A Storied Wilderness: Rewilding the Apostle Islands

Weyerhaeuser Environmental Books

by James W. Feldman, William Cronon (Foreword)

The Apostle Islands are a solitary place of natural beauty, with red sandstone cliffs, secluded beaches, and a rich and unique forest surrounded by the cold, blue waters of Lake Superior. But this seemingly pristine wilderness has been shaped and reshaped by humans. The people who lived and worked in the Apostles built homes, cleared fields, and cut timber in the island forests. The consequences of human choices made more than a century ago can still be read in today’s wild landscapes.

A Storied Wilderness traces the complex history of human interaction with the Apostle Islands. In the 1930s, resource extraction made it seem like the islands’ natural beauty had been lost forever. But as the island forests regenerated, the ways that people used and valued the islands changed - human and natural processes together led to the rewilding of the Apostles. In 1970, the Apostles were included in the national park system and ultimately designated as the Gaylord Nelson Wilderness.

How should we understand and value wild places with human pasts? James Feldman argues convincingly that such places provide the opportunity to rethink the human place in nature. The Apostle Islands are an ideal setting for telling the national story of how we came to equate human activity with the loss of wilderness characteristics, when in reality all of our cherished wild places are the products of the complicated interactions between human and natural history.

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Genres: Nonfiction, History, Nature, American History

320 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2011

Reviews

[Jeff Mauch · Rating 5 out of 5]

After my recent visit to the Apostle Island National Lakeshore and hearing our guide talk of its history, I felt the need to learn more on how it came to be. There were surprisingly few books on the subject that were current and well-reviewed, but this one was at least current and written by a local academic, so I gave it a shot. I know some will find this book to be a bit too in-depth and in that aspect I would disagree, but I do feel if it has a flaw, it’s how repetitive it gets with its arguments of what a wilderness is, and what rewilding is. This is an argument that the book definitely needs, but it gets to be way too much a number of times. I realize that this is the entire idea behind the book, but even with that being the case, it’s just too much.  I still think this is an excellent book. It really excels in telling the history of the islands in the 1800s and 1900s. Clearly they have a very storied past, from fishing and logging camps to full time residents that farmed and ran restaurants. After walking across Sand Island myself, I now have a much deeper appreciation for the work that went into creating this park and for the most part keeping it wild and not allowing it to be commercialized in most ways. It’s a truly beautiful places and might be Wisconsin’s best natural wonder. This book with its archival photographs and history does a wonderful job of explaining just how lucky we are to have this park.

[emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

very widely and well researched. I really enjoyed the exploration of a man-made “wilderness” and the connection between humankind and nature; I thought the last chapter was the most compelling in those aspects. that said, this book was quite long and repetitive. as someone who is not super into researching the history and ecology of national parks, I think I could’ve gotten the same takeaway from a shorter essay.

[Nicole Brennan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed learning the history of the islands and how the came to be in the present-state of its beauty. That being said, it is repetitive and on the dry side.

[Jessica DeWitt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a solid and well-researched study, which adds to the body of literature that questions the term wilderness and seeks to demonstrate that the term is much more complex and problematic than it may seem. One of Feldman's PhD advisors was William Cronon, and it shows in the way that he writes and tackles wilderness. A lot of his narrative is based on the idea of legibility (which was new to me), that is that the government sought to simplify the story of the landscape to make it easier to govern by way of wilderness legislation, etc. Particularly enjoyed his chapter on tourism and the way in which he demonstrated that the tourism and extractive industries on the islands not only coexisted, but were dependent on one another for several decades.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting history/natural history of a beautiful place.