Kategoria BISAC: Nature >> Essays

What are the odds of finding Minnesota's tiniest orchid? Why take a Breathalyzer test to study frogs? How does ice fishing warm the heart? Who would live in such a cold, lean region? Our Neck of the Woods takes on these and other urgent (and sometimes quirky) questions, showcasing writers' own experiences in the best-loved places in Minnesota, including the North Shore, Lake Bemidji, the western prairies and grasslands, the Boundary Waters, and the Mesabi Iron Range.

The outdoor experiences described here range from sweeping natural history observations to adventurous tales of...

The Western approach to nature has always operated under both spiritual and scientific views. While Christianity decrees that human beings have dominion over nature, evolutionary biology teaches us that we are but highly adapted animals among a biological network of millions of other species. What is our proper relationship to wild animals-and what is our responsibility to them?

In The Bullhead Queen, Sue Leaf exemplifies the moral aspect of humans to nature through a collection of engaging meditations on the places she sees every day on Pioneer Lake in east-central Minnesota....

Roy Bedichek spent most of his life working in the educational field in Texas, but his main interest was always the great outdoors. His first book, Adventures with a Texas Naturalist, was published when he was almost seventy, and his second, Karankaway Country, appeared three years later. Both were the result of a lifetime of exploring a beloved land, of searching observation, of discussion, debate, wide reading, and reflection. Long out of print, Karankaway Country is now available in a handsome second edition with a new Foreword by W. W. Newcomb,...

"As I write this, I am sitting in a cabin at Cedar Point Biological Station in southwestern Nebraska.... The glorious elemental mixture of earth, water, and sky around me is the home of nearly three hundred species of birds, and comprises one of my favorite places in the world. Here no radio stations blare out the most recent results of meaningless sports events ... no traffic noises confound the senses. Instead the wind is the unquestioned dominating summer influence. The prairie grasses bend willingly and gracefully before it, and the leaves of the cottonwood trees convert its breezes...

One of Americas greatest landscape designers and conservationists, Jensen used native plants to introduce the influential Prairie style of landscape architecture. In Siftings, Jensen shares his memories of -wandering in many lands- and his life in the heart of Middle America. His recollections--like his designs--express a love of natural landscapes and regional cultures. As he sifts through a lifetime of ideas about gardens, cities, towns and parks, Jensen makes an eloquent case for a natural style of American landscape.