From Book News, Inc.
A Minnesota-rooted freelance writer presents an ecological history of the state's northern region now called the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The aptly named Forester traces land management strategies: tribal use of fire to create wildlife- sustaining meadows, pioneer clearing of the wilderness, the logging boom, early conservation efforts, the designation of wilderness, and current U.S. Forest Service policy. Including b&w photos, he examines the implications of the restoration by prescribed burns approach for the future of forests.Copyright © 2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The region known today as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness has offered assorted treasures to each generation, from early settlers and industrialists who sought the pine forests' wealth to modern visitors who value the tranquility of protected wilderness. In this ecological history of the BWCAW's Winton watershed, Jeff Forester shows how the global story of logging, forestry, conservation, and resource management unfolded in the northern woods of Minnesota. The result is a telling exploration of human attitudes toward wilderness: the grasp after a forest's resources, the battles between logging, tourism, and environmental interests, and decades of conservation efforts that have left northern Minnesota denuded of white pine and threatened with potentially devastating fire.

The result of a decade of research, The Forest for the Trees chronicles six phases of human interaction with the BWCAW: tribal, burning the land for cultivation; pioneering, harvesting lumber on a small scale; industrial, accelerating the cut and consequently increasing the fire danger; conservation, reacting to both widespread fires and unsustainable harvest levels; wilderness, recognizing important values in woodlands beyond timber; and finally restoration, using prescribed burns and other techniques to return the forest to its "natural" state.