Over the course of two summers, five young friends traversed North Dakota by foot, starting at the Montana border near Beach and finishing in Fargo. Their more than-400-mile trek is an exploration of backroads, small towns, wildlife, and terrain, a deliberately unhasty quest in search of what it means to be "from North Dakota."
For many people, hiking 4,600 miles in one "go" may seem like a crazy-- even foolish idea. But for some others it is an opportunity to see isolated places, to discover oneself, and of course to have fun doing it! Such is the case with me. A few years ago I had never even heard of the North Country Trail. I had no idea that such a daunting task of building a continuous footpath across seven northern states was underway, and had been for more than thirty years. I was immediately excited and fascinated with the idea. After doing a little research and finding out what the trail was all about, I began to feel a sense of longing, a desire to hike beyond Minnesota and see what else the North Country had to offer. This is my story of that journey, filled with first-hand accounts of the trials and triumphs faced during this 6-month adventure.
In 1896, a Norwegian immigrant and mother of eight children named Helga Estby was behind on taxes and the mortgage when she learned that a mysterious sponsor would pay $10,000 to a woman who walked across America. Hoping to win the wager and save her family’s farm, Helga and her teenaged daughter Clara, armed with little more than a compass, red-pepper spray, a revolver, and Clara’s curling iron, set out on foot from Eastern Washington. Their route would pass through 14 states, but they were not allowed to carry more than five dollars each. As they visited Indian reservations, Western boomtowns, remote ranches and local civic leaders, they confronted snowstorms, hunger, thieves and mountain lions with equal aplomb. Their treacherous and inspirational journey to New York challenged contemporary notions of femininity and captured the public imagination. But their trip had such devastating consequences that the Estby women's achievement was blanketed in silence until, nearly a century later, Linda Lawrence Hunt encountered their extraordinary story.
If you like David Sedaris you will like Sam McQuade. His stories are as funny and poignant, and his family is even more dysfuntional. Sam is the eldest child of seven. There are four left. "There is a Road in North Dakota" is his story, growing up Catholic in the 50s and 60s on the northern Great Plains, his travels and adventures in France, the auto accident deaths of two brothers, life as a college English professor, and his eventual return to Bismarck, ND, to enter the family beer business and endure years of an Oedipus struggle with his father. If a life can be described as a metaphor, Sam McQuade's life is a gravel road in North Dakota. You will enjoy the unmarked curves.
In thirty-six thrilling days, Melanie Radzicki McManus hiked 1,100 miles around Wisconsin, landing her in the elite group of Ice Age Trail thru-hikers known as the Thousand-Milers. In prose that’s alternately harrowing and humorous, Thousand-Miler takes you with her through Wisconsin’s forests, prairies, wetlands, and farms, past the geologic wonders carved by long-ago glaciers, and into the neighborhood bars and gathering places of far-flung small towns. Follow along as she worries about wildlife encounters, wonders if her injured feet will ever recover, and searches for an elusive fellow hiker known as Papa Bear. Woven throughout her account are details of the history of the still-developing Ice Age Trail—one of just eleven National Scenic Trails—and helpful insight and strategies for undertaking a successful thru-hike. In addition to chronicling McManus’s hike, Thousand-Miler also includes the little-told story of the Ice Age Trail’s first-ever thru-hiker Jim Staudacher, an account of the record-breaking thru-run of ultrarunner Jason Dorgan, the experiences of a young combat veteran who embarked on her thru-hike as a way to ease back into civilian life, and other fascinating tales from the trail. Their collective experiences shed light on the motivations of thru-hikers and the different ways hikers accomplish this impressive feat, providing an entertaining and informative read for outdoors enthusiasts of all levels.
Remember his name: FBI Agent Amos Decker is back in a thrilling memory man investigation from number one bestseller, David Baldacci. A town with a secret. A lone hunter discovers the remains of a woman in North Dakota’s Badlands. She appears to have had a post-mortem performed on her reminiscent of those only seen on TV shows – but this time, there was no slab, morgue or camera in sight. A victim without a past. The reason why Irene Cramer’s death merits an FBI investigation becomes rapidly clear when key questions surface about her mysterious past. Little is known about this school teacher, where she came from or her true identity. She clearly had something to hide. A hero with a unique skill. FBI investigator, Amos Decker and his colleague, Alex Jamison, are summoned to seek answers in the local community of London, North Dakota, which sits at the very heart of the fracking industry. Enriched with oil money, jealousy and a deep-set rivalry lie beneath a veneer of glitz and opulence. Decker soon realizes that the nearby ‘eye in the sky’, the Air Force Station, may hold the vital clues and that this town holds secrets so explosive that they could destabilize the entire country . . Walk the Wire by David Baldacci is the sixth book in the Amos Decker series. Continue the investigative thrillers with Long Shadows. Once read, never forgotten.
“A deeply spiritual, deeply moving book” about life on the Great Plains, by the New York Times–bestselling author of The Cloister Walk (The New York Times Book Review). “With humor and lyrical grace,” Kathleen Norris meditates on a place in the American landscape that is at once desolate and sublime, harsh and forgiving, steeped in history and myth (San Francisco Chronicle). A combination of reporting and reflection, Dakota reminds us that wherever we go, we chart our own spiritual geography.
“Get your head into the clouds with Aerial Geology.” —The New York Times Book Review Aerial Geology is an up-in-the-sky exploration of North America’s 100 most spectacular geological formations. Crisscrossing the continent from the Aleutian Islands in Alaska to the Great Salt Lake in Utah and to the Chicxulub Crater in Mexico, Mary Caperton Morton brings you on a fantastic tour, sharing aerial and satellite photography, explanations on how each site was formed, and details on what makes each landform noteworthy. Maps and diagrams help illustrate the geological processes and clarify scientific concepts. Fact-filled, curious, and way more fun than the geology you remember from grade school, Aerial Geology is a must-have for the insatiably curious, armchair geologists, million-mile travelers, and anyone who has stared out the window of a plane and wondered what was below.
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR “Vivid, compelling... An embrace of moral and spiritual contemplation.” –The New York Times “A remarkable piece of writing. If read with humility and attention, Kathleen Norris's book becomes lectio divina, or holy reading.” –The Boston Globe From the iconic author of Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith, a spiritual journey that brings joy to the meanings of love, grace and faith. Why would a married woman with a thoroughly Protestant background and often more doubt than faith be drawn to the ancient practice of monasticism, to a community of celibate men whose days are centered on a rigid schedule of prayer, work, and scripture? This is the question that poet Kathleen Norris asks us as, somewhat to her own surprise, she found herself on two extended residencies at St. John's Abbey in Minnesota. Part record of her time among the Benedictines, part meditation on various aspects of monastic life, The Cloister Walk demonstrates, from the rare perspective of someone who is both an insider and outsider, how immersion in the cloistered world-- its liturgy, its ritual, its sense of community-- can impart meaning to everyday events and deepen our secular lives. In this stirring and lyrical work, the monastery, often considered archaic or otherworldly, becomes immediate, accessible, and relevant to us, no matter what our faith may be.