"The Barrens grabbed me from the opening pages and never let go."—Michael Punke, author of The Revenant This riveting debut is at once a white-water adventure, coming-of-age novel, and tale of tragic love—and an extraordinary father-daughter collaboration. Two young women attending college decide to have a summer adventure canoeing the rapids-strewn Thelon River that runs 450 miles through the uninhabited Barren Lands of subarctic Canada. Holly made the trip once before with a group of skilled paddlers she trained with at camp, and she wants to share that experience with her friend and lover, Lee, believing it will draw them closer. But a week in, Holly, the risk-taker, falls while taking a selfie near the edge of a cliff. She is left injured and comatose, and soon dies. Their locator beacon for summoning rescue was smashed in Holly’s fall. It remains to Lee, the inexperienced paddler, to continue the grueling and dangerous trip alone, to save herself and return her lover’s body to civilization and Holly’s family. In their relationship, Holly and Lee had always told each other stories; Lee had called Holly a “storyist.” Storytelling helps Lee endure the rigors of her journey and engage her grief as she explores her relationship with Holly while chronicling her own coming-of-age off the grid in Nebraska with her estranged eco-anarchist father, who is now serving time in prison.

Awasin, a Cree Indian boy, and Jamie, a Canadian orphan living with his uncle, the trapper Angus Macnair, are enchanted by the magic of the great Arctic wastes. They set out on an adventure that proves longer and more dangerous than they could have imagined. Drawing on his knowledge of the ways of the wilderness and the implacable northern elements, Farley Mowat has created a memorable tale of daring and adventure. When first published in 1956, Lost in the Barrens won the Governor-General’s Award for Juvenile Literature, the Book-of-the-Year Medal of the Canadian Association of Children’s Librarians and the Boys’ Club of America Junior Book Award.

A tale as haunting as a bad memory and as chilling as its reality

The story of a young teen's struggle to rebuild his life while helping to rebuild a local prairie.

Most people think of New Jersey as a suburban-industrial corridor that runs between New York and Philadelphia. Yet in the low center of the state is a near wilderness, larger than most national parks, which has been known since the seventeenth century as the Pine Barrens. The term refers to the predominant trees in the vast forests that cover the area and to the quality of the soils below, which are too sandy and acid to be good for farming. On all sides, however, developments of one kind or another have gradually moved in, so that now the central and integral forest is reduced to about a thousand square miles. Although New Jersey has the heaviest population density of any state, huge segments of the Pine Barrens remain uninhabited. The few people who dwell in the region, the "Pineys," are little known and often misunderstood. Here McPhee uses his uncanny skills as a journalist to explore the history of the region and describe the people—and their distinctive folklore—who call it home.

Narnia meets traditional Indigenous stories of the sky and constellations in an epic middle grade fantasy series from award-winning author David Robertson. Morgan and Eli, two Indigenous children forced away from their families and communities, are brought together in a foster home in Winnipeg, Manitoba. They each feel disconnected, from their culture and each other, and struggle to fit in at school and at their new home -- until they find a secret place, walled off in an unfinished attic bedroom. A portal opens to another reality, Askí, bringing them onto frozen, barren grounds, where they meet Ochek (Fisher). The only hunter supporting his starving community, Misewa, Ochek welcomes the human children, teaching them traditional ways to survive. But as the need for food becomes desperate, they embark on a dangerous mission. Accompanied by Arik, a sassy Squirrel they catch stealing from the trapline, they try to save Misewa before the icy grip of winter freezes everything -- including them.

In 1955, five men in their early twenties set off with 36-year-old Art Moffat on a canoe trip through Canada's arctic. The group was unprepared for the cold. They ran out of food and winter closed in. Then the group inadvertently went over a waterfall and the leader. Art Moffat died of hypothermia. One of the young men on the trip, George Grinnell, has worked on his account of the journey for fifty years. It is a powerful book of survival and awakening - a physical and spiritual odyssey. A Death on the Barrens, was originally published in 1996. This revised Heron Dance Press edition contains Roderick MacIver watercolors.

Presents legends and lore of the New Jersey Pine Barrens, an area occupying roughly one million acres.

Pine Barrens: Ecosystem and Landscape focuses on the relationship between the ecological and landscape aspects of Pine Barrens of New Jersey. The idea in this book is based from the discussions of Rutgers University botanists and ecologists at the 1975 American Institute of Biological Science meetings, and from the interest generated by the 1976 annual New Jersey Academy of Science meeting, which focuses on the Pine Barrens. This seven-part book starts with a short discussion on location and boundaries of the New Jersey Pine Barrens. Part I covers human activities, from Indian activities and initial European perceptions of the land, including settlement, lumbering, fuel wood and charcoal, iron and glassworks, farming and livestock, and real estate development. The next part of the book describes sandy deposits, geographic distribution of geologic formations, and soil types with their ecologically important characteristics. Topics on hydrology, aquatic ecosystems, and climatic and microclimatic conditions are presented in the third part of this reference. Part IV traces the history of vegetation starting before the Ice Age and analyzes vegetation using different approaches, such as community types, community classification according to a European method, and gradient analysis. Plants of the Pine Barrens are briefly described and listed in Part V. The final part illustrates community relationships of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, arthropods, and soil microcommunities. The book is ideal for ecologists, botanists, geologists, soil scientists, zoologists, hydrologists, limnologists, engineers, and scientists, as well as planners, decision-makers, and managers who may largely determine the future of a region.

A coherent, readable summary of the technical information available on savannas, barrens and rock outcrop plant communities.