The Minnesota Book of Skills: Your Guide to Smoking Whitefish, Sauna Etiquette, Tick Extraction, and More

by Chris Niskanen

Minnesotans are a highly skilled bunch, whether pursuing traditional activities like wild ricing and pickling, or tastefully displaying taxidermy, or selecting the right fishing bait. Skills particularly appropriate to Minnesota— such as creating seed art or baking a Bundt cake—may be fully on display at the state fair, a prime opportunity to join with neighbors in celebrating our many talents.

Best of all, Minnesotans are eager to share their skills with newcomers or the newly inspired, and for The Minnesota Book of Skills many freely offered their expertise in conversations with author Chris Niskanen. Get the inside scoop from Joe Hautman, who has won four federal duck stamp contests. Learn to sing like a voyageur from Francois Fouquerel, dean of the French Voyageur program at the Concordia Language Village. Grow and harvest your own wheat with Dave and Florence Minar.

The Minnesota Book of Skills brings to life the basic know-how that makes us uniquely Minnesotan. Seasonal tips like how to gracefully exit a ski lift mingle with skills your grandparents knew well, such as what to forage for while on a hike. How soon is too soon to bring a child to the Boundary Waters or set her up on hockey skates? The answers are here. Maybe you’ll never carve an ice sculpture or build your own coffin—but isn’t it comforting to know that one handy book offers just the guidance you’ll need?

Chris Niskanen is communications director for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and former longtime outdoors reporter for the St. Paul Pioneer Press . He is the author of Prairie, Lake, Minnesota’s State Parks .

Genres: Nonfiction

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[D.R. Oestreicher · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Minnesota Book of Skills by Chris Niskanen is a terrific book about skills that are quickly becoming extinct: homemade sausage, pickling, cutting firewood, canning green beans, and building a birdhouse, to list a few of the six dozen short articles. Some of the articles are specific to Minnesota (Minnesota trails and Five Minnesota trees) and others require a cold winter (dog mushing and ice fishing), but I live in California and found it all fascinating. The book has something for everyone (Five adventures for five-year-olds).

If you’re interested in outdoor activities and self-reliance, this is the book for you.

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[Brooke · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted this book to be a bit more of a how-to than it was. There's a million more things that could have been included (what, no hotdish?!). That said, it was plenty enjoyable, and I would consider purchasing a copy to have as a MN bucket-list of sorts.

[Koren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Learned a few things from this book.

[Matt Mead · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this book - fun facts and stories about all seasons of Minnesota.

[Julia G · Rating 3 out of 5]

A sweet little book

[Roger M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're an old Minnesota expat, you will love it!

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book for what it is, an introductory guide to a variety of topics of which some are uniquely Minnesotan. Each topic gets 1-4 pages to provide the reader with an introduction to the topic and then provides resources for where to get more information if needed. It covers a lot of outdoor Minnesotan adventures such as canoeing in the Boundary Waters, how to determine ice thickness, birdwatching, morel hunting, an overview of bait, and grouse hunting. It also covers how to field dress a deer, how to address an ice dam, detasseling corn, and what you need in your vehicle to survive an emergency. There are plenty of ideas on what to do with small children both in winter (blow bubbles and watch them freeze) and summer (build fairy houses). The book also covers DIY buriel and building your own casket with a referral to the 3 day class "Bury yourself in your work: build your own casket" offered in Grand Marais at the North House Folk School.

Noticeably absent though were discussions on how to make a tator tot casserole and how to remain an avid Vikings/Twins fan despite disappointing season after season.