The Pte. Mouillee Shooting Club was in an excellent flyway and was located in the western basin of Lake Erie at the mouth of the Huron River near the mouth of the Detroit River. Pte. Mouillee was one of the greatest marshes in the state of Michigan with some of the best duck shooting in the country. It was an extraordinary club, having only ten members at a time. The members were very wealthy and many traveled long distances from several states to hunt at the Club. The Club existed in the golden age of waterfowling when there were few restrictions. They hunted in the spring and in the fall, there were no bag limits, they used live decoy ducks and fed ducks grain. A punt gun was used in the Pte. Mouillee area until they were outlawed. Many of the early members of the Club were live pigeon shooters and met at pigeon matches around the country. Ed Gillman founder of the Club was a state and world champion live pigeon shooter. Nate Quillin was Michigan's most famous early duck decoy makers and duck boat builder. Nate's decoys are famous all over the country and are prized by collectors. Nate made many decoys and boats for the members of the Club. The Club used the best decoys money could buy, Peterson, Dodge, Mason and Nate Quillin's decoys. The book also covers the early days of the State game area and the Michigan Duck Hunter's Tournament. The Club existed from 1875 to 1945 when the State of Michigan bought the marsh for a state game area. Now after over thirty years of research, we are ready to tell the story of what we think is a fascinating Club of a by-gone era. Much of out research was done as we traveled to several states while on vacation. The more we learned about the Club, The more intrigued we became.

This is the first book to center labor unions as actors in American environmental policy.

The Great Lakes—containing one-fifth of the standing freshwater on earth, covering some 94,250 square miles with a combined 10,210 miles of shoreline—have suffered greatly from human use and abuse since the advent of the commercial fur trade in the late 1600s. Logging destroys or degrades habitats, urbanization and industrialization pour human and industrial wastes into the water, fertilizers flowing off farm fields feed algae that suffocate other creatures, and ships bring in exotic species that decimate the lakes’ biodiversity. In 1985 when the International Joint Commission identified more than forty pollution hotspots around the lakes, few people had faith the Areas of Concern would be cleaned up in their lifetime. Indeed, aquatic ecosystem restoration is extremely difficult: only nine of these hotspots have been removed from the infamous list. But progress is being made, and at the helm are local champions, people with a profound love of the region who lead by example and build broad, diverse coalitions in order to realize a common vision. The stories of fourteen of these champions are told here to inspire necessary action to care for the place they call home, so it may be a home to many living creatures for ages yet to come.