Up North: A Guide to Ontario's Wilderness from Blackflies to the Northern Lights

by Doug Bennet, Tim Tiner, Marta Scythes (Illustrator)

These enormously popular volumes are the most engrossing and encyclopedic guides available. Combining easy-to-understand natural history, amusing trivia, thoughtful observations, and little-known folklore — about plants, animals, birds, fish, insects, reptiles, the day sky, the night sky, and the ground we walk on — Up North and Up North Again are indispensable companions for every cottager, camper, nature lover, and trivia buff.

Genres: Nature, Nonfiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1997

Reviews

[Lizzy Hanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommend as before-bed reading if you're prone to falling asleep in a novel and doubling back the next night. I'll be revisiting this one often :)

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Up North would be a great book to have on the coffee table at a cottage in the Kawarthas -- open it to any page and you'll find some interesting fact or figure relating to an animal, plant, constellation, weather phenomenon, or geological feature familiar to this region. Some of the black and white photos could be clearer and I really wish the book had referencing/footnotes.

[Garth Mailman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Up North: A Guide to Ontario's Wilderness from Blackflies to the Northern Lights
Doug Bennet, Tim Tiner, Marta Scythes (Illustrator)

My edition came out in 1997. There has been a second volume and combined edition published since.

Fairly detailed descriptions of the limited species covered.

page 16 Red-Wing Blackbird wingspan conversion should be feet, not inches.

The authors have a sense of humour. Herring Gull’s diet includes Kentucky Fried Chicken Bones.

I’ve personal experience of the chattiness of Barred Owls a nesting pair carrying on a varied conversation for 6 hours after an owl call was played in their hearing at Queens Biological Station.

The Sacred Carrion Vultures of India suffered a 97% decline until a certain anti-inflammatory drug was outlawed. Since this book was written it has been determined that vultures’ eyesight extends to the infrared zone and they detect the heat caused by rotting corpses. Their digestive systems make them immune to deadly botulism.

p 101 6 Metres is c. 20 ft, 3.20 is the approximate conversion rate.

p. 139 (6 cm.) should be in. for inches.

p. 163 Adult body length should be ft not in.

Research goes on that makes some of the information here dated. And politicians such as the present Ontario Premier continue to attack wildlands. Parks that protect wildlife are unpopular with local hunters. The band of trees that edge major highways disguise the clear cuts a short walk inside.

A monoculture of regimented pines does not constitute a park.