Lake Effect

Along Superior’s Shores

Erika Alin

• Publisher: Univ Of Minnesota Press
• eBook ISBN:
  9780816694594
• Year: 2003

The 2,900-mile shoreline of Lake Superior offers some of the most beautiful scenery in the world: stunning juxtapositions of shape, color, and texture, from the birch and evergreen forests of Minnesota's north shore and the maple-clad slopes of Wisconsin to Ontario's granite outcrops and Michigan's sandstone shelves. Inhabited by hundreds of species of mammals, birds, and insects, the diverse ecosystems around Superior have also experienced human habitation for millennia. In Lake Effect, writer Erika Alin explores both the natural and the human landscapes of Lake Superior, meditating on the rich geological, historical, and cultural events that have shaped the region. She begins her journey around Superior at the St. Louis River near Duluth and continues along the shores of the lake to Temperance River State Park, Grand Marais's Artist's Point, and Lake Superior Provincial Park. Following the Michigan and Wisconsin coasts, Alin visits the Keweenaw Peninsula, the Porcupine Mountains, and Chequamegon Bay before concluding at the south shore's Brule River. Inspired by these and other places on the lake, Alin's engaging essays delve into such diverse topics as the origins of river names, early Native American settlement, the exploits of seventeenth-century French-Canadian voyageurs, the breeding habits of ring-billed gulls, the contributions of women botanists, Canada's Group of Seven painters, and aboriginal rock art. A holistic and deeply personal reflection on Superior's shoreline, Lake Effect reveals a profound sensitivity to the natural world and a penetrating historical imagination.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Preface
• Map of Lake Superior
• Wild River
• The Gulls of Kitchi Gammi
• Crosby’s Paradox
• Bicknell’s Geranium
• No Bar River
• The Heritage of Landscapes
• Harebells
• The Group of Seven at Coldwell
• Louis Agassiz on the Eastern Shore
• In the Shade of Pines
• Orion
• On the Porcupine Coast
• The Mission of Saint Esprit
• Gathering Instincts
• The Brule River
• References