A perfect companion to Michigan Trees

Forests have always been more than just their trees. The forests in Michigan (and similar forests in other Great Lakes states such as Wisconsin and Minnesota) played a role in the American cultural imagination from the beginnings of European settlement in the early nineteenth century to the present. Our relationships with those forests have been shaped by the cultural attitudes of the times, and people have invested in them both moral and spiritual meanings. Author John Knott draws upon such works as Simon Schama's Landscape and Memory and Robert Pogue Harrison's Forests: The Shadow of Civilization in exploring ways in which our relationships with forests have been shaped, using Michigan---its history of settlement, popular literature, and forest management controversies---as an exemplary case. Knott looks at such well-known figures as William Bradford, James Fenimore Cooper, John Muir, John Burroughs, and Teddy Roosevelt; Ojibwa conceptions of the forest and natural world (including how Longfellow mythologized them); early explorer accounts; and contemporary literature set in the Upper Peninsula, including Jim Harrison's True North and Philip Caputo's Indian Country. Two competing metaphors evolved over time, Knott shows: the forest as howling wilderness, impeding the progress of civilization and in need of subjugation, and the forest as temple or cathedral, worthy of reverence and protection. Imagining the Forest shows the origin and development of both.

The number-one book for tree identification in Michigan and the Great Lakes

Narrating the history of Michigan's forest industry, Karamanski provides a dynamic study of an important part of the Upper Peninsula's economy.

Of Michigan's great wealth of natural resources, few have been more important in the past or are more highly valued today than our forests and the trees which compose them. Not only are they a continuous source of raw materials for industry and agriculture but they affect the climate, water resources, and soil, purify our air, furnish food and shelter for wildlife and are indispensable to our vast recreational and scenic areas. They form a basic part of our diverse natural environment - our ""biodiversity."" Their protection and management are vital to the state's wellbeing. Industries which depend upon trees for their existence are major employers and rank high in the state's economy. The annual production and manufacture of forest products is measured in billions of dollars. The recreation ""industry,"" including vacation travel, resorts, food, lodging, hunting, fishing, and camping, is likewise a multi-billion dollar a year business. Equally important is the intangible wealth which trees bring to us through sheer enjoyment of beauty and love of nature. Whether in field, fencerow, woodlot or forest, or along highways, rural roads, urban streets, or greenbelts, this bounty is ours for the taking. We have only to picture ourselves without trees to appreciate this value.