North Shore

Chel Anderson came to live and work on Minnesota’s North Shore in 1974. Since then she has worked in various positions in the Superior National Forest, as a consulting ecologist and botanist in the private and public sectors, and with the Minnesota Biological Survey. In 2001 she received the Minnesota Chapter of the Nature Conservancy’s Conservation Award for her “tireless efforts to inventory northeast Minnesota’s plant communities, her work to support conservation action with sound science, and her extraordinary ability to inspire passion for wild things and wild places.”Adelheid Fischer is a writer who focuses on natural history, ecology, and environmental history. She has written for many publications, including Utne Reader, Orion, Conservation, Places, and Arizona Highways. She is the coauthor of Valley of Grass: Tallgrass Prairie and Parkland of the Red River Region, winner of a Minnesota Book Award for Nature Writing. In 2014 she received the Ellen Meloy Desert Writers Award. A sixteen-year resident of Minnesota, Fischer now makes her home at the foot of South Mountain in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona.

• ContentsAbbreviationsIntroduction: A Gathering of WatersI. Headwaters As Good As It Gets: Bird Diversity on the North ShoreHarvesting the Forest’s Bounty: WildcraftingBe It Ever So Humble: No Home Like That of a Pitcher PlantHealing a Watershed for Coaster Brook TroutII. HighlandsThe Case of the Missing Duff: Earthworm InvasionsThe Secret Life of SalamandersStranger Than Fiction: Plant Galls and Their MakersBlack Bears and the Tettegouche OaksThe Nose Knows: Star-Nosed Moles and a Life Down UnderIII. NearshoreNorth Shore Places: What’s in a Name?Where Has All the Sewage Gone? Development and Water QualityHay Pickers and Grass Gatherers: Botanical Exploration along the LakeshoreBetween a Rock and a Lake: Life on the Cliff EdgeThe Leading Edge: North Shore Bird MigrationIV. Lake SuperiorMapping Lake Superior: The Early YearsSearching High and Low: The Science of Lake Superior ExplorationAmphipods and Diatoms: The Big Lake’s Bread and ButterHow Much Water Is Enough? The Plumbing of Lake SuperiorThe Missing Link: The Lake Superior and Mississippi River CanalThe Rise and Fall of SeichesV. IslandsThe Chorus Frogs of Isle RoyaleThe Long View: Moose and Wolves on Isle RoyaleNature or Nuisance? Gulls in the Great LakesA Mansion of Many Rooms: The Return of Lake Trout to SuperiorEpilogue: The Wild Card of Climate ChangeAcknowledgmentsFrontispiece CreditsIndex

"In North Shore, lovers of that sacred strip of scree and cold water finally have a definitive natural history. But they also have a meticulous and wondrous book that will entertain as much as educate, that demystifies even as it allows for the magical moments the North Shore is famous for inspiring. I’ve never felt so in tune with my favorite place as I did turning the last page of this book, and seldom have I felt so thankful."-Peter Geye"North Shore: A Natural History of Minnesota's Superior Coast reads like a friendly and detailed journal that Great-great-great-great Grandmother Earth has been keeping from the very beginning. It tells  the natural and cultural story of the North Shore: past, present, and future."-Betsy Bowen, writer, illustrator, and long-time North Shore resident"North Shore satisfies in its breadth but never complicates."-Great Lakes Echo"[Y]ou will be amazed, as I have been, at how compelling worms, frogs, and scientific exploration can be. "-Lake Superior Magazine"North Shore reminds us that the natural history of the region is still being written, and that all of us who live near its shores are the creators of the next chapter."-The Ely Winter Times"Chel Anderson and Adelheid Fischer have written an accessible book that comprehensively describes the history and geology of the coast, surrounding highlands, and Lake Superior itself. In addition, the authors have provided fascinating subchapters on some of the most interesting species that are key elements of the region."-The Prairie Naturalist"[North Shore] is a celebration of the big and little lives that make Lake Superior and its surrounding region so richly complex, an eye-opening recounting of human errors that have brought the natural systems close to collapse."-SEJournal"Compelling and accessible, the book provides readers with a science-based knowledge of the Minnesota North Shore watershed."-Ely Timberjay"The book’s merits merits include breathtaking photos, maps and charts, handsome page design, and impassioned writing. "-CHOICE"North Shore. . .  is vast in scope, thought-provoking, and poetic in places. It is full of passages that invite repeated visits, and reveal deeper meanings with each visit. "-Wilderness News"Has the substance of a textbook, but reads in a friendly and fascinating narrative."-Star Tribune