and why publication changed them forever. Part bibliographic mystery and part social history, Out of the Northwoods explains for the first time why we all know and love Paul Bunyan.




Picnics and Porcupines


Book Description

Journey to the edges of the Great Lakes in this engaging history of picnicking, wilderness, and foodways. This stunning venture into the American picnic explores how innovation, exploitation, and the changing wilderness of Michigan's Upper Peninsula have shaped the experience of eating outdoors. From a photo of her grandmother picnicking in 1911, to the outdoor lunches of miners and loggers, to the picnics of vacationing celebrities like Henry Ford and Ernest Hemingway, author Candice Goucher opens an aperture into historic memories of picnics past to consider what the picnic sparks in our senses and to bring the borderlands of humans and nature into view. Through pictures, postcards, paintings, and recipes, Goucher traces the creation of a modern notion of wilderness as it emerged in the North American imagination and popular culture to navigate an entangled environmental and culinary history of the Upper Peninsula. Drawing on themes from Indigenous knowledge and the African American experience to labor activism and women's history, this tantalizing chronicle offers a taste of Americana, seasoned by the changing global forces of industrialization, transportation, immigration, tourism, war, and climate.