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Still Waters: The Secret World of Lakes
A fascinating exploration of lakes around the world, from Walden Pond to the Dead Sea. More than a century and a half have passed since Walden was first published, and the world is now a very different place. Lakes are changing rapidly, not because we are separate from nature but because we are so much a part of it. While many of our effects on the natural world today are new, from climate change to nuclear fallout, our connections to it are ancient, as core samples from lake beds reveal. In Still Waters , Curt Stager introduces us to the secret worlds hidden beneath the surfaces of our most remarkable lakes, leading us on a journey from the pristine waters of the Adirondack Mountains to the wilds of Siberia, from Thoreau’s cherished pond to the Sea of Galilee. Through decades of firsthand investigations, Stager examines the significance of our impacts on some of the world’s most iconic inland waters. Along the way he discovers the stories these lakes contain about us, including our loftiest philosophical ambitions and our deepest myths. For him, lakes are not only mirrors reflecting our place in the natural world but also windows into our history, culture, and the primal connections we share with all life. Beautifully observed and eloquently written, Stager’s narrative is filled with strange and enchanting details about these submerged worlds―diving insects chirping underwater like crickets, African crater lakes that explode, and the growing threats to some of our most precious bodies of water. Modern science has demonstrated that humanity is an integral part of nature on this planet, so intertwined with it that we have also become an increasingly powerful force of nature in our own right. Still Waters reminds us how beautiful, complex, and vulnerable our lakes are, and how, more than ever, it is essential to protect them. 37 photographs
272 pages, Hardcover
Published May 29, 2018
47 people are currently reading
364 people want to read
About the author
Curt Stager
8 books18 followersCURT STAGER is a climate scientist, educator, and science journalist whose research over the last three decades has dealt with the climatic and ecological histories of the Adirondacks, Peru, and much of Africa. He has published numerous research articles in major journals including Science and Quaternary Research, was an expert reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and has written extensively in periodicals such as National Geographic, Fast Company, and Adirondack Life. Since 1989, Curt has co-hosted Natural Selections, a weekly science program on North Country Public Radio. He is the author of "Deep Future: The Next 100,000 Years of Life on Earth," (Thomas Dunne Books, 2011), and his latest book, "Your Atomic Self: The Invisible Elements That Connect You to Everything Else in the Universe" will be published by Thomas Dunne Books in Fall, 2014. He has taught natural sciences at Paul Smith's College in upstate New York since 1987, and is also as an adjunct research faculty member at the University of Maine's Climate Change Institute. In 2013, the Carnegie Foundation selected him as the New York State Teacher of the Year. In his spare time, he enjoys playing guitar and banjo.
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
September 13, 2018
Going into this book I knew nothing of limnology, the beautifully named word for the study of lakes. Coming out of this book, I agree with Curt Stager that people should take lakes much more seriously and that stricter regulations should be put upon anglers. That isn't to say that all fishing is bad, but merely that the way that fishing is currently regulated requires some serious overviews. For instance, I had no idea that one form of fishing management involved poisoning the lakes in question to kill all fish in it before restocking the next year. That seems... questionable at best. At worst I worry about the long-term effects on the poison throughout the food chain, and skeptical that it is indeed safe for human consumption. As does the author.
Still Waters is meant to be both an homage and update to Walden and combine philosophical musings with good science. I feel the author thoroughly achieved that. Through the study of lakes he creates a philosophy of stewardship not through superiority to nature, but rather through a recognition of our place within it. The fact that we have left our impact upon the wilderness as a species is not necessarily a bad thing, but now that we realize how negative some of these marks can be we should work towards a better balance. Idyllic Edens don't exist, but does that mean we can't work towards creating them?
This book was both beautiful and fascinating, informative and thought-provoking. It exists to make us question how we can do better, and challenges us to consider in everything how interconnected all life is. Like the previous book I read, it seeks to help us connect through our similarities and a respect and eagerness to learn that we all should aspire to. What a lovely book.
Still Waters is meant to be both an homage and update to Walden and combine philosophical musings with good science. I feel the author thoroughly achieved that. Through the study of lakes he creates a philosophy of stewardship not through superiority to nature, but rather through a recognition of our place within it. The fact that we have left our impact upon the wilderness as a species is not necessarily a bad thing, but now that we realize how negative some of these marks can be we should work towards a better balance. Idyllic Edens don't exist, but does that mean we can't work towards creating them?
This book was both beautiful and fascinating, informative and thought-provoking. It exists to make us question how we can do better, and challenges us to consider in everything how interconnected all life is. Like the previous book I read, it seeks to help us connect through our similarities and a respect and eagerness to learn that we all should aspire to. What a lovely book.
July 3, 2018
This was a good popular science overview of the science of studying lakes (limnology), lake fauna and flora (including microorganisms), using lake sediments to study climate and changes in local flora over time, issues in lake ecology including sport fishing and water quality, some of the human history as it relates to lakes, and overuse, pollution, preservation, and management of lakes around the world. There were seven chapters, each focusing for the most part on one or more lakes and how the history and natural history of that lake (or lakes) relates to larger issues. Each lake save one that was focused on had a map with depths and other dimensions noted and all had some sort of connection to the author’s studies and travels. Black and white photographs accompanied each chapter as well.
The introduction was brief, the part that caught my attention the most was a section on _Walden_:
“More than a century and a half have passed since Henry David Thoreau wrote _Walden_, the world’s best-known book about lakes. _Walden_ is widely quoted for its commentary on the human condition, but it is also noteworthy for its treatment of lakes as three-dimensional worlds unto themselves rather than mere playgrounds, resources, or reflecting pools. To my knowledge no other book has done this so well for a general audience, but I also believe it is time for an upgrade that is more appropriate for our century.”
He admits this is a “bold claim.” He says that text books and treatises on limnology abound, but they “are generally dry and inaccessible to the average reader, and most do not readily bring their subject matter down to a meaningful personal level.” Does Stager succeed? I will get back to that.
The first chapter, “Walden,” is understandably about, well, Walden (the lake, not the book, though the book is discussed too). The reader learns a good deal about the “stats” of Walden, that it is a “flow-through kettle lake, a dimple in glacial deposits that formed shortly after the last great ice sheet thawed back from eastern Massachusetts roughly fifteen thousand years ago.” We learn that Walden Pond has gem clarity, that it is “a comfortably modest size of 61 acres (25 ha) that limits the swell of waves on a windy day” and that the lake “is surprisingly deep, 102 feet (31 m) give or take a few depending on the elevation of the water table, which makes it the deepest water body in the state.”
We also learn that it was hardly isolated, that Thoreau’s cabin was “an author’s workshop” and not “a fortress of isolation,” with then as now many people coming and going to the lake, with in Thoreau’s day that included ice-cutters “and woodcutters, anglers and boaters, and even a noisy train,” not entirely unlike today, minus any cutting of ice or wood. In fact the lake is visited to such an astonishing degree today (at least when compared to what Thoreau knew) is that the very fact people are swimming in the lake in such numbers is altering the chemistry and thus the ecology of the lake. Specifically, the author refers to a study published in 2001 by the U.S. Geological Survey that showed “surreptitious urine releases by swimmers had approximately doubled the summer phosphorous budget of the lake.” And with more phosphorous, phosphorous loving algal species have come to dominate the lake with implications for the lake’s microorganisms, other aquatic plant species, and fish.
Science definitely dominates the chapter, with even the sections on Thoreau himself tending to focus on his scientific explorations and observations, “from the number of growth rings in a tree stump to the gyrations of shiny black whirligig beetles on the surface of the lake,” noting that Thoreau also produced the first floor map of an American lake (accomplished by drilling a hundred holes in the ice of Walden Pond and lowering a weighted line), and also with a thermometer sent “down in a stoppered bottle… [studied] the layered structure of the water column,” producing a formal analysis of the thermal stratification of the lake.
There is a section detailing the extraction of lake bottom sediments and what they can reveal, with this concept discussed as it related to other lakes (such as the distinctive “Maya clay” sections of cores obtained from Central American lakes, something that revealed the massive amounts of soil erosion from Maya farms for a long period of time).
The second chapter focused really on two lakes. Black Pond in Paul Smiths, New York is the first lake discussed, much of the story of the lake covered in this chapter dealing with the saga of fisheries management, of managing the lake for sought-after-by-anglers trout by poisoning the lake with fish-killing pesticides such as rotenone to kill perch and other unwanted “trash fish.” Not really a fan of the fish poisonings as not only did the “trash” fish have value (and might have been endemic strains or subspecies even) but killing the fish, as with the Walden Pond swimmer’s urine, altered the lake’s phosphorous levels and thus the algal community, with phosphorous-loving species turning Black Pond’s normally tannin-stained brown water into a pea green thanks to blooms of cyanobacteria thriving in the phosphorus now in the lake due to all the dead fish.
The issue of fish poisonings is a complex one, and not limited to issues of producing lakes with fish desirable for anglers, as use of rotenone can also be used to protect native varieties of brook trout too (there are nine genetically unique “heritage strains” in the lakes of the Adirondacks), as brook trout are threatened by introduced golden shiner and northern pike.
Another lake in the Adirondacks – Bear Pond – is covered as well, not just in terms of fish poisonings but also water clarity and color, as ironically efforts to manage acid rain have worked quite well but paradoxically turned the once brilliant blue waters a brown color thanks in part to phytoplankton, more easily able to thrive thanks to a pH that is at a level suitable for them.
Chapter three deals with three lakes, the tiny Lily Pond known to the author as a child (a tiny backyard pond and the only body of water in the book not accompanied by a chart or map), Lake Geneva, the focus of studies by Francois Alfonse Forel (or FAF to his friends and neighbors), a man who not only intensely surveyed the lake but also coined the term limnology, and Barombi Mbo, a lake in Cameroon in west Africa that is located in a circular volcanic explosion crater, 1.5 miles wide (2.5 km), 360 feet deep (110 m), and lined with dense tropical rainforest (just briefly mentioned on one page, the lake is home to eleven species of endemic cichlids with extra hemoglobin in their blood, enabling them to survive in the oxygen poor lower waters to hunt midge nymphs that dwell there).
In chapter three the author introduces a number of terms for the reader, from Secchi disk (a device used to measure water clarity) to hypolimnion (the cooler lower waters of a lake) to epilimnion (the warmer surface waters) to seiche (pronounced “SAYsh”), basically a “slow, tide-like wave powered by wind,” though one that can be hidden and only affect lower water levels and not readily apparent at the surface.
Chapter four covered the “diverse and spectacular” lakes of the Great Rift Valley in east Africa, ranging from tomato-red Lake Natron, caustic with alkaline minerals, to Lake Kivu, a potentially “explosive cauldron” thanks to “subterranean Co2 and bacterial methane” to the stars of the chapter, Lake Malawi, home to not only the famed Great Rift Lakes cichlids but also the lake-fly midges, and Lake Victoria. Each year Lake Malawi produces “more than a hundred thousand metric tons” of Chaoborus nymphs, which mature into “mating swarms so thick that the water seems to smolder with living smoke.” The nymphs, which only live to mate and die in a few hours or days, are a rich feast for fish, birds, and even people “who boil and crush the protein-rich insects into cakes, which is why the species carries the name C. edulis (meaning “edible” in Latin).” Lake Victoria figured large in the chapter in discussing the effects of the introduced Nile perch in the 1950s and the wide-ranging effects this had on lake ecology (and human ecology too).
More limnology-related concepts are introduced, such as the Red Queen hypothesis (the “dynamic mechanisms that maintain the apparent stability of species…how seemingly unchanging species continuously adapt to evolving predators, climates, and other challenges”) and “Darwinian debt” (as applied to bass, as angling “can rewrite the rules of selection for bass by turning large size and boldness into liabilities and thereby favoring removal, rather than survival, of the fittest individuals,” with population numbers artificially maintained by stocking).
Chapter five focused primarily on the Sea of Galilee in Israel (not an actual sea and not salty, with the author on a page discussing the confusion of names in the region, as other bodies of water are variously called sea or lake). Saint Peter fish, a species of cichlid notable in the region, deriving its name from a story in the gospel of Matthew is featured in the chapter, as are eutrophication issues, the destruction of the ecologically vital Huleh wetlands, the sad physical realities of the modern day Jordan River, the weird and surprisingly vibrant microbial realm in the hypersaline Dead Sea (the Dead Sea is ten times saltier than the ocean “and just a few evaporative steps from slush”), early human settlements in the region (perhaps the Garden of Eden wasn’t in the Fertile Crescent of Mesopotamia but rather in the Jordan Valley), and in closing how dominion over nature is “a misreading of the Scripture,” as rather God intended mankind to protect the earth for the future.
Chapter six is focused mainly on Lake Baikal, which the reader discovers is a heck of a lot of lake. It is the world’s deepest lake (about 5,387 feet or 1,642 m deep), visibility in the water often exceeds 80 feet in the sunlit shallows, it is nearly 400 miles (640 km) long, and is one of the oldest lakes in the world (perhaps 20 million years old). Owing to its size, clarity, and immense age, Lake Baikal is home to astonishing number of endemic species, including seals, golomyanka fish (“whose translucent bodies lack the internal air bladders that regulates flotation for most fish….” as “buoyant oil comprises one-third of their body weight, enough that the fish are said to burn like candles when dried”), 100 species of snail, 14 species of freshwater sponge, and at least 260 species of shrimp-like amphipods.
Stager discussed the lake against a backdrop of reminiscing about a joint Russian-American teaching/study expedition in August 1990 he helped lead, one of the more personalized sections in the book (though his discussions of his childhood love of Lily Pond in chapter three were even more personable).
Chapter seven talks about the search for heritage lakes in the Adirondacks, lakes least affected by overfishing, acid rain, or fisheries-managed fish kills, the great difficulty in finding such a lake and such a lake remaining heritage status due to climate change and the arrival of invasive species, even when tremendous precautions are taken to prevent anglers and boaters from introducing any exotic species, the story of the “Philosopher’s Camp,” a sojourn at Follensby Pond that included among others Ralph Waldo Emerson and Louis Agassiz, a trip that became famous for among other things producing a poem (by Emerson, titled “The Adirondacs”), several essays, and a painting, _The Philosopher’s Camp in the Adirondacks_, painted by the trip’s organizer, William Stillman, and attempts to find the site of the Philosopher’s Camp by the author and some companions.
Did the author succeed in updating _Walden_? To be fair, I have no idea, I have never read _Walden_, but I think the book was very accessible, not terribly technical at all, and was a good blend of general issues and concepts in limnology, portraits of specific lakes, and accounts of the author’s experiences as child, student, and professional in studying lakes in Europe, Africa, Asia, and North America. I think the terms sometimes were a bit too general or rather the level of coverage was too general, that there was room and time to cover more topics and maybe in slightly greater depth, no pun intended. I would have like if he had covered some of the interesting plants and animals in greater detail (the Baikal endemics for instance really only got a single paragraph, though as the book focused a lot on the author’s personal experiences with limnology, this was understandable) and maybe added a few more lakes (maybe something in South America or southeast Asia for instance, or more lakes from the American west or the Arctic). The personal experiences aspect wasn’t always as gripping as I would have liked, with it very identifiable with him around his beloved lake from childhood, Lily Pond and rather gripping with some of the African lakes, but mainly interesting as “day in the life of a limnologist” relating his intensive study of Walden Pond or the various Adirondack lakes rather than for a relation of an exciting, amusing, or transformative tale. Not bad by any means, just nothing earthshaking. With some prior knowledge of limnology it wasn’t full of things I didn’t know, but as a travel book I enjoyed it and I think it is a good and very readable popular introduction to limnology.
The introduction was brief, the part that caught my attention the most was a section on _Walden_:
“More than a century and a half have passed since Henry David Thoreau wrote _Walden_, the world’s best-known book about lakes. _Walden_ is widely quoted for its commentary on the human condition, but it is also noteworthy for its treatment of lakes as three-dimensional worlds unto themselves rather than mere playgrounds, resources, or reflecting pools. To my knowledge no other book has done this so well for a general audience, but I also believe it is time for an upgrade that is more appropriate for our century.”
He admits this is a “bold claim.” He says that text books and treatises on limnology abound, but they “are generally dry and inaccessible to the average reader, and most do not readily bring their subject matter down to a meaningful personal level.” Does Stager succeed? I will get back to that.
The first chapter, “Walden,” is understandably about, well, Walden (the lake, not the book, though the book is discussed too). The reader learns a good deal about the “stats” of Walden, that it is a “flow-through kettle lake, a dimple in glacial deposits that formed shortly after the last great ice sheet thawed back from eastern Massachusetts roughly fifteen thousand years ago.” We learn that Walden Pond has gem clarity, that it is “a comfortably modest size of 61 acres (25 ha) that limits the swell of waves on a windy day” and that the lake “is surprisingly deep, 102 feet (31 m) give or take a few depending on the elevation of the water table, which makes it the deepest water body in the state.”
We also learn that it was hardly isolated, that Thoreau’s cabin was “an author’s workshop” and not “a fortress of isolation,” with then as now many people coming and going to the lake, with in Thoreau’s day that included ice-cutters “and woodcutters, anglers and boaters, and even a noisy train,” not entirely unlike today, minus any cutting of ice or wood. In fact the lake is visited to such an astonishing degree today (at least when compared to what Thoreau knew) is that the very fact people are swimming in the lake in such numbers is altering the chemistry and thus the ecology of the lake. Specifically, the author refers to a study published in 2001 by the U.S. Geological Survey that showed “surreptitious urine releases by swimmers had approximately doubled the summer phosphorous budget of the lake.” And with more phosphorous, phosphorous loving algal species have come to dominate the lake with implications for the lake’s microorganisms, other aquatic plant species, and fish.
Science definitely dominates the chapter, with even the sections on Thoreau himself tending to focus on his scientific explorations and observations, “from the number of growth rings in a tree stump to the gyrations of shiny black whirligig beetles on the surface of the lake,” noting that Thoreau also produced the first floor map of an American lake (accomplished by drilling a hundred holes in the ice of Walden Pond and lowering a weighted line), and also with a thermometer sent “down in a stoppered bottle… [studied] the layered structure of the water column,” producing a formal analysis of the thermal stratification of the lake.
There is a section detailing the extraction of lake bottom sediments and what they can reveal, with this concept discussed as it related to other lakes (such as the distinctive “Maya clay” sections of cores obtained from Central American lakes, something that revealed the massive amounts of soil erosion from Maya farms for a long period of time).
The second chapter focused really on two lakes. Black Pond in Paul Smiths, New York is the first lake discussed, much of the story of the lake covered in this chapter dealing with the saga of fisheries management, of managing the lake for sought-after-by-anglers trout by poisoning the lake with fish-killing pesticides such as rotenone to kill perch and other unwanted “trash fish.” Not really a fan of the fish poisonings as not only did the “trash” fish have value (and might have been endemic strains or subspecies even) but killing the fish, as with the Walden Pond swimmer’s urine, altered the lake’s phosphorous levels and thus the algal community, with phosphorous-loving species turning Black Pond’s normally tannin-stained brown water into a pea green thanks to blooms of cyanobacteria thriving in the phosphorus now in the lake due to all the dead fish.
The issue of fish poisonings is a complex one, and not limited to issues of producing lakes with fish desirable for anglers, as use of rotenone can also be used to protect native varieties of brook trout too (there are nine genetically unique “heritage strains” in the lakes of the Adirondacks), as brook trout are threatened by introduced golden shiner and northern pike.
Another lake in the Adirondacks – Bear Pond – is covered as well, not just in terms of fish poisonings but also water clarity and color, as ironically efforts to manage acid rain have worked quite well but paradoxically turned the once brilliant blue waters a brown color thanks in part to phytoplankton, more easily able to thrive thanks to a pH that is at a level suitable for them.
Chapter three deals with three lakes, the tiny Lily Pond known to the author as a child (a tiny backyard pond and the only body of water in the book not accompanied by a chart or map), Lake Geneva, the focus of studies by Francois Alfonse Forel (or FAF to his friends and neighbors), a man who not only intensely surveyed the lake but also coined the term limnology, and Barombi Mbo, a lake in Cameroon in west Africa that is located in a circular volcanic explosion crater, 1.5 miles wide (2.5 km), 360 feet deep (110 m), and lined with dense tropical rainforest (just briefly mentioned on one page, the lake is home to eleven species of endemic cichlids with extra hemoglobin in their blood, enabling them to survive in the oxygen poor lower waters to hunt midge nymphs that dwell there).
In chapter three the author introduces a number of terms for the reader, from Secchi disk (a device used to measure water clarity) to hypolimnion (the cooler lower waters of a lake) to epilimnion (the warmer surface waters) to seiche (pronounced “SAYsh”), basically a “slow, tide-like wave powered by wind,” though one that can be hidden and only affect lower water levels and not readily apparent at the surface.
Chapter four covered the “diverse and spectacular” lakes of the Great Rift Valley in east Africa, ranging from tomato-red Lake Natron, caustic with alkaline minerals, to Lake Kivu, a potentially “explosive cauldron” thanks to “subterranean Co2 and bacterial methane” to the stars of the chapter, Lake Malawi, home to not only the famed Great Rift Lakes cichlids but also the lake-fly midges, and Lake Victoria. Each year Lake Malawi produces “more than a hundred thousand metric tons” of Chaoborus nymphs, which mature into “mating swarms so thick that the water seems to smolder with living smoke.” The nymphs, which only live to mate and die in a few hours or days, are a rich feast for fish, birds, and even people “who boil and crush the protein-rich insects into cakes, which is why the species carries the name C. edulis (meaning “edible” in Latin).” Lake Victoria figured large in the chapter in discussing the effects of the introduced Nile perch in the 1950s and the wide-ranging effects this had on lake ecology (and human ecology too).
More limnology-related concepts are introduced, such as the Red Queen hypothesis (the “dynamic mechanisms that maintain the apparent stability of species…how seemingly unchanging species continuously adapt to evolving predators, climates, and other challenges”) and “Darwinian debt” (as applied to bass, as angling “can rewrite the rules of selection for bass by turning large size and boldness into liabilities and thereby favoring removal, rather than survival, of the fittest individuals,” with population numbers artificially maintained by stocking).
Chapter five focused primarily on the Sea of Galilee in Israel (not an actual sea and not salty, with the author on a page discussing the confusion of names in the region, as other bodies of water are variously called sea or lake). Saint Peter fish, a species of cichlid notable in the region, deriving its name from a story in the gospel of Matthew is featured in the chapter, as are eutrophication issues, the destruction of the ecologically vital Huleh wetlands, the sad physical realities of the modern day Jordan River, the weird and surprisingly vibrant microbial realm in the hypersaline Dead Sea (the Dead Sea is ten times saltier than the ocean “and just a few evaporative steps from slush”), early human settlements in the region (perhaps the Garden of Eden wasn’t in the Fertile Crescent of Mesopotamia but rather in the Jordan Valley), and in closing how dominion over nature is “a misreading of the Scripture,” as rather God intended mankind to protect the earth for the future.
Chapter six is focused mainly on Lake Baikal, which the reader discovers is a heck of a lot of lake. It is the world’s deepest lake (about 5,387 feet or 1,642 m deep), visibility in the water often exceeds 80 feet in the sunlit shallows, it is nearly 400 miles (640 km) long, and is one of the oldest lakes in the world (perhaps 20 million years old). Owing to its size, clarity, and immense age, Lake Baikal is home to astonishing number of endemic species, including seals, golomyanka fish (“whose translucent bodies lack the internal air bladders that regulates flotation for most fish….” as “buoyant oil comprises one-third of their body weight, enough that the fish are said to burn like candles when dried”), 100 species of snail, 14 species of freshwater sponge, and at least 260 species of shrimp-like amphipods.
Stager discussed the lake against a backdrop of reminiscing about a joint Russian-American teaching/study expedition in August 1990 he helped lead, one of the more personalized sections in the book (though his discussions of his childhood love of Lily Pond in chapter three were even more personable).
Chapter seven talks about the search for heritage lakes in the Adirondacks, lakes least affected by overfishing, acid rain, or fisheries-managed fish kills, the great difficulty in finding such a lake and such a lake remaining heritage status due to climate change and the arrival of invasive species, even when tremendous precautions are taken to prevent anglers and boaters from introducing any exotic species, the story of the “Philosopher’s Camp,” a sojourn at Follensby Pond that included among others Ralph Waldo Emerson and Louis Agassiz, a trip that became famous for among other things producing a poem (by Emerson, titled “The Adirondacs”), several essays, and a painting, _The Philosopher’s Camp in the Adirondacks_, painted by the trip’s organizer, William Stillman, and attempts to find the site of the Philosopher’s Camp by the author and some companions.
Did the author succeed in updating _Walden_? To be fair, I have no idea, I have never read _Walden_, but I think the book was very accessible, not terribly technical at all, and was a good blend of general issues and concepts in limnology, portraits of specific lakes, and accounts of the author’s experiences as child, student, and professional in studying lakes in Europe, Africa, Asia, and North America. I think the terms sometimes were a bit too general or rather the level of coverage was too general, that there was room and time to cover more topics and maybe in slightly greater depth, no pun intended. I would have like if he had covered some of the interesting plants and animals in greater detail (the Baikal endemics for instance really only got a single paragraph, though as the book focused a lot on the author’s personal experiences with limnology, this was understandable) and maybe added a few more lakes (maybe something in South America or southeast Asia for instance, or more lakes from the American west or the Arctic). The personal experiences aspect wasn’t always as gripping as I would have liked, with it very identifiable with him around his beloved lake from childhood, Lily Pond and rather gripping with some of the African lakes, but mainly interesting as “day in the life of a limnologist” relating his intensive study of Walden Pond or the various Adirondack lakes rather than for a relation of an exciting, amusing, or transformative tale. Not bad by any means, just nothing earthshaking. With some prior knowledge of limnology it wasn’t full of things I didn’t know, but as a travel book I enjoyed it and I think it is a good and very readable popular introduction to limnology.
January 3, 2019
In "Still Waters: The Secret World of Lakes", the world of lakes still remains a secret while the authors field trips to various lakes does not. There were simply too many biographical anecdotes and too little information on lakes in general. The author focuses on a handful of lakes to discuss various concepts in the most rudimentary manner. The language is beautiful but I wanted to know more about lakes and less about Stager.
August 23, 2020
I'm biased, as the first introduction the author gives to the world of lakes, is my very own Walden Pond here in Massachusetts. Due to the pandemic, I was booted from my normal laps at the pool and finally conquered my fear of open water swimming at the nearby and historic Walden. It's such a revered location in this area, I was shocked to learn when starting this book, that Walden was "poisoned with a pesticide, rotenone, in 1968 in order to remove “trash fish” such as the pout and pickerel that Thoreau once knew and to make way for nonnative game species".
The author uses obviously "charged" phrasing when discussing the reclamation of lakes for game fishing, but the realization of what is a healthy versus unhealthy lake by human versus nature standards was very interesting. Going in to this read, I anticipated the author would have an environmental focus, and the impact of humans and global warming was discussed at length throughout the book, but it didn't detract from the introduction to Limnology.
The book also covers historical aspects of lakes, such as their use by our ancestors as make shift meat lockers, and how lakes impact settlement development and agriculture. There are also good sections on how fish adapt overtime to specific lakes and game fishing with nonnative species. During reclamation of Walden and the Adirondacks previously unknown species of fish were documented and then listed as likely extinct due to the use of rotenone and toxaphene.
I highly recommend this for anyone interested in their own nearby bodies of water, and how climate change could be impacting their own local environment.
The author uses obviously "charged" phrasing when discussing the reclamation of lakes for game fishing, but the realization of what is a healthy versus unhealthy lake by human versus nature standards was very interesting. Going in to this read, I anticipated the author would have an environmental focus, and the impact of humans and global warming was discussed at length throughout the book, but it didn't detract from the introduction to Limnology.
The book also covers historical aspects of lakes, such as their use by our ancestors as make shift meat lockers, and how lakes impact settlement development and agriculture. There are also good sections on how fish adapt overtime to specific lakes and game fishing with nonnative species. During reclamation of Walden and the Adirondacks previously unknown species of fish were documented and then listed as likely extinct due to the use of rotenone and toxaphene.
I highly recommend this for anyone interested in their own nearby bodies of water, and how climate change could be impacting their own local environment.
July 27, 2018
Still Waters, The Secret World of Lakes, is a beautiful blend of science of lakes (limnology), observation about lakes and the organisms that live in them (natural history), stories about lakes (history and folklore/mythology), and the spirituality of lakes and people who are part of them (philosophy).
The author, a professor at Paul Smith’s College, is a talented author, who conveys his enthusiasm to this multifaceted subject, and shares his own learning experiences, starting with the secret world of lakes offered to him, at age 12, by the gift of a microscope and a sample of lake water, through his trips to and exploration of many lakes around the world, and to his developing ethos of lakes as a value to the modern world.
I have been fortunate to have worked with a wonderful group of limnologists during the most recent fourteen years of my life, in an organization call the Global Lakes Ecological Observatory Network (GLEON), involving limnologist from around the world. Through working with them, I have learned a great deal of about lakes and I too have developed a love for the studies of lakes. Yet this book adds many dimensions to my still shallow understanding of lakes. In what I have been exposed to, we have often thought of lakes as sentinels of the environments that they exist in; after all, waters drain into lakes and changes in that environment are concentrated in lakes. The author introduces the reader to what “core samples” (i.e., cylindrical sections) taken from lake bottom sediment can tell us of the history of that environment (the longer the core sample, the deeper into the sediment we have taken the sample, the further back in the lake’s history we can “see”). We can “see” environmental changes, and we can begin to get a picture of the evolution of the life in the lakes, all by studying the content of the sample.
He adds richness to lake history through several examples, starting with Waldon Pond, pointing out that Henry David Thoreau, more than being an author, poet and philosopher, was an astute naturalist, creating detailed records of life in Waldon Pond. He also introduces the reader to Francois Alfonse Forel, who coined the term limnology, and studied Lake Geneva. The author also admits that his knowledge of Forel did not come from his Ph.D. work, in fact he rode by Lake Geneva after receiving his Ph.D. not knowing his history of his own field. And there are many other stories people and lakes in this book.
I sense that the author has also had experience interacting with the public at large. This book is contains a short glossary of terms, and the author does a wonderful job in the text of introducing new, technical ideas. I learned a lot! He is extremely sensitive to how to introduce “data” into discussions, and how he approaches the “clash” of beliefs (human induced climate change) with facts. Similarly, he is respectful of religious or other beliefs about lakes, with examples from the Sea of Galilee to Loch Ness.
He discusses the role of technology into helping people better understand the global impact of environment on lakes, citing a study published by a GLEON research Catherine O’Reilly.
And he shares many of his insights on science (science is a social enterprise that relies on group intelligence to correct errors by individuals).
One theme that is central to the book is the authors conviction that humans are part of the lake environmental land scape.
Let me close with a quote, relating to think clearly and through misunderstanding that naturally arise, based on terms or beliefs. “Today, science has become a similar source of power that serve us well if we respect and use it well. It is most powerful, however, when it not only informs the mind but is also harnessed to the emotional and spiritual wellsprings of our shared humanity.”
I highly recommend this book, for what one will learn about lakes, for the author’s enthusiasm about the subject, and for the approach of discussing science to engage the read.
Disclaimer: A very distant ancestor of mine is cited in the literature for chapter 1, Lemuel Shattuck.
The author, a professor at Paul Smith’s College, is a talented author, who conveys his enthusiasm to this multifaceted subject, and shares his own learning experiences, starting with the secret world of lakes offered to him, at age 12, by the gift of a microscope and a sample of lake water, through his trips to and exploration of many lakes around the world, and to his developing ethos of lakes as a value to the modern world.
I have been fortunate to have worked with a wonderful group of limnologists during the most recent fourteen years of my life, in an organization call the Global Lakes Ecological Observatory Network (GLEON), involving limnologist from around the world. Through working with them, I have learned a great deal of about lakes and I too have developed a love for the studies of lakes. Yet this book adds many dimensions to my still shallow understanding of lakes. In what I have been exposed to, we have often thought of lakes as sentinels of the environments that they exist in; after all, waters drain into lakes and changes in that environment are concentrated in lakes. The author introduces the reader to what “core samples” (i.e., cylindrical sections) taken from lake bottom sediment can tell us of the history of that environment (the longer the core sample, the deeper into the sediment we have taken the sample, the further back in the lake’s history we can “see”). We can “see” environmental changes, and we can begin to get a picture of the evolution of the life in the lakes, all by studying the content of the sample.
He adds richness to lake history through several examples, starting with Waldon Pond, pointing out that Henry David Thoreau, more than being an author, poet and philosopher, was an astute naturalist, creating detailed records of life in Waldon Pond. He also introduces the reader to Francois Alfonse Forel, who coined the term limnology, and studied Lake Geneva. The author also admits that his knowledge of Forel did not come from his Ph.D. work, in fact he rode by Lake Geneva after receiving his Ph.D. not knowing his history of his own field. And there are many other stories people and lakes in this book.
I sense that the author has also had experience interacting with the public at large. This book is contains a short glossary of terms, and the author does a wonderful job in the text of introducing new, technical ideas. I learned a lot! He is extremely sensitive to how to introduce “data” into discussions, and how he approaches the “clash” of beliefs (human induced climate change) with facts. Similarly, he is respectful of religious or other beliefs about lakes, with examples from the Sea of Galilee to Loch Ness.
He discusses the role of technology into helping people better understand the global impact of environment on lakes, citing a study published by a GLEON research Catherine O’Reilly.
And he shares many of his insights on science (science is a social enterprise that relies on group intelligence to correct errors by individuals).
One theme that is central to the book is the authors conviction that humans are part of the lake environmental land scape.
Let me close with a quote, relating to think clearly and through misunderstanding that naturally arise, based on terms or beliefs. “Today, science has become a similar source of power that serve us well if we respect and use it well. It is most powerful, however, when it not only informs the mind but is also harnessed to the emotional and spiritual wellsprings of our shared humanity.”
I highly recommend this book, for what one will learn about lakes, for the author’s enthusiasm about the subject, and for the approach of discussing science to engage the read.
Disclaimer: A very distant ancestor of mine is cited in the literature for chapter 1, Lemuel Shattuck.
October 23, 2018
I saw this in the new-releases section of the library, and I'm glad I took a chance on it. The book mostly discusses lakes around New York, where the author is from. I really liked the chapters on Lake Baikal in Russia and Lake Geneva in Switzerland. The latter tells us how the science of limnology got started, when a man there found that lake bottoms are full of microbial life.
This book is part-travel book and part-science book, with lots of cultural observations thrown in. The writer visited all the lakes he writes about, and this makes the book more interesting. Well worth a look!
This book is part-travel book and part-science book, with lots of cultural observations thrown in. The writer visited all the lakes he writes about, and this makes the book more interesting. Well worth a look!
May 11, 2019
I think Curt Stager does a great job of weaving stories with science. This book expanded my scientific understanding of lakes and aquatic systems, particularly at the microscopic level, but he also kept it entertaining to the end.
January 7, 2020
Wow.
A book about lakes doesn't sound awe-inspiring. I picked up this book on a whim, and opened it expecting a bland description of the water cycle and fish. What I got was the best of poetry and science. Curt Stager can't seem to help the obvious overflow of love that pours out as he discusses his work around lakes. This book was not an avalanche of facts, dryly presented, as I expected. It was a scientists' observations from around the world presented in beautiful but not stuffy prose. A love letter to the Earth and her lakes. I particularly enjoyed the encouragement to see humans as just as natural as any other species, and to see our time as just as challenging and cheerful as any other. In a decade when most books and documentaries about nature have such a depressing undertone, this was as refreshing as a dip on a hot day.
Seriously, read this book. It is about so much more than bodies of water. It is truly about us as a species, our planet, and those species we share this planet with. Beautiful, powerful read and one I will definitely read again.
"May these explorations and meditations help you to see yourself and the world we share in a more miraculous light and inspire you to look beneath the surface of things in ways that our forebears never could, while also savouring the reflections." - Prologue.
A book about lakes doesn't sound awe-inspiring. I picked up this book on a whim, and opened it expecting a bland description of the water cycle and fish. What I got was the best of poetry and science. Curt Stager can't seem to help the obvious overflow of love that pours out as he discusses his work around lakes. This book was not an avalanche of facts, dryly presented, as I expected. It was a scientists' observations from around the world presented in beautiful but not stuffy prose. A love letter to the Earth and her lakes. I particularly enjoyed the encouragement to see humans as just as natural as any other species, and to see our time as just as challenging and cheerful as any other. In a decade when most books and documentaries about nature have such a depressing undertone, this was as refreshing as a dip on a hot day.
Seriously, read this book. It is about so much more than bodies of water. It is truly about us as a species, our planet, and those species we share this planet with. Beautiful, powerful read and one I will definitely read again.
"May these explorations and meditations help you to see yourself and the world we share in a more miraculous light and inspire you to look beneath the surface of things in ways that our forebears never could, while also savouring the reflections." - Prologue.
March 7, 2020
Limnology anyone? I purchased this book a couple of weeks ago when I took a little day trip across the lake to the Adirondacks. I was looking for a different book that wasn't available yet, and found Still Waters by Curt Stager in the local authors section of The Bookstore Plus on Main Street in Lake Placid. The book was not quite what I expected, but I really enjoyed it. The book is a lovely mix of science, history, nature writing, anecdotes about the author's visits to lakes around the world, and some of his personal philosophy and wisdom.
I marked this passage in the book because I really liked it ... "We share a common origin with all life and the Earth itself. Perhaps what we need today more than fruitless attempts to return to an imaginary Eden is for our ethics and worldview to catch up to our newfound knowledge and powers as a force of nature. Then a real Eden might lie before us rather than behind us."
A+ ... very highly recommend this one if this type of book is your thing. If you've read Dan Egan's book The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, you'd like this one too.
I marked this passage in the book because I really liked it ... "We share a common origin with all life and the Earth itself. Perhaps what we need today more than fruitless attempts to return to an imaginary Eden is for our ethics and worldview to catch up to our newfound knowledge and powers as a force of nature. Then a real Eden might lie before us rather than behind us."
A+ ... very highly recommend this one if this type of book is your thing. If you've read Dan Egan's book The Death and Life of the Great Lakes, you'd like this one too.
April 15, 2022
Seasoned scientist Curt Stager whisks his reader off on a limnological world tour, with stops in Siberia, the Great Rift Valley, the Alps' edge, and the Adirondacks, to name but a few, in a fairly lively crash course in lake science. He manages to pretty well balance the jargony science bits with anecdotes and detours into culture and myth, and if you're interested to learn more about lakes it's a nice and readable resource. What it loses by skipping around locations and topics it picks up in variety, and at the very least it's a book that widens the world for one to more than was previously available. And, at moments, I do think his writing glimmers with the distinct and quiet awe that intimacy with lakes can call up in us.
June 10, 2022
I almost gave up on this book 3 times ... whenever I reached the end of waiting for it to get better, it did and then dragged on until the next surprise. I'm glad that I stuck with it as I learned quite a bit about lakes, ponds and wildlife. Unless we protect these waterways from invasive species they'll continue to die a slow death. The author is not fond of the way (chemically) that the remediation is done, he agrees that something needs to happen.
The author takes us with him to Walden Pond, Sea of Galilee and other interesting places that I'll probably never get to visit but did in the pages of this book. Stager writes like he's sitting with you around a campfire and swapping stories. I truly did enjoy it!
The author takes us with him to Walden Pond, Sea of Galilee and other interesting places that I'll probably never get to visit but did in the pages of this book. Stager writes like he's sitting with you around a campfire and swapping stories. I truly did enjoy it!
June 16, 2022
This was a great vacation read in the Adirondacks. I assumed that it would do a deep dive of different lakes in the region, but it ended up covering the whole world! I did end up learning a lot about the ecology of the lakes in the Adirondacks, but got a lot of extra all I was at it. Really interesting science and natural history facts mixed with personal storytelling.
September 3, 2023
Treats Christian "myths" with disdain, and pagan myths with wonder. So much of the book is spent on creation, age of the earth, Creationism, etc, yet he only interacted with one view of Christian creation, though there are many. This could have been written without discussing Christianity in this way at all.
September 3, 2019
I think I expected this to be a more philosophical read, with thoughts expressed about bodies of water, the author's impressions, etc. This book held those thoughts, but also scientific observations and some research. A pleasant read overall.
September 17, 2019
To completely understand lakes you evidently have to completely understand everything else. Stager strikes a happy medium of information and philosophizing, and waxes a bit poetic on occasion as well. I learned some things and enjoyed the process.
October 5, 2018
The Prologue = 5 Stars!!! Beautiful, poetic language.
The rest of the book 3.5 stars.
The rest of the book 3.5 stars.
August 17, 2019
Professor at Paul Smiths describes science stuff and how human activities have changed a bunch of lakes he and his students visit. A bit too sciencey and a bit gloomy for my take but interesting.
September 3, 2019
Really wanted to like it but it reads like a textbook that didn't have the benefit of an editor. Not engaging. Had to work really hard to stay involved.
September 3, 2019
NF Science
201 pages
Lakes! Very complicated and beautiful.
201 pages
Lakes! Very complicated and beautiful.
January 25, 2021
Really enjoyed this book! His chatty style and ability to describe scientific properties in a pleasant common sense manner makes lake studies (limnology) understandable to everyone.
May 16, 2021
3.5 stars, rounded up
October 23, 2022
I was wishing for more information about lakes and the human connection to them, but this was instead a great collection of nature writing.
May 23, 2024
A deeper dive with pleasantly more science than expected, but also great tie-ins to literature, nonfiction, and belief systems.
November 17, 2019
This was... fine. It describes lakes around the world and attempts to connect the authors' experiences there with broader scientific and philosophical themes. I don't really have anything else to say about, though.
August 1, 2018
4/5 stars
May 8, 2025
Walden Pond, Dead Sea, Baikal Sea, pretty good reading and just enough scientific research.
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December 30, 2018This is a well thought out book. I started off not sure I was going to read it all. It starts off to Waldon Pondish for me, but then it took off. I found so many things that I responded to. This is not an in-your-face book, but a subtle discussion raising book.
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