There's a message in these beautiful photos and essays. We must preserve natural balance. As Linda Benedict-Jones says in the Introduction: "...One of the specific wishes of Blacklock... is that the remaining undeveloped lake shoreline be kept for open access. When he silently glides for months on end around the periphery of the lake, he does it with the hope that his pictures will convince others to appreciate the lake as he does. Lake Superior is simply too profound as a spiritual resource to be guarded by a privileged few. Should these last open stretches be developed, they will forever be out of reach by the general public. We have learned precious little from the examples set for us by the Navajo (Dineh), the Dakota and the Anishinabe. We all know that Native Americans lived in harmony with the earth and believed that land could be neither bought nor sold since it belonged to all. Perhaps it is not too late to apply their wisdom to relatively small, yet hugely important, areas of land bordering the Great Lakes. Perhaps these Blacklock photographs will help preserve public access to Lake Superior's shores, as certain photographic efforts of his 19th Century predecessors helped to convince (the U.S.) Congress to establish national parklands of the Yosemite, Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons and others." Pass it on!

In a roughly 8 year period, the author made several kayak trips along various parts of the Superior shoreline, hauling photographic equipment along and immersing himself in those wild, unspoiled scenes so spectacularly portrayed in the 154 plates that appear in this book. The results are well worth every penny of the 40-odd bucks this book costs, and then some. As a fellow photographer of nature, I can attest to the way one can use ground glass and film to convey his deep appreciation -- yes, even a spiritual bond -- with the outdoors as God made it. Blacklock's collection of 4x5 format images (with one 35 mm slide thrown in) of the Big Lake is not only visually vivid, but spiritually moving in a way few other published photo collections can perform.

Nowhere have I seen water, rock, ice, forest, fog and sun so splendidly blended and starkly contrasted at the same time, across an entire plate set. [Plate 33 is the most stunning portrayal of ice and sky together which I have ever seen -- National Geographic's Arctic photos included -- and easily in my top 5 favorite photographs of all time.] Most admirably, nowhere in any of the photos appears a man-made object that I could see. The author takes his efforts a step further by fully revealing his techniques -- right down to the camera, film and tripod brands, and his CMYK post-processing in Photoshop (not to alter, but instead to clean up, the imagery).

Having been all around Lake Superior, its rugged vastness revealed to my eyes but only feebly captured on film by comparison, I am in awe of the job Blacklock has done. The sky, rocks and waves there have such a rich story to tell; and this book masterfully allows that story to begin. It makes me determined to return someday, camera again in hand and Blacklock's methods in mind, to get far removed from the tracks of people, and to experience Superior at its raw, unrestrained best.

I found the characters in this narration to have immense depth, which is delieved in part by confessions. Confessions are made to a small rock resembling a pagan goddess. Secrets are divulged to the goddess which sheds a light on the mental and emotional state of the character. Another luring aspect of this novel are the discussions by the characters. Rational, religion, philosophy and the creation of the future republic to be carved from Ottomon Empire are debated.

The narration has an expanse of seduction, rebellion, confessions, betrayal, rational, arguments, religion, treachery and conspiracy. It is to these reasons i find the text rich in prose.

As this story unfolds, you get lost, in the sense that you begin to feel just as the townspeople did. Your own fears start to surface - you ask yourself... What would I have done? How would I have been able to survive such a tragic loss? Where was God that day? The author leads you through this tragic event trying to discover the answers with her very special gift.

A great read....

What really irritates me about this book is the trail profiles. For example, the Agua Caliente trail profile begins at an elevation of 5420'. It ends at 5420'. It goes up in the middle, but it is nearly impossible to tell how far -- there are no other elevation marks besides the first and last. This pattern is repeated on a number of different profiles, and is the only thing that prevents me from giving 5 stars.

Those familiar with reading topo maps may be able to decipher altitudes, but for the rest of us the profiles are useless on many hikes.

Stegner is a gifted, intelligent writer, able to turn the people and events of history into compelling reading. The opening section of the book describes the experience of being on the plains and specifically in the area where Stegner was a boy. And it lays out the geography of that land -- a distant range of hills, the river, the coulees, the town -- which the book will return to again and again.

The following section evokes the period of frontier Canada's early exploration, the emergence of the metis culture, the destruction of the buffalo herds, the introduction of rangeland cattle, and then wave upon wave of settlement pushing the last of the plains Indians westward and northward. A chapter is devoted to the surveying of the boundary along the Canada-U.S. border; another chapter describes the founding of the Mounted Police and its purely Canadian style of bringing law and order to the wild west.

The middle section of the book is a novella and a short story about the winter of 1906-1907. In the longer piece, eight men rounding up cattle are caught on the open plains in an early blizzard. Stegner builds the drama and the peril of their situation artfully and convincingly. The final section of the book returns to Stegner's memories of the town and the homestead, ending with his family's departure for Montana.

Stegner lived at a time and in a place where a person born in the 20th century could still experience something of the sweep of history that transformed the American plains. I've read many books about the West, and because of his depth of thought, his gifts as a writer, and his unflinching eye, Stegner's work ranks for me among the best. I heartily recommend this book.