From a Wooden Canoe Reflections on Canoeing, Camping, and Classic Equipment

Jerry Dennis has earned a reputation as one of the finest writers on nature and the outdoors in America today. Now in From a Wooden Canoe , he turns his attention to old passions and discovers new reasons to appreciate them. This engaging collection explores the quintessential American sports of canoeing and camping and pays tribute to the things worth keeping, from wooden canoes to pocket knives to cast-iron skillets. At a deeper level, it is about respect - for our possessions, for the natural world, for ourselves - and about the pleasures of a life well spent. From a Wooden Canoe is a celebration of the good things and the simple pleasures of life outdoors. It is a book to be treasured, to be read on winter evenings and rainy afternoons, and to be kept handy on a cabin shelf.

Jerry Dennis writes for Smithsonian, Sports Afield, Gray's Sporting Journal, and the New York Times. His previous books, including It's Raining Frogs and Fishes, A Place on the Water, and The River Home, have won numerous awards and have been translated into five languages. In 1999, he was the recipient of the Michigan Author of the Year Award presented by the Michigan Library Association. He lives in Traverse City, Michigan.

"From a Wooden Canoe is the most satisfying kind of nature writing because it makes you want to get up and get out. Give these essays a good read, and then find your own canoe." -The Wall Street Journal

"[Dennis] brings a bright, childlike eagerness to these days on the stream or in the field and forest, burnishing their memory with thoughtfulness and elegance." --Kirkus Reviews

"Anything [Dennis] writes is worthy of a place on your nightstand, alongside your favorite recliner, or in a special spot on the bookshelf to be taken down from time to time and revisited like an old friend." --Oakland Press

"With this reader, Dennis is preaching to the converted. But I suspect even city slickers couldn't help but warm to his opinions." --Seattle Times

"More than anything, Dennis offers us an appreciation of the simpler things in life that many times pass us by in our break-neck pace of living. He shows us that just off the beaten path is a slower avenue, taken by countless generations before us and still available to enjoy if only we would take the time to look." --The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

"Michigan is lucky to have and have had such clear voices speaking for it as Voelker and Dennis." --Gray's Sporting Journal