This book is a most unique "northwoods novel" about the life of one of Wisconsin's greatest known outdoor legends, Louie Spray. Sure to capture the interest of anyone who enjoys northwoods nostalgia, this book takes the reader on a rare journey back to a most fascinating era in history. Read about Louie Spray's tales of being a lumberjack, bootlegger, and, of course, battles world record muskies. This book is a reissuance of Louie Spray's 1980 autobiography entitled, My Muskie Days," with John Dettloff doubling the content with much deeper insight into both the era and Spray's life.
Each summer, men and women travel from all over the globe to the Lumberjack World Championships in Hayward, Wisconsin, to compete before thousands of spectators and prove who is the best at chopping and sawing wood, log rolling, and boom running. The event, with its impressive international fan base, has become the most prestigious timber sport gathering in the world. Timber! chronicles the history of the championships since its inception in 1960 and highlights such popular athletes as J.R. Salzman, Ron Hartill, and Peggy Halvorson, all of whom are stalwarts in a variety of events from the hot saw to the springboard chop. These glory-seeking competitors symbolize a connection to the old days of logging in Wisconsin and throughout the United States, when timber-felling helped build the country. Lively and informative, Timber! shows how these timber sports keep alive the spirit of the logging world and the image of the logger as a pioneer.
History can really be a lot of fun. Especially when Author Patricia Lacey combines both her love of history with her love of muskie fishing. The book contains sketches about wardens, gangsters, and muskie fishermen coupled with a chronology of the historic eras that effect the way we live in Sawyer County today. The sketches found in this book touch upon impactful events, from the arrival of the Ojibwe Indians, the logging era and how the landscape was drastically changed, the building of the Chippewa Flowage and how Resort Era tourism saved the day. The sketches on gangsters demonstrates how Chicago’s gangsters loved to come to Sawyer County to rest, recreate and fish, taking a break from bootlegging, prostitution and gambling. However, they still broke the law, fishing and hunting illegally which required game wardens to protect both fish and game. Even a legendary crime that was brutally carried out in Chicago, was hatched right here in Sawyer County. Finally, the muskie fishing angle, after all Hayward, Wisconsin is the muskie capital of the world. More world record muskies have been caught here in our lakes than anywhere else in North America. Through her sketches, Patricia introduces us to three muskie legends, highlighting their lives, exploits and catches. The closing chapter is a sketch about the Mighty Muskie. The fish of 10,000 casts! The story of this behemoth lurking beneath the water will leave you with a greater understanding about why a 143 foot long muskie monument was built in Hayward. The book is a fun read and may lead you to discover something new about the history of Hayward and Sawyer County.
Inspired by August Derleth’s seminal book The Wisconsin, Richard D. Cornell traveled the Chippewa River from its two sources south of Ashland to where it joins the Mississippi. Over several decades he returned time and again in his red canoe to immerse himself in the stories of the Chippewa River and document its valley, from the Ojibwe and early fur traders and lumbermen to the varied and hopeful communities of today. Cornell shares tales of such historical figures as legendary Ojibwe leader Chief Buffalo, world famous wrestler Charlie Fisher, and supercomputer innovator Seymour Cray, along with the lesser-known stories of local luminaries such as Dr. John "Little Bird" Anderson. Cornell gathered firsthand stories from diners and dives, local museums and landmarks, quaint small-town newspaper offices, and the homes of old-timers and local historians. Through his conversations with ordinary people, he gets at the heart of the Chippewa and shares a history of the river that is both one of a kind and deeply personal.
At the height of Prohibition, Al Capone loomed large as Public Enemy Number One: his multimillion-dollar Chicago Outfit dominated organized crime, and law enforcement was powerless to stop him. But then came the fall: a legal noose tightened by the FBI, a conviction on tax evasion, a stint in Alcatraz. After his release, he returned to his family in Miami a much diminished man, living quietly until the ravages of his neurosyphilis took their final toll. Our shared fascination with Capone endures in countless novels and movies, but the man behind the legend has remained a mystery. Now, through rigorous research and exclusive access to Capone’s family, National Book Award–winning biographer Deirdre Bair cuts through the mythology, uncovering a complex character who was flawed and cruel but also capable of nobility. At once intimate and iconoclastic, Al Capone gives us the definitive account of a quintessentially American figure.
Travel north from the upper Midwest’s metropolises, and before long you’re “Up North”—a region that’s hard to define but unmistakable to any resident or tourist. Crops give way to forests, mines (or their remains) mark the landscape, and lakes multiply, becoming ever clearer until you reach the vastness of the Great Lakes. How to characterize this region, as distinct from the agrarian Midwest, is the question North Country seeks to answer, as a congenial group of scholars, journalists, and public intellectuals explores the distinctive landscape, culture, and history that define the northern margins of the American Midwest. From the glacial past to the present day, these essays range across the histories of the Dakota and Ojibwe people, colonial imperial rivalries and immigration, and conflicts between the economic imperatives of resource extraction and the stewardship of nature. The book also considers literary treatments of the area—and arguably makes its own contributions to that literature, as some of the authors search for the North Country through personal essays, while others highlight individuals who are identified with the area, like Sigurd Olson, John Barlow Martin, and Russell Kirk. From the fur trade to tourism, fisheries to supper clubs, Finnish settlers to Native treaty rights, the nature of the North Country emerges here in all its variety and particularity: as clearly distinct from the greater Midwest as it is part of the American heartland.
FIELD & STREAM, America’s largest outdoor sports magazine, celebrates the outdoor experience with great stories, compelling photography, and sound advice while honoring the traditions hunters and fishermen have passed down for generations.
FIELD & STREAM, America’s largest outdoor sports magazine, celebrates the outdoor experience with great stories, compelling photography, and sound advice while honoring the traditions hunters and fishermen have passed down for generations.
FIELD & STREAM, America’s largest outdoor sports magazine, celebrates the outdoor experience with great stories, compelling photography, and sound advice while honoring the traditions hunters and fishermen have passed down for generations.
