As one of the world’s great natural treasures, the Great Lakes have also served in recent decades as an early warning system for many emerging environmental problems. In the early twenty-first century, as the Lakes face unprecedented challenges, we need to revisit both the wonder of the Lakes and the perils plaguing them, and to take action to protect this majestic ecosystem. 
     Dave Dempsey weaves the natural character and phenomena of the Great Lakes and stories of the schemes, calamities, and unusual human residents of the Basin with the history of their environmental exploitation and recovery. Contrasting the incomparable beauty and complexity of the Lakes, and the poetry, folklore, and citizen action they have inspired, with the disasters that short-sighted human folly has inflicted on the ecosystem, Dempsey makes this history both engaging and relevant to today’s debates and decisions.
     Underlying the neglectful treatment of the Lakes are two irreconcilable and faulty human assumptions: that the Lakes are a system so big that human beings cannot do great harm to it, and that the Lakes are a resource that can be bent to the will of humankind. Dempsey finds evidence that, despite great changes in the laws governing the Lakes and public attitudes toward them in the last fifty years, government policy and institutions are still dominated by these dangerous attitudes.
     A central theme of On the Brink is that citizens, who have displayed an increasing sense of commitment to the Lakes and a growing sense of place, must challenge their leaders to reform Great Lakes institutions. While everything from large-scale water exports to global climate change looms in the future of the Lakes, single-purpose solutions do not suffice—no more than a Band- aid would on a gaping wound. Dempsey shows that it is necessary to create a governing system that reflects the realities of life “on the ground” in communities and that taps into the passion and determination of citizens to protect these treasures.

Whether profiling the chief of the last hunter-gatherers on the river, an early settler witnessing her first prairie fire and a modern wildlife biologist using fire to manage prairies, the manager of the Granger Farmer’s Co-op Creamery, or a landowner whose bottomlands are continually eaten away by floods, Faldet steadily develops the central idea that people are walking tributaries of the river basin in which they make their homes.

Faldet moves through the history of life along the now-polluted Upper Iowa, always focusing on the ways people depend on the river, the environment, and the resources of the region. He blends contemporary conversations, readings from the historical record, environmental research, and personal experience to show us that the health of the river is best guaranteed by maintaining the biological communities that nurture it. In return, taking care of the Upper Iowa is the best way to take care of our future.

The Other Oregon: People, Environment, and History East of the Cascades is a multidisciplinary work that ranges widely through a diverse and often under-appreciated land, drawing on the fields of environmental history, cultural and physical geography, and natural resource management to tell a comprehensive and compelling story.

With a staggering variety of landscapes, from high desert to alpine peaks, Oregon east of the Cascades encompasses seventeen counties and two time zones. Although this vast region defies generalization, its history is distinct from the rest of Oregon. The interrelationship between its people and the land has always been central, but that relationship has evolved and changed over time. Regional economies that were once largely exploitive and dedicated to commodity exports have slowly moved toward the husbanding of resources and to broader and deeper appreciations.

Historian Thomas Cox reveals the complexity of interactions between the people of Eastern Oregon, the land, natural resources, and one another, demonstrating how the region’s history speaks to larger American issues. The 2016 occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, covered in detail within these pages, further reveals the relevance of Eastern Oregon to the larger world.

Written in clear and engaging prose and informed by extensive research, The Other Oregon will be a valuable resource for anyone interested in the environment, social change, and the relationships among the diverse people who make up Oregon society east of the Cascades. It will appeal to area residents and visitors, students of the American West, environmental historians, biologists, land managers, and anyone with an abiding interest in the region.

Ray and Barbara Bane worked as teachers in Barrow and Wainwright, Alaska, in the early 1960s—but they didn’t simply teach the children of their Iñupiat Eskimo and Koyukon friends and neighbors: they fully embraced their lifestyle. Doing so, they realized how closely intertwined life in the region was with the land, and, specifically, how critical wilderness was to the ancient traditions and wisdom that undergirded the Native way of life. That slow realization came to a head during a 1,200-mile dogsled trip from Hughes to Barrow in 1974—a trip that led them to give up teaching in favor of working, through the National Park Service, to preserve Alaska’s wilderness.

This book tells their story, a tale of dedication and tireless labor in the face of suspicion, resistance, and even violence. At a time when Alaska’s natural bounty remains under threat, Our Perfect Wild shows us an example of the commitment—and love—that will be required to preserve it.