North Woods River
North Woods River

Author: Eileen M. McMahon

Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press

Published: 2009-10-20

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 0299234231

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The St. Croix River, the free-flowing boundary between Wisconsin and Minnesota, is a federally protected National Scenic Riverway. The area’s first recorded human inhabitants were the Dakota Indians, whose lands were transformed by fur trade empires and the loggers who called it the “river of pine.” A patchwork of farms, cultivated by immigrants from many countries, followed the cutover forests. Today, the St. Croix River Valley is a tourist haven in the land of sky-blue waters and a peaceful escape for residents of the bustling Minneapolis–St. Paul metropolitan region. North Woods River is a thoughtful biography of the river over the course of more than three hundred years. Eileen McMahon and Theodore Karamanski track the river’s social and environmental transformation as newcomers changed the river basin and, in turn, were changed by it. The history of the St. Croix revealed here offers larger lessons about the future management of beautiful and fragile wild waters.

Brave Enough
Brave Enough

Author: Jessie Diggins

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published: 2020-03-10

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 1452962006

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Travel with Olympic gold medalist Jessie Diggins on her compelling journey from America’s heartland to international sports history, navigating challenges and triumphs with rugged grit and a splash of glitter Pyeongchang, February 21, 2018. In the nerve-racking final seconds of the women’s team sprint freestyle race, Jessie Diggins dug deep. Blowing past two of the best sprinters in the world, she stretched her ski boot across the finish line and lunged straight into Olympic immortality: the first ever cross-country skiing gold medal for the United States at the Winter Games. The 26-year-old Diggins, a four-time World Championship medalist, was literally a world away from the small town of Afton, Minnesota, where she first strapped on skis. Yet, for all her history-making achievements, she had never strayed far from the scrappy 12-year-old who had insisted on portaging her own canoe through the wilderness, yelling happily under the unwieldy weight on her shoulders: “Look! I’m doing it!” In Brave Enough, Jessie Diggins reveals the true story of her journey from the American Midwest into sports history. With candid charm and characteristic grit, she connects the dots from her free-spirited upbringing in the woods of Minnesota to racing in the bright spotlights of the Olympics. Going far beyond stories of races and ribbons, she describes the challenges and frustrations of becoming a serious athlete; learning how to push through and beyond physical and psychological limits; and the intense pressure of competing at the highest levels. She openly shares her harrowing struggle with bulimia, recounting both the adversity and how she healed from it in order to bring hope and understanding to others experiencing eating disorders. Between thrilling accounts of moments of triumph, Diggins shows the determination it takes to get there—the struggles and disappointments, the fun and the hard work, and the importance of listening to that small, fierce voice: I can do it. I am brave enough.

The St. Croix
The St. Croix

Author: James Taylor Dunn

Publisher: Minnesota Historical Society Press

Published: 1965

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 9780873511414

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Story of the waters that divide Wisconsin and Minnesota, from the days of the Sioux and Chippewas to their contemporary status as a "wild" preserved vacationland.

A Canoe Voyage Up the Minnay Sotor
A Canoe Voyage Up the Minnay Sotor

Author: George William Featherstonhaugh

Publisher: St. Paul : Minnesota Historical Society

Published: 1970

Total Pages: 502

ISBN-13:

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This detailed travelogue, the concluding part of a two-volume work written primarily for a British readership, discusses the United States' geological resources and offers critical observations about the manners and customs of its different peoples. It was written over a decade after the author explored St. Peter's River--the "Minnay Sotor" of the book's title--in 1835, and draws upon the journals he kept along the way. A Canoe Voyage (volume 2) deals with Featherstonhaugh's return journey to the east coast. His route, interrupted by many detours and excursions through what is now the state of Wisconsin, took him from Fort Snelling and Galena to St. Louis and its environs. Traveling by steamer along the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers to Paducah, Kentucky, Featherstonhaugh then journeyed down the Tennessee River to Tuscumbia, where he caught a train to Decatur. From this point, he journeyed by steamer, stage, and dugout canoe, to areas described as "Cherokee country," then onward to Georgia, the Carolinas,Virginia, and Washington, D.C, his ultimate destination. In this volume, Featherstonhaugh inveighs against fraudulent land speculators, slavery, the treatment of the Cherokee, and the bad manners of fellow travelers. He found much to admire in the beauty of the Southern Appalachians and the hospitality of John C. Calhoun, the celebrated Southern statesman.