The book is mostly about the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, Minnesota. Adjacent Quetico Provincial Park of Ontario is discussed to a lesser extent. The human history is discussed well and in detail, but many aspects in the natural history treatment appear to be rather the authors' biased outdated opinions than facts verifiable from other sources.
The chapter on flora is mainly about the most important exotic species and their history in the park. The chapter on forest fire is a defence for fire suppression. The authors glorify the skills and bravery of fire workers, and try to prove that there is always enough fire even if all the fires are suppressed. Later they even claim that fire suppression barely offsets the increase in fires caused by human activities. Instead of fires, the authors recommend "therapeutic" timber cutting for forest renewal, and planting of white and red pines. All the other tree species seem to have bad characters: jack pine is ugly, balsam fir stands are ecological deserts, and aspen facilitates alien plant invasions and is invader itself. The authors try to show that this aspen "of poor quality" constantly increases its area both in absence of disturbance and after disturbances. About the dense postfire jack pine forest, which results if the timber is not removed, the authors write: "We cannot afford, aesthetically, ecologically, or economically, such stands even in a wilderness area." For learning about the nature of the area, I recommend "The Boundary Waters Wilderness Ecosystem" by Heinselman.
Common names are used; there is a table for the Latin names at the end. There are B/W photos of mediocre quality. A good map is missing. According to Amazon, the book has been published in 2001 but the copyright is 1984. Consequently, the book is partly out-of-date, e.g. for the use statistics.
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