The definitive book for identifying the rich diversity of plant life throughout the Great Lakes coastal areas The coastal beaches of the Great Lakes are some of the most outstanding features of this vast chain of freshwater lakes. Many plants of this region grow nowhere else, and a number of protected species are found along the shoreline. In Guide to Great Lakes Coastal Plants Ellen Elliott Weatherbee provides simple yet authoritative descriptions of sixty-seven of the most interesting plants found on the United States and Canadian shores. Each plant is illustrated with color photographs and line drawings for ease in identification. Wildlife and ethnobotanical uses add fascinating information about the plants, and distribution maps are included for easy reference. This is a must-have field guide for anyone who enjoys the natural beauty of wildflowers.
One of the Great Lakes region’s most precious natural resources is its fishery, with its intricate web of aquatic life, the environments it inhabits, and the people who use and enjoy these areas. The Great Lakes fishery supports not only an important commercial fishing industry but also tourism in eight different states and two countries, attracting millions of recreational anglers each year. As valuable as the fishery is, it is equally fragile. Since the 1950s, state, provincial, and federal agencies have coordinated efforts to manage the fishery and protect it from a range of threats, from the spread of invasive species to nutrient pollution to habitat destruction. Now in its fourth edition, The Life of the Lakes examines the complex portrait of the Great Lakes fishery, including the history of the fishery’s exploitation and management, the current health of the Lakes, and the outlook for the future. Featuring more graphics, photos, and illustrations than ever, all printed in full color, the new edition of this engaging book is a perfect resource for general readers, teachers, and students looking for an easy-to-follow guide to the Great Lakes fishery. This book is published in collaboration with Michigan Sea Grant (www.michiganseagrant.org), a cooperative program of the University of Michigan and Michigan State University.
Napier Shelton takes us on a journey as he spends a year at his family's cottage on the lake. Having visited Lake Huron for over thirty years, Shelton weaves family memories into his evocative and informed account of the seasons on this great lake. In 1995, Shelton spent a year at the cottage more fully exploring Lake Huron and its varied shores. He writes about Native American fishing rights, small towns, the fearsome ice, and the migration of birds. He follows the seasonal changes of life in the water. We accompany him on commercial fishing boats, a research vessel studying lake trout, and a Coast Guard icebreaker. We experience the travels and tragedies of venturers on Lake Huron over the past four centuries. Huron is pleasurable reading for any student of natural history or the Great Lakes region, or for anyone who has ever spent time at a summer cottage or wished to do so.
Award-winning nature author Jerry Dennis reveals the splendor and beauty of North America’s Great Lakes in this “masterwork”* history and memoir of the essential environmental and economical region shared by the United States and Canada. No bodies of water compare to the Great Lakes. Superior is the largest lake on earth, and together all five contain a fifth of the world’s supply of standing fresh water. Their ten thousand miles of shoreline border eight states and a Canadian province and are longer than the entire Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States. Their surface area of 95,000 square miles is greater than New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island combined. People who have never visited them—who have never seen a squall roar across Superior or the horizon stretch unbroken across Michigan or Huron—have no idea how big they are. They are so vast that they dominate much of the geography, climate, and history of North America, affecting the lives of tens of millions of people. The Living Great Lakes: Searching for the Heart of the Inland Seas is the definitive book about the history, nature, and science of these remarkable lakes at the heart of North America. From the geological forces that formed them and the industrial atrocities that nearly destroyed them, to the greatest environmental success stories of our time, Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario are portrayed in all their complexity. A Michigan native, Jerry Dennis also shares his memories of a lifetime on or near the lakes, including a six-week voyage as a crewmember on a tallmasted schooner. On his travels, he collected more stories of the lakes through the eyes of biologists, fishermen, sailors, and others he befriended while hiking the area’s beaches and islands. Through storms and fog, on remote shores and city waterfronts, Dennis explores the five Great Lakes in all seasons and moods and discovers that they and their connecting waters—including the Erie Canal, the Hudson River, and the East Coast from New York to Maine—offer a surprising and bountiful view of America. The result is a meditation on nature and our place in the world, a discussion and cautionary tale about the future of water resources, and a celebration of a place that is both fragile and robust, diverse, rich in history and wildlife, often misunderstood, and worthy of our attention. “This is history at its best and adventure richly described.”—*Doug Stanton, author of In Harm’s Way: The Sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors and 12 Strong: The Declassified True Story of the Horse Soldiers Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award Winner Winner of Best Book of 2003 by the Outdoor Writers Association of America
