Minnesota in The Books Store

Highway 61 traces approximately 440 miles through Minnesota, from Pigeon Falls at the Canadian border south to La Crescent. Along the way, the road hugs the North Shore, zips through St. Paul, and navigates bluffs along the Mississippi River. While places such as Split Rock Lighthouse or Sugar Loaf Mountain offer well-documented stopping-off points, observant travelers may wonder about historic buildings , abandoned sites, and decaying structures they see along the way.

In this companion book to a new Twin Cities Public Television documentary also called Tales of the Road (airing in November 2008), Cathy Wurzer unearths stories about these places and more as she travels down the road and into the past, spotlighting famous and fascinating locations, many of them little remembered today. Learn about bootleggers crossing the St. Croix by ferry or importing hooch from Canada onboard vessels designed in White Bear Lake. Visualize--or maybe even visit--the quaint tourist cabins, supper clubs, and lodges that served tourists who began motoring up the road in the 1920s. Take stock of historic and current industries: Russ Kendall's Smokehouse in Knife River, a rutabaga plant in Willow River, the pottery factory in Red Wing. Each tale is illustrated with historic and current views to show how much-or how little-Highway 61 has changed. Here's one road trip you won't want to miss!

Cathy Wurzer is host of Morning Edition on Minnesota Public Radio and cohost of Almanac on Twin Cities Public Television. She has been honored with four Emmys for her work on Almanac.  

The people have spoken. Minnesota wouldn’t be Minnesota without Bob Dylan. Or the BWCA. Immigrant farmers. The American Indian Movement. Thousands of citizens nominated their favorite topics for inclusion in Minnesota 150. With short essays, eye-catching illustrations, and text from the winning nominations, Kate Roberts reveals the many ways in which our past becomes our collective history.

With more than 200,000 visitors annually, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is among the most alluring wilderness areas in the country, unique because it is most often explored by canoe. Comprised of more than one million acres, the BWCAW is an exceptional combination of expansive wilderness, abundant wildlife, and fascinating natural and human history. Exploring the Boundary Waters is the most comprehensive trip planner to the BWCAW, giving travelers an overview of each entry point into the wilderness area as well as detailed descriptions of more than one hundred specific routes - including a ranking of their difficulty level and maps that feature the major waterways, portages, and the designated campsites. The book is crafted so that readers can design their own route through the almost inexhaustible network of lakes and streams. Daniel Pauly, Boundary Waters expert, worked with the U.S. Forest Service, the Minnesota DNR, and local outfitters to gather information about how to obtain a permit, the rules and regulations of the park, safety tips, and how to help maintain the ecological integrity of the wilderness. As engaging as it is informative, Exploring the Boundary Waters not only contributes advice on the pros and cons of each route, but also brings the reader a natural and historical context for the journey by offering insight into the pictographs, mining sites, logging railroads, and ruins one may encounter throughout his or her expedition. With its accessible and personal style, Exploring the Boundary Waters is the perfect guide for anyone - novice or seasoned veteran - arranging a trip to the BWCAW. A companion Web site, http://www.boundarywatersguide.com, presents useful information that can be downloaded for planning a trip, including gear lists, overview maps, and route updates.

The lake cabin. Early mornings on the sleeping porch, lunches on the dock, late-night cleanings in the fish house. But Minnesota’s seasonal getaways aren’t limited to its bountiful lakes: vacationers trek to hideaways in the woods, to ice shacks along the Mississippi River; even out to cottages beside the highways, relics from the days when farmers rented vacation places along cornfields and cow pastures.

 

Popular photographer Doug Ohman and renowned writer and poet Bill Holm highlight the state’s unique and treasured cabins—a vintage Fredenberg Lake compound near Duluth; the celebrated mom-and-pop Fairyland Cabins of Detroit Lakes; a cabin situated on top of a pontoon in Rose Lake. Holm’s eclectic prose combines stories of the ancient and new and illuminates the rewards of the cabin life: “the pleasures of fishing, daydreaming, sunset watching and star counting, the leisure to take stock of one’s life without the surround-sound noise of the new wired century. In a cabin retreat,” he writes, “pleasure overcomes duty for a little while.”

 

Doug Ohman is a photographer and acclaimed public speaker. His photographs are featured in the Minnesota Byways series, which includes Barns of Minnesota, Churches of Minnesota, Courthouses of Minnesota, and Schoolhouses of Minnesota (all MHS Press). Bill Holm is the author of several books of essays and poetry and teaches at Southwest State University in Marshall, Minnesota.

The Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA), located in northeastern Minnesota, is a legendary wilderness destination for canoeists from around the world. Longtime guide and canoe authority Cliff Jacobson explains the best and safest ways of planning and enjoying a BWCA journey. Includes maps, illustrations, and information on obtaining permits, packing the right supplies, practicing low-impact camping techniques, honing paddling skills, traveling with children, and dealing with hazards on land and water.