Cache Lake Country: Life in the North Woods

Winner of the 1999 National Outdoor Book Award: Outdoor Classic Category.

Over half a century ago, John Rowlands set out by canoe into the wilds of Canada to survey land for a timber company. After paddling alone for several days―"it was so quiet I could hear the drops from the paddle hitting the water"―he came upon "the lake of my boyhood dreams." He never left. He named the place Cache Lake because there was stored the best that the north had to offer―timber for a cabin; fish, game, and berries to live on; and the peace and contentment he felt he could not live without.

Cache Lake Country is a vivid and faithful chronicle of life in the great Northern Forest and a storehouse of valuable information on woodcraft and nature. Here is folklore and philosophy, but most of all wisdom about the woods and the inventiveness and self-reliance they demand. The author explains how to make moccasins, barrel stoves, lean-to shelters, outdoor bake ovens, sailing canoes, and hundreds of other ingenious and useful gadgets, all illustrated in the margins with 230 enchanting drawings by Henry B. Kane.

John J. Rowlands had a varied career as a gold and silver prospector, miner, lumber scout, and newspaperman. He died in 1976.