Description
Book SynopsisAncient glaciers passed by the Driftless Area and waterways vein its interior, forming an enchanting, enigmatic landscape of sharp ridgetops and deep valleys.
The Driftless Reader gathers writings that highlight the unique natural and cultural history, landscape, and literature of this region that encompasses southwestern Wisconsin and adjacent Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois.
Trade ReviewA timely resource for anyone interested in the natural and cultural history of the Driftless Area. The varied texts create a kaleidoscopic portrait that shifts and reassembles with each new view that is offered."" - Beth Lynch,Luther College
""As unique as the Driftless bioregion is, so are the writings, old and new, of our region. This land speaks clearly through these words to reflect our collective love of the Driftless, our common sense, our community spirit, and the unique characters we are."" - George Siemon, chief executive, Organic Valley/CROPP Cooperative
Table of Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Credits
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Editors’ Note
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- 1 Geologic Origins
- Getting to Black Earth (2013), Patricia Monaghan
- From Roadside Geology of Wisconsin (2004), Robert H. Dott Jr. and John W. Attig
- From Wisconsin’s Foundations (2004), Gwen M. Schultz
- From “Preliminary Paper on the Driftless Area of the Upper Mississippi Valley” (1885), T. C. Chamberlin and Rollin D. Salisbury
- From “The Pleistocene History of Northeastern Iowa” (1891), W J McGee
- Watch for Fallen Rock (2012), Katherine Mead
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- 2 Ancient Peoples
- Wisconsin Mounds (1963), Edna Meudt
- From Twelve Millennia: Archaeology of the Upper Mississippi River Valley (2003), James L. Theler and Robert F. Boszhart
- From Indian Nations of Wisconsin: Histories of Endurance and Renewal (2001), Patty Loew
- From “Notes Respecting Certain Indian Mounds and Earthworks, in the Form of Animal Effigies, Chiefly in the Wisconsin Territory, U.S.” (1838), Richard C. Taylor
- From Buried Indians: Digging Up the Past in a Midwestern Town (2006), Laurie Hovell McMillin
- From Oneota Flow: The Upper Iowa River and Its People (2009), David S. Faldet
- Wisconsin’s Cave of Wonders (2003), E. Barrie Kavasch
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- 3 Historical Ecologies
- Meditations (1931), Laura Sherry
- From “Notes on the Journey West” (1861), Henry David Thoreau
- From Caddie Woodlawn (1936), Carol Ryrie Brink
- From “An Ecological Survey of the Driftless Area of Illinois and Wisconsin” (1909), H. S. Pepoon
- From The Vegetation of Wisconsin (1959), John T. Curtis
- From “Reconstructing Vegetation Past: Pre-Euro-American Vegetation for the Midwest Driftless Area, USA” (2014), Monika E. Shea, Lisa A. Schulte, and Brian J. Palik
- Changes in Wildlife Over Time (2012), Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
- Desoto Hills (1951), Cecile Houghton Stury
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- 4 Native Voices
- Native Names on the Land
- The Story of Devil’s Lake (1930), Ulysses S. White
- Statement to U.S. Indian Commissioners at Prairie du Chien (1829), Hoowaneka/Huwanika (Little Elk)
- From Life of Black Hawk or Mà-Ka-Tai-Me-She-Kià-Kiàk (1833), Black Hawk
- From A Canoe Voyage Up the Minnay Sotor (1847), George William Featherstonhaugh
- From “Narrative of Spoon Decorah” (1887), Spoon Decorah
- From Mountain Wolf Woman, Sister of Crashing Thunder (1961), Xehaciwi?ga (Mountain Wolf Woman)
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- 5 Explorations
- La Crosse at Ninety Miles an Hour (1953), Richard Eberhart
- From Le Premier Voÿage qu’a Fait Le P. Marquette . . . [Of the First Voyage Made by Father Marquette . . . ] (1674), Jacques Marquette
- From The Expeditions of Zebulon Montgomery Pike to Headwaters of the Mississippi River (1810), Zebulon Montgomery Pike
- From Narrative Journal of Travels through the Northwestern Regions of the United States (1821), Henry R. Schoolcraft
- Recess in the Bluffs near MacGregor (1863), John Muir
- From “Landscape and Home: Environmental Traditions in Wisconsin” (1990), William Cronon
- From Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses (2003), Robin Wall Kimmerer
- Old Man Fishing (1960), August Derleth
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- 6 Early Economies
- Diggings (2011), Alice D’Alessio
- Life in the Diggings (1898), Henry E. Legler
- Public Land Sale (1847), James M. Goodhue
- From “Recollections of Antoine Grignon” (1914), Antoine Grignon
- From A Raft Pilot’s Log (1930), Walter A. Blair
- From History of the White Pine Industry in Minnesota (1949), Agnes M. Larson
- From Order Upon the Land (1976), Hildegard Binder Johnson
- Dreamers (1931), Laura Case Sherry
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- 7 Settler Stories
- Sesquicentennial Song, for Wisconsin Statehood, 1848 (2008), Thomas R. Smith
- From Wau-Bun: The Early Day in the Northwest (1873), Juliette Kinzie
- Macaja Revels Camped at a Stream of Water (2013), Fabu
- From A Badger Boy in Blue (1862), Chauncey Cooke
- From The Kickapoo Valley: The Gem of Wisconsin (1896), Gertrude Frazier and Rose B. Poff
- “Every Time I Travel the Great River Road . . .” (1990), Pearl Swiggum
- Yanys (2010), Jacqueline West
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- 8 Farming Lives
- Me and My Man (1931), Laura Sherry
- From Incidents of a Journey from Pennsylvania to Wisconsin Territory (1837), William Rudolph Smith
- From A Son of the Middle Border (1917), Hamlin Garland
- From Little House in the Big Woods (1932), Laura Ingalls Wilder
- From The Land Remembers: The Story of a Farm and Its People (1975), Ben Logan
- It Is Natural (2006), Lynne Burgess
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- 9 Waterways
- The Pinery Boy (1926), Collected by Franz Rickaby
- From Life on the Mississippi (1883), Mark Twain
- From American Places (1981), Wallace Stegner
- Water Song (2013), Catherine Young
- From Crossing the Driftless: A Canoe Trip through a Midwestern Landscape (2015), Lynne Diebel
- War (1956), Joseph Langland
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- 10 Conserving Lands
- From Wisconsin Sketches (1973), Robert E. Gard
- Coon Valley: An Adventure in Cooperative Conservation (1935), Aldo Leopold
- From Frank Lloyd Wright: An Autobiography (1943), Frank Lloyd Wright
- Letter from the Old Order Amish Churches (1995)
- An Ecological Play on a Stage Known as Dunlap Hollow (1998), Stanley Temple
- From A Thousand Pieces of Paradise: Landscape and Property in the Kickapoo Valley (2005), Lynne Heasley
- Frac Sand Song (2013), Emmett J. Doyle
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- 11 Communities in Transition
- Driftless Elegy (2013), Mark Wunderlich
- “Richland Center, the Cradle of Su¤rage in Wisconsin: How Earliest Enthusiasts Led Sisters” (1924), Mary Elizabeth Hussong
- From The Driftless Zone; or, A Novel Concerning the Selective Outmigration from Small Cities (1997), Rick Harsch
- From Driftless (2008), David Rhodes
- Postville: Iowa’s Entry into the Post-Modern (2009), Robert Wolf
- Things I Love About Where I Am (2012), Kathe Davis 287
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- 12 Futures
- Broken Gates (2012), Ken McCullough
- From Way Station (1963), Clifford D. Simak
- From Going Driftless: Life Lessons from the Heartland for Unraveling Times (2015), Stephen Lyons
- From Jerusalem Creek: Journeys into Driftless Country (2002), Ted Leeson
- From The Driftless Land: Spirit of Place in the Upper Mississippi Valley (2010), Kevin Koch
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- Sources and Further Readings
- Index
