Living Great Lakes: Searching for the Heart of the Inland Seas Book

My actual rating for this amazing book would be 4.75 stars, because it barely mentions the greatest of all cities on the Great Lakes, BUFFALO, NEW YORK!!!!

OK, that bit of local jingoism aside, this is a truly fantastic book about a region of the country that many don't really seem to think all that much about. Author Dennis combines history, science, personal memoir, and travel narrative in one book that journeys through all five of the lakes, and also down the Erie Canal and the Hudson River to boot (as both are essential to the history of the Lakes as trade route). Dennis slides from one topic to the next seamlessly, from the building of the Mackinac Bridge to the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald to the status of Lake Erie fishery to the Peshtigo fires to the battles around the Lakes in the War of 1812 to the politics of so much fresh water sitting a tempting distance from plenty of places that want it.

I've lived within a reasonable driving distance of at least one of the Great Lakes for nearly all of my life (only the handful of years we lived in Oregon before I turned ten count against this, and probably my four years of college in Iowa), and I've lived within fifteen minutes of Lake Erie's shores for the last fifteen. This enormous region is, for me, the true heart of America and of civilization on this continent, and this book is incredibly valuable, deeply readable, and at times highly moving. I can't recommend this book highly enough.

Now if Mr. Dennis can do an updated version with a chapter about Buffalo....