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Her Place in the Woods: The Life of Helen Hoover
The biography of one of Minnesota’s most beloved nature writers, from her career in the city to her rustic cabin on Gunflint Lake
During the late 1950s through the early 1970s, Helen Hoover’s stories and essays of life in the wilderness on northern Minnesota’s Gunflint Lake, published in popular magazines and several bestselling books (including The Gift of the Deer in 1966 and A Place in the Woods in 1969), found millions of fans and earned her accolades alongside nature writers like Sigurd Olson, Rachel Carson, Sally Carrighar, and Calvin Rutstrum. Hoover’s own unlikely history of leaving a corporate career in Chicago for a small cabin without electricity or running water—with no interest in hunting or fishing—is just one chapter of the remarkable life that David Hakensen describes in Her Place in the Woods. This first complete biography illuminates how Helen Hoover (1910–1984) made a place for herself and for countless readers in, as she put it, the world of her time.
Hoover defied convention. Self-trained and without an academic degree, she worked in the male-dominated metallurgical field as a researcher at International Harvester, where she solved a long-standing problem with the manufacture of discs for farm implements and earned a patent. She and her husband, Adrian, a commercial artist, had long dreamed of moving to a remote cabin in the woods. As they started the long return drive to Chicago after a summer spent on Gunflint Lake, they finally made the leap, quitting their jobs with a long-distance phone call from Grand Marais and figuring out the rest as they went.
The Hoovers were woefully unprepared for life off the grid and slowly learned how to convert sheds into chicken coops and fend off bears. Social encounters presented their own challenges, with Helen’s fiery personality leading to clashes with hunters and other Gunflint neighbors. Gradually, the Hoovers settled into the rhythms of their remote homestead, and Helen would craft a prolific literary livelihood from her keen observations of nature and encounters with animals in the surrounding woods.B
Her Place in the Woods captures both an awakening to the power and fragility of the natural world and the efforts and talents of an extraordinary woman defining herself as a writer. Though Helen Hoover would move on from the secluded North Woods, as she wrote in her final book, The Years of the Forest, “From this time on it would be both here and with me wherever I might be, as long as I should live.”
During the late 1950s through the early 1970s, Helen Hoover’s stories and essays of life in the wilderness on northern Minnesota’s Gunflint Lake, published in popular magazines and several bestselling books (including The Gift of the Deer in 1966 and A Place in the Woods in 1969), found millions of fans and earned her accolades alongside nature writers like Sigurd Olson, Rachel Carson, Sally Carrighar, and Calvin Rutstrum. Hoover’s own unlikely history of leaving a corporate career in Chicago for a small cabin without electricity or running water—with no interest in hunting or fishing—is just one chapter of the remarkable life that David Hakensen describes in Her Place in the Woods. This first complete biography illuminates how Helen Hoover (1910–1984) made a place for herself and for countless readers in, as she put it, the world of her time.
Hoover defied convention. Self-trained and without an academic degree, she worked in the male-dominated metallurgical field as a researcher at International Harvester, where she solved a long-standing problem with the manufacture of discs for farm implements and earned a patent. She and her husband, Adrian, a commercial artist, had long dreamed of moving to a remote cabin in the woods. As they started the long return drive to Chicago after a summer spent on Gunflint Lake, they finally made the leap, quitting their jobs with a long-distance phone call from Grand Marais and figuring out the rest as they went.
The Hoovers were woefully unprepared for life off the grid and slowly learned how to convert sheds into chicken coops and fend off bears. Social encounters presented their own challenges, with Helen’s fiery personality leading to clashes with hunters and other Gunflint neighbors. Gradually, the Hoovers settled into the rhythms of their remote homestead, and Helen would craft a prolific literary livelihood from her keen observations of nature and encounters with animals in the surrounding woods.B
Her Place in the Woods captures both an awakening to the power and fragility of the natural world and the efforts and talents of an extraordinary woman defining herself as a writer. Though Helen Hoover would move on from the secluded North Woods, as she wrote in her final book, The Years of the Forest, “From this time on it would be both here and with me wherever I might be, as long as I should live.”
264 pages, Hardcover
Published September 10, 2025
11 people are currently reading
2957 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 22, 2025
I’ve waited so many years for someone to shine a light on the Hoovers and Hakensen has done it!
This biography is wonderful in every way! If you don’t know anything about the Hoovers, you will love them by the end of the book. If you knew about Helen and Ade before, you are going to love them even more by the end.
Thank you David Hakensen for dedicating so much to putting this book together. I’ll be forever grateful to you. As most seem to feel, I’ve always felt a connection to Helen and after reading this book, I feel even more like she and Ade are friends.
I can’t express in words how much it means to me that this biography exists.
This biography is wonderful in every way! If you don’t know anything about the Hoovers, you will love them by the end of the book. If you knew about Helen and Ade before, you are going to love them even more by the end.
Thank you David Hakensen for dedicating so much to putting this book together. I’ll be forever grateful to you. As most seem to feel, I’ve always felt a connection to Helen and after reading this book, I feel even more like she and Ade are friends.
I can’t express in words how much it means to me that this biography exists.
January 9, 2026
I think Helen Hoover was a very underrated author. So I was excited to see an autobiography finally! There were so many unanswered questions about her life. This book well researched and rather than just a rehash, as sometimes happens, when there isn't enough info. No this is well written.
Helen's intelligence and love of Nature was a good balance. I've read all her books, even the ones for children. Sometimes wishing there was more! I feel I was right there with her. How beautiful and simple their wilderness years were, but challenging. Very good read!
Helen's intelligence and love of Nature was a good balance. I've read all her books, even the ones for children. Sometimes wishing there was more! I feel I was right there with her. How beautiful and simple their wilderness years were, but challenging. Very good read!
September 24, 2025
A much-appreciated window into the life of a (previously unknown to me) nature writer. What an interesting journey she had!
January 11, 2026
A well researched biography on Helen Hoover, shining a light on her writings and life from Gunflint Lake in Northern Minnesota.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews