Canoeing Michigan Rivers

This book was conceived on a February weekend on the Pine River. That trip began and ended so inauspiciously that it has earned an honored listing in our personal archives under "Chalk it up to experience." It began early Saturday morning in a search for Edgetts Bridge - lost on roads with names like 50 and 49 1/2, guided by a vague hand-drawn map and even vaguer local advice. It ended Sunday evening when we found our way back to that remote bridge and discovered that our vehicle had been broken into and ransacked. On the drive home we decided something had to be done. There had been too many trips marred by insufficient and inaccurate information. There was no such guide at the time. So, to make a long story short, we decided we would create one, and - two years and about 1,500 miles of canoeing later - this is the result.

Jerry Dennis is the author of many literary and popular works about nature, science, and outdoor recreation. His essays and stories in The New York Times, Smithsonian, Audubon, Orion, Wildlife Conservation, National Geographic Traveler, American Way, Gray's Sporting Journal, and many other publications have won numerous awards and are frequently anthologized. His books, many of them illustrated by artist Glenn Wolff, are widely acclaimed and have been translated into German, Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, and Czech. In 1999 the Michigan Library Association named Jerry the Michigan Author of the Year, the highest literary award in the state, and in 2003 the University of Louisvilles School of Arts and Sciences recognized his achievements in literature with its Outstanding Alumnus of the Year Award. He is a frequent guest lecturer at universities, has been a commentator on national and regional public radio, and serves on the faculty of the University of Michigans Bear River Writers Conference, where he teaches nature writing and creative non-fiction. He and his wife, Gail, live near the shore of Lake Michigan not far from Traverse City, Michigan.