Encompassing the lands immediately surrounding the upper reaches of the Beaver River from its headwaters at Lake Lila to Beaver Lake at the settlement of Number Four, Beaver River country is the largest undisturbed tract of forest in the entire northeastern United States. During the nineteenth century it was widely considered to be the very heart of the Adirondacks and was visited by thousands of tourists seeking outdoor recreation. The area boasted a busy railroad station, two grand hotels, an exclusive resort, and an elaborate great camp, as well as dozens of guides camps and sporting clubs. Pitts traces the generations of people who inhabited the region, from the ancestors of the Haudenosaunee, to the early European settlers, to the vacation communities and seasonal visitors. With each generation, Pitts shows how Beaver River country escaped the forces that fragmented and destroyed the wilderness in much of the Northeast. The forest and waters that attracted the early visitors are still there, preserved by a combination of happenstance and dedicated effort. Filled with rare vintage photographs, this book is a vivid portrait of this wild region, revealing how it came to be and why it survives.

With simplicity and charm, Grace Lee Nute tells the story of the Minnesota-Ontario border country west of the Boundary Waters--the region of the west-flowing Rainy River and the two lakes that it joins, Rainy Lake and Lake of the Woods. In this companion volume to The Voyageur's Highway Nute draws on her broad and thorough knowledge of historical sources to describe the earliest people who passed through the region, the mound builders who followed, and the Indians who lived on or near the river. She brings to life the fascinating succession of traders, prospectors, lumbermen, settlers, and, finally, tourists who called this northern border country home.

Although numerous books have been written about the Adirondacks and Adirondackers, not very many have become regional classics. Early authors such as John Todd, Charles Fenno Hoffman, Jeptha R. Simms, S. H. Hammond, J. T. Headly, Alfred B. Street, William H.H. Murray and Verplanck Colvin earned well-deserved popularity in their day and their literary output still exerts a potent appeal more than a century later. One more volume is eminently entitled to consideration as top-bracket upstate literature...and that is Adirondack French Louie by the late Harvey L. Dunham of Utica.