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The Windward Shore: A Winter on the Great Lakes
Grounded by a knee injury, Dennis learns to live at a slower pace while staying in houses ranging from a log cabin on Lake Superior’s Keweenaw Peninsula to a $20 million mansion on the northern shore of Lake Michigan. While walking on beaches and exploring nearby woods and villages, he muses on the nature of time, weather, waves, agates, books, words for snow and ice, our complex relationship with nature, and much more.
From the introduction: “I wanted to present a true picture of a complex region, part of my continuing project to learn at least one place on earth reasonably well, and trusted that it would appear gradually and accumulatively—and not as a conventional portrait, but as a mosaic that included the sounds and scents and textures of the place and some of the plants, animals, and its inhabitants. Bolstered by the notion that a book is a journey that author and reader walk together, I would search for promising trails and follow them as far as my reconstructed knee would allow.”
"Our country is lucky to have Jerry Dennis. A conservationist with the soul of a poet whose beat is Wild Michigan, Dennis is a kindred spirit of Aldo Leopold and Sigurd Olson. The Windward Shore---his newest effort---is a beautifully written and elegiac memoir of outdoor discovery. Highly recommended!"
---Douglas Brinkley, author of The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America
"Come for a journey; stay for an awakening. Jerry Dennis loves the Great Lakes, the swell of every wave, the curve of every rock. He wants you to love them too before our collective trashing of them wipes out all traces of their original character. Through his eyes, you will treasure the hidden secrets that reveal themselves only to those who linger and long. Elegant and sad at the same time, The Windward Shore is a love song for the Great Lakes and a gentle call to action to save them."
---Maude Barlow, author of Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water
"In prose as clear as the lines in a Dürer etching, Jerry Dennis maps his home ground, which ranges outward from the back door of his farmhouse to encompass the region of vast inland seas at the heart of our continent. Along the way, inspired by the company of water in all its guises---ice, snow, frost, clouds, rain, shore-lapping waves---he meditates on the ancient questions about mind and matter, time and attention, wildness and wonder. As in the best American nature writing---a tradition that Dennis knows well---here the place and the explorer come together in brilliant conversation."
---Scott Russell Sanders, author of A Conservationist Manifesto
If you have been enchanted by Jerry Dennis’s earlier work on sailing the Great Lakes, canoeing, angling, and the natural wonders of water and sky—or you have not yet been lucky enough to enjoy his engaging prose—you will want to immerse yourself in his powerful and insightful new book on winter in Great Lakes country.
From the introduction: “I wanted to present a true picture of a complex region, part of my continuing project to learn at least one place on earth reasonably well, and trusted that it would appear gradually and accumulatively—and not as a conventional portrait, but as a mosaic that included the sounds and scents and textures of the place and some of the plants, animals, and its inhabitants. Bolstered by the notion that a book is a journey that author and reader walk together, I would search for promising trails and follow them as far as my reconstructed knee would allow.”
"Our country is lucky to have Jerry Dennis. A conservationist with the soul of a poet whose beat is Wild Michigan, Dennis is a kindred spirit of Aldo Leopold and Sigurd Olson. The Windward Shore---his newest effort---is a beautifully written and elegiac memoir of outdoor discovery. Highly recommended!"
---Douglas Brinkley, author of The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America
"Come for a journey; stay for an awakening. Jerry Dennis loves the Great Lakes, the swell of every wave, the curve of every rock. He wants you to love them too before our collective trashing of them wipes out all traces of their original character. Through his eyes, you will treasure the hidden secrets that reveal themselves only to those who linger and long. Elegant and sad at the same time, The Windward Shore is a love song for the Great Lakes and a gentle call to action to save them."
---Maude Barlow, author of Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water
"In prose as clear as the lines in a Dürer etching, Jerry Dennis maps his home ground, which ranges outward from the back door of his farmhouse to encompass the region of vast inland seas at the heart of our continent. Along the way, inspired by the company of water in all its guises---ice, snow, frost, clouds, rain, shore-lapping waves---he meditates on the ancient questions about mind and matter, time and attention, wildness and wonder. As in the best American nature writing---a tradition that Dennis knows well---here the place and the explorer come together in brilliant conversation."
---Scott Russell Sanders, author of A Conservationist Manifesto
If you have been enchanted by Jerry Dennis’s earlier work on sailing the Great Lakes, canoeing, angling, and the natural wonders of water and sky—or you have not yet been lucky enough to enjoy his engaging prose—you will want to immerse yourself in his powerful and insightful new book on winter in Great Lakes country.
168 pages, Hardcover
First published August 30, 2011
19 people are currently reading
229 people want to read
About the author
Jerry Dennis
41 books47 followersJerry Dennis was born in Flint in 1954, and grew up in rural northern Michigan. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Louisville in 1981, after attending Northern Michigan University and Northwestern Michigan College.
As he began his writing career, he worked as a carpenter for five years. To date, he has written for many publications. Journalistic assignments sent him to Iceland, Chile, and extensively throughout the U.S. and Canada.
Dennis married during this time to Gail. They currently live on the shores of Lake Michigan, not far from Traverse City.
Since 2000 he has been on the faculty of the University of Michigan's Bear River Writers Conference, where he teaches creative non-fiction and nature writing.
As of 2014, he is the author of ten books, his best known book is The Living Great Lakes, about his trip around the great lakes in a rickety ship. He was awarded a place on the Michigan Notable Books list for that book.
In 2014, in response to a pricing dispute between his publisher, MacMillan Press, and Amazon, Dennis set up his own publishing house, Big Maple Press, to produce books which will be sold only through independent booksellers.
His awards include: 2004 Michigan Notable Books, 2004 Sigurd Olsen Nature Writing Award, 2004 Great Lakes Culture Best Book Award Non-Fiction, 2004 The Stuart D. and Vernice M. Gross Award for Literature,
2003 Alumni Fellows Award, University of Louisville, College of Arts and Sciences,
1999 Michigan Author of the Year,
1993, 1996, 1998, and 2003 Best Book of the Year awarded by Outdoor Writers Association of America.
As he began his writing career, he worked as a carpenter for five years. To date, he has written for many publications. Journalistic assignments sent him to Iceland, Chile, and extensively throughout the U.S. and Canada.
Dennis married during this time to Gail. They currently live on the shores of Lake Michigan, not far from Traverse City.
Since 2000 he has been on the faculty of the University of Michigan's Bear River Writers Conference, where he teaches creative non-fiction and nature writing.
As of 2014, he is the author of ten books, his best known book is The Living Great Lakes, about his trip around the great lakes in a rickety ship. He was awarded a place on the Michigan Notable Books list for that book.
In 2014, in response to a pricing dispute between his publisher, MacMillan Press, and Amazon, Dennis set up his own publishing house, Big Maple Press, to produce books which will be sold only through independent booksellers.
His awards include: 2004 Michigan Notable Books, 2004 Sigurd Olsen Nature Writing Award, 2004 Great Lakes Culture Best Book Award Non-Fiction, 2004 The Stuart D. and Vernice M. Gross Award for Literature,
2003 Alumni Fellows Award, University of Louisville, College of Arts and Sciences,
1999 Michigan Author of the Year,
1993, 1996, 1998, and 2003 Best Book of the Year awarded by Outdoor Writers Association of America.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
October 16, 2013
Every once in a while I read a book that makes me think I should buy all my friends and family a copy so they can read it too. This is one of those kinds of books. I can't really say that every part of the book was important, and some was just too much, so I could have downgraded my rating of five stars but as usual when I try to justify another star I reflect on what makes a book AMAZING!
I found the answer to this persistant question by Jerry Dennis himself. In the clutter of the outer edges of this slim paperback...in the jumble of the sticky notes that I used to mark "special" passages with, I found it. He is talking about reading in general, "One reason we read books is to connect with other minds and find a universality of eperience. They are lifelines we throw to one anothr so we can pull close enough to shout our amazement at the size of the ocean."
Ah, yes! I say to myself. I know what the author is talking about because I have experienced that too. Or if I actually hadn't experienced it then I must have dreamed it or imagined it or saw a documentary about it. But I couldn't express those feelings the way he has. Dennis contemplates, "We turn to artists--we require them, we crave them--because in words, music, paint, clay, and photographic images they distill some of the power and mystery we have perceived, fleetingly, in our own glacing encounters with the world."
The author put into succinct words (and sometimes verbose) some thoughts or feelings that I had or wished I had had. This makes me think that the author must be a lot like me! When a book makes me feel this close to actually experiencing what the author is writing about I think that is AMAZING
I found the answer to this persistant question by Jerry Dennis himself. In the clutter of the outer edges of this slim paperback...in the jumble of the sticky notes that I used to mark "special" passages with, I found it. He is talking about reading in general, "One reason we read books is to connect with other minds and find a universality of eperience. They are lifelines we throw to one anothr so we can pull close enough to shout our amazement at the size of the ocean."
Ah, yes! I say to myself. I know what the author is talking about because I have experienced that too. Or if I actually hadn't experienced it then I must have dreamed it or imagined it or saw a documentary about it. But I couldn't express those feelings the way he has. Dennis contemplates, "We turn to artists--we require them, we crave them--because in words, music, paint, clay, and photographic images they distill some of the power and mystery we have perceived, fleetingly, in our own glacing encounters with the world."
The author put into succinct words (and sometimes verbose) some thoughts or feelings that I had or wished I had had. This makes me think that the author must be a lot like me! When a book makes me feel this close to actually experiencing what the author is writing about I think that is AMAZING
June 24, 2014
A wonderful read for anyone who lives or has lived on the Great Lakes. It mixes personal reminiscences as well as natural history.
November 5, 2022
the writer after my great lakes-loving heart <3 dennis is such a treasure, i hope he never stops looking at the world and pulling it into tighter focus for us.
October 19, 2015
Lovely book, and one that captures the magic of the one place on earth I know reasonably deeply. Dennis also manages to capture the wide swath of issues and consequences that affect this area of northern MI -- the shift away from cherries to wine, the algae that kill loons and others, and so much more -- without being dogmatic. Dennis is humble, as nature (and especially winter) is wont to make us, which keeps the book observing without judging. The format of the book is a sort of loose collection of essays, but the subject matter and format are definitely complementary.
A must read if you're a transplant and find yourself missing the sight, smell and barometric pressure of a rollicking good snowstorm sailing in across the Great Lakes.
A must read if you're a transplant and find yourself missing the sight, smell and barometric pressure of a rollicking good snowstorm sailing in across the Great Lakes.
January 19, 2023
overwrought
puns are not etymologies
conclusion: windward snore
puns are not etymologies
conclusion: windward snore
May 23, 2025
It reminded me of my many wondering thoughts and feelings. It feels good to have someone share my idea of beauty and complexity of the Great Lakes Region. I think it paints a wonderful picture of the psyche of Northern Michigan mind.
April 17, 2012
As a native Michigander I’ve spend many wonderful days, in every season, walking the shores of the lakes. I have never found such thorough observations and exquisite descriptions of the places that I love as are found in this book. If you’ve ever walked the shore you know that you are never sure what or who you will find around the next curve in the waterline, and when you turn back toward home the wind and the waves have erased your footsteps and revealed yet another set of wonders. The Windward Shore mimics such a walk with teachings, humor, surprises, and blessings at every turn of the page. Thanks Jerry!
January 10, 2016
Disappointing. After "The Living Great Lakes" I was expecting thrilling narrative, detailed history and science, and topics totally unique to the region. The science of lake effect snow? Adventures in large scale snow removal? Ecology of hibernation/migration? Survival techniques of ancient native tribes? What you get instead is the trippy and broad philosophizing of what sounds like a very bored white dude. Almost no mention of Huron, Erie, or Ontario. If I wanted to ponder the atomic structure of a dead leaf, I could do that in my own back yard.
December 24, 2013
There are chunks of this that thin book of essays that are deep and beautiful. Dennis hunkers down for the winter in three different houses on the coasts of Lakes Michigan and Superior, letting his thoughts on life, the natural world, and winter itself percolate. The better parts read like a cross between Aldo Leopold and Ralph Waldo Emerson. A couple of the later essays do dip a bit too close to hippyesque platitudes on nature and spirituality, but this is a quibble. I loved most of this book. A favorite quote: "Constancy is nothing but a languishing and wavering dance."
July 12, 2023
I made it to page 23 and threw the book into the scrub at my campsite on the shore of Lake Michigan. What a bunch of wheedling prat from an entitled white man with too many privileged, intellectual friends who can’t do him the favor of a reality check, informing him that, yes, he leads a bullshit pretentious life spent pondering the esoteric nuances of existence in a very cold place on Earth.
Strike 1: referring to studying an ancient Japanese Buddhist prose genre and practicing it for 3 months.
Strike 2: the whole “borrowed houses” theme - smacks of privilege and social circles several degrees removed from an average, real person
Strike 3: traipsing around the Keweenaw Peninsula endlessly with wife and another white-collar couple looking for agates and wondering what’s up with convenience store clerks. Sounds like a Pinterest storyline, staying in a cabin (probably AirBNB), drinking coffee, reading books, taking dayhike jaunts, and…walking the shore looking for agates. Yeah, sounds like real life to me?
Strike 4: conjuring the Heisenberg principle and quantum physics. Esoterica extraordinaire for a local piece about the Great Lakes. More like intellectual masturbation.
Strike 5: weren’t we out already 2 strikes ago? Referring to a friend born in Marquette (suggesting potential local realism) but who grandiosely makes an 8-month trip in Nepal, India, and Tibet making a film about the children of Tibetan exiles. That’s when the book hit the bushes. Whatever. I’m out.
Strike 1: referring to studying an ancient Japanese Buddhist prose genre and practicing it for 3 months.
Strike 2: the whole “borrowed houses” theme - smacks of privilege and social circles several degrees removed from an average, real person
Strike 3: traipsing around the Keweenaw Peninsula endlessly with wife and another white-collar couple looking for agates and wondering what’s up with convenience store clerks. Sounds like a Pinterest storyline, staying in a cabin (probably AirBNB), drinking coffee, reading books, taking dayhike jaunts, and…walking the shore looking for agates. Yeah, sounds like real life to me?
Strike 4: conjuring the Heisenberg principle and quantum physics. Esoterica extraordinaire for a local piece about the Great Lakes. More like intellectual masturbation.
Strike 5: weren’t we out already 2 strikes ago? Referring to a friend born in Marquette (suggesting potential local realism) but who grandiosely makes an 8-month trip in Nepal, India, and Tibet making a film about the children of Tibetan exiles. That’s when the book hit the bushes. Whatever. I’m out.
February 29, 2020
My wife hales from Michigan and she has many times over the past 22 years threatened to take me to the UP (the upper peninsula), to Petoskey, where she and extended family have a summer house. She recently read this book because of the subject matter—Michigan and the Great Lakes Michigan and Superior—and she thought the author’s musings just up my alley.
She was right. Though I prefer to read fiction, I do like to woolgather in my own thinking, and this is something Jerry Dennis does with aplomb, linking natural history with personal history, musing about the nature of existence, the world’s origins and its ways, and the state of the Great Lakes as the predations of mankind become more and more evident.
While I can’t recall in any detail the specific content of any of Dennis’ essays, their brevity, specificity, and extrapolative thoughtfulness made for a companionable book.
She was right. Though I prefer to read fiction, I do like to woolgather in my own thinking, and this is something Jerry Dennis does with aplomb, linking natural history with personal history, musing about the nature of existence, the world’s origins and its ways, and the state of the Great Lakes as the predations of mankind become more and more evident.
While I can’t recall in any detail the specific content of any of Dennis’ essays, their brevity, specificity, and extrapolative thoughtfulness made for a companionable book.
February 2, 2023
I am a novice with non-fiction books. I want to like them, but sometimes find them hard to follow. This one had an over-arching theme of winter on the Great Lakes- mostly Lake Michigan where the author lives. Many good insights on the changing weather patterns we are experiencing. Many good insights on one of my favorite seasons also. It is a quick read that I enjoyed, but had to work at to keep my mind engaged with it at times.
I enjoyed his descriptions of the outside world in winter. I have never been to his lake- Lake Michigan, I have experienced some of these things he describes though going to my favorite lake - Lake Erie. He definitely sees the world through a conservationist eye, and I feel he has knowledge to share- with me and to all. Will people listen though?
I enjoyed his descriptions of the outside world in winter. I have never been to his lake- Lake Michigan, I have experienced some of these things he describes though going to my favorite lake - Lake Erie. He definitely sees the world through a conservationist eye, and I feel he has knowledge to share- with me and to all. Will people listen though?
March 14, 2018
If you love the Michigan outdoors you will enjoy this book by Michigan author Jerry Dennis.
"Grounded by a knee injury, Dennis learns to live at a slower pace while staying in houses ranging from a log cabin on Lake Superior's Keweenaw Peninsula to a luxurious mansion on the northern shore of Lake Michigan. While walking on beaches and exploring nearby woods and villages, he muses on the nature of time, weather, waves, agates, books, words for snow and ice, our complex relationship with nature, and much more."
"Grounded by a knee injury, Dennis learns to live at a slower pace while staying in houses ranging from a log cabin on Lake Superior's Keweenaw Peninsula to a luxurious mansion on the northern shore of Lake Michigan. While walking on beaches and exploring nearby woods and villages, he muses on the nature of time, weather, waves, agates, books, words for snow and ice, our complex relationship with nature, and much more."
February 3, 2019
Jerry Dennis is one of our major writers from and about the upper Great Lakes. In this book, he starts the process of getting down his philosophy of this, keeping it, of course, connected to the details of this place.
Here's a little thing I wrote about this a few years back
https://annarborobserver.com/articles...
Here's a little thing I wrote about this a few years back
https://annarborobserver.com/articles...
November 19, 2019
This book surprised me. I already love the Great Lakes. His feelings about the natural wonders of the lakes and of (way) Northern Michigan matched my own. He weaved in so many authors and great thinkers. I thoroughly enjoyed every second. The Prophet is one of my all-time favorite books. This experience captured some of the same feelings it has given me over the years.
September 1, 2024
Loved The Living Great Lakes. Stuck in my head for months. This one is lovely. I read hundreds of books every year and Jerry Dennis reminds me to stop racing through them and pay attention. It’s not about what happens next. It’s about what happens right now, what you’re missing. What’s right in front of you.
Going to order his back catalogue and savor them
Going to order his back catalogue and savor them
November 3, 2019
This is partially a history of the Great Lakes region, partially a book about nature in the region, and a philosophical treatise. I was introduced to the concept of sisu. I enjoyed this book.
Read
November 15, 2021A book is made of other books.
January 26, 2025
Not my cup of tea. Too philosophical, contemplative.
March 18, 2013
I love Jerry Dennis’s writing about rivers and lakes, wooden canoes and the journeys he has taken in them, about rain and clouds and storms and how they work. He is one of our best nature writers, and I read him for the way he captures the minutiae all around us:
“The moon hung high and full but was diffused behind a veil of cirrus, making it glow weakly, like a flashlight at the bottom of a river. It lit the field with dusky life.”
Of his cabin fever in a style which might seem overdone if I didn’t feel just the same way, as it snows and snows in the middle of March, with more on the way:
“Winter becomes a desolation and a hebetude, a Siberia of the soul, an Antarctica of the spirit from which every sensible and mobile being must retreat. . .I tip my head back and watch snowflakes spiraling down from clouds the color of dread. The sky is breaking up, spalling, disintegrating, and the dust and ashes are falling to the Pompeii earth. I’m being buried alive. Run!”
I bought The Windward Shore for a winter companion, to help me through my cabin fever by reminding me of the world outside, but this time his philosophy is as arresting as his descriptions are detailed.
“Nature is our reservoir of shared experiences and our stock of collective references. Without that shared ground could we even speak to one another? Listen to words, and you can hear the wind blowing inside them and see the glitter of stars between them. When we say we have ‘stormy’ relationships, or ‘storm’ from a room in anger…we fight like cats and dogs, and designate the most celebrated among us as ‘stars.’ Leaves and burrs cling to words, and wild vines twine into the language centers of our brains. Do they grow into other parts of our lives as well?
“Of course they do. How could they not? When we look frankly at ourselves we know that we are made of the same stuff as orioles and oak trees, lightning bolts and beach stones, and that any separation is an illusion.” 37-8
I have spent my whole life “getting out in nature” in order to soothe my spirits by taking my mind off of myself, and though, as in our common experience of cabin fever, it sometimes gets me down, I am more often left illuminated.
This winter, Dennis proved a companion not only in his account of the natural world but in his take on why it moves us:
“When we reach deeply into the world, the world reaches back. Is this sanctity? Or science? Does it explain why mystics and physicists agree that the observer and the observed are always locked, like a hand and a handle, in the process of becoming one another?”
“The moon hung high and full but was diffused behind a veil of cirrus, making it glow weakly, like a flashlight at the bottom of a river. It lit the field with dusky life.”
Of his cabin fever in a style which might seem overdone if I didn’t feel just the same way, as it snows and snows in the middle of March, with more on the way:
“Winter becomes a desolation and a hebetude, a Siberia of the soul, an Antarctica of the spirit from which every sensible and mobile being must retreat. . .I tip my head back and watch snowflakes spiraling down from clouds the color of dread. The sky is breaking up, spalling, disintegrating, and the dust and ashes are falling to the Pompeii earth. I’m being buried alive. Run!”
I bought The Windward Shore for a winter companion, to help me through my cabin fever by reminding me of the world outside, but this time his philosophy is as arresting as his descriptions are detailed.
“Nature is our reservoir of shared experiences and our stock of collective references. Without that shared ground could we even speak to one another? Listen to words, and you can hear the wind blowing inside them and see the glitter of stars between them. When we say we have ‘stormy’ relationships, or ‘storm’ from a room in anger…we fight like cats and dogs, and designate the most celebrated among us as ‘stars.’ Leaves and burrs cling to words, and wild vines twine into the language centers of our brains. Do they grow into other parts of our lives as well?
“Of course they do. How could they not? When we look frankly at ourselves we know that we are made of the same stuff as orioles and oak trees, lightning bolts and beach stones, and that any separation is an illusion.” 37-8
I have spent my whole life “getting out in nature” in order to soothe my spirits by taking my mind off of myself, and though, as in our common experience of cabin fever, it sometimes gets me down, I am more often left illuminated.
This winter, Dennis proved a companion not only in his account of the natural world but in his take on why it moves us:
“When we reach deeply into the world, the world reaches back. Is this sanctity? Or science? Does it explain why mystics and physicists agree that the observer and the observed are always locked, like a hand and a handle, in the process of becoming one another?”
October 9, 2011
I have settled into a little cottage on the shores of Lake Michigan for a time. The season seems disjointed, though, with the unseasonably warm weather. We've had a stretch of seventy degree or higher days -- with two days pushing up against eighty degrees -- so it feels more like June and summer than October and fall. I just finished walking the beach for several miles, then turning back to retrace my steps back to my cottage.
It is odd for me to retrace my steps.
I am used to walking on and on and on...
It's been good hammock weather and I've been doing a lot of reading and writing here.
The first book I took with me to the hammock was just released by The University of Michigan Press (GO BLUE! <
It is by Jerry Dennis, the brilliant essayist whose work best captures the Great Lakes. This book is called THE WINDWARD SHORE: A Winter on the Great Lakes. It was a wonderful read and I'm glad I read it while the waves played background music along the shore.
Dennis has lived his life on the Great Lakes, mostly on Lake Michigan. He lives within sight and sound of the lake and he says:
"Day and night by the water -- it insinuates. Seeing it in all hours and in all seasons, hearing it even in your sleep, it changes you. You're reminded that everything is fluid, that time flows and carries us along from a springlie source to an oceanlike eternity. And although I know these inland seas are not oceans, I have followed them to an ocean and know the connectedness of waters -- and the connectedness of every other thing as well. And I know the lakes are treasures worth more than all the world's gold."
For this book, Dennis spent time in winter at several residences on the shores of the Great Lakes and tried to capture this least-celebrated season on the lakeshore. There are people who summer at the lakes who have never seen the many forms the ice can take in winter: frazil, shelf ice, pancake ice, boulders of ice and more. They've never seen a storm smash up the shelf ice, then toss it up into sculptures on the shore. They've never walked out on the ice and felt the waves pulsing beneath their feet.
Dennis captures this most harsh and beautiful season in this collection of essays. It's a book I'll pull down to re-read winter after coming winter.
It is odd for me to retrace my steps.
I am used to walking on and on and on...
It's been good hammock weather and I've been doing a lot of reading and writing here.
The first book I took with me to the hammock was just released by The University of Michigan Press (GO BLUE! <
It is by Jerry Dennis, the brilliant essayist whose work best captures the Great Lakes. This book is called THE WINDWARD SHORE: A Winter on the Great Lakes. It was a wonderful read and I'm glad I read it while the waves played background music along the shore.
Dennis has lived his life on the Great Lakes, mostly on Lake Michigan. He lives within sight and sound of the lake and he says:
"Day and night by the water -- it insinuates. Seeing it in all hours and in all seasons, hearing it even in your sleep, it changes you. You're reminded that everything is fluid, that time flows and carries us along from a springlie source to an oceanlike eternity. And although I know these inland seas are not oceans, I have followed them to an ocean and know the connectedness of waters -- and the connectedness of every other thing as well. And I know the lakes are treasures worth more than all the world's gold."
For this book, Dennis spent time in winter at several residences on the shores of the Great Lakes and tried to capture this least-celebrated season on the lakeshore. There are people who summer at the lakes who have never seen the many forms the ice can take in winter: frazil, shelf ice, pancake ice, boulders of ice and more. They've never seen a storm smash up the shelf ice, then toss it up into sculptures on the shore. They've never walked out on the ice and felt the waves pulsing beneath their feet.
Dennis captures this most harsh and beautiful season in this collection of essays. It's a book I'll pull down to re-read winter after coming winter.
February 19, 2017
A lyrical and profound respite for
today's crazy world.
today's crazy world.
July 26, 2017
Very local; very philosophical; very observant. (First book I have read by the man.) Another reviewer suggested that the 'end part' of the book lagged somehow, and I feel the same thing in a way. But the writing is beautiful throughout, actually: probably equal to any of the classic naturalist-observers to whom Dennis's prose and observations are compared on the book jacket and blurbs. To mention another one (from a different region of North America) that it somewhat reminds me of would be to say 'Pilgrim at Tinker Creek' (which I read years ago). Good to take time to read a book like this once in a while and 'think' about things, and humanity's role and place in the world/universe as well... ((2017 - leisurely re-read....))
February 27, 2013
I really enjoyed this book and it is close to 5 stars for me. I read it at the perfect time of year since it is all about appreciating winter in Northern Michigan. The author's writing style is lyrical and descriptive. It is a book I would recommend to friends and family who enjoy nature and contemplation. Although short, it is not a book I could sit down and read from cover to cover. I think it is best enjoyed in small sections when you can really take in what Dennis is saying and think about it for a while.
July 28, 2015
I dog-eared so many pages in this book, wanting to remember and re-read many of the sentences or passages. His writing is like poetry and in effect he's writing a poem to the Great Lakes and the shores that surround them.
Over the course of the book. set in various winters, the author lives in many houses and notes his experience with the winter, nature, animals and mostly himself.
I highly recommend.
Over the course of the book. set in various winters, the author lives in many houses and notes his experience with the winter, nature, animals and mostly himself.
I highly recommend.
November 27, 2012
This is a book that is to be savored. The writing is purposely soulful at times, and sprinkled with historical and natural facts at others. It will make you want to walk along the shores of the great lakes as quickly as you can--and it will make you fear for their safety in this world of short-sighted politics. Highly recommend.
November 11, 2014
Jerry Dennis spends a winter on the Great Lakes and recounts his experience. Once again, Dennis, articulates his story with the feeling that you are standing next to him on his journey. I could identify with parts of the story but it lagged somehow in other parts. This comes as a surprise to me since I loved "Living on the Great Lakes."
February 26, 2016
It doesn't seem like he had enough material to write a book. Okay at beginning but had some really boring and not relevant parts. I agree with another review sounds like a really bored guy.
It was nice to read about one of the nicest places I was lucky enough to spend 4 summers at, but I'm glad I'm not there also. Way too crowded.
It was nice to read about one of the nicest places I was lucky enough to spend 4 summers at, but I'm glad I'm not there also. Way too crowded.
April 13, 2012
This wonderfully descriptive book gave me an excuse to lose myself in Great Lakes lore. The stories of agate and fossil stone explorations, vivid starry nights and beautiful beach walks were engrossing and so true to what I love about the area.
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