On May 5, 2007, two days into his twenty-seventh trip to the Boundary Waters, Stephen Posniak found a perfect spot on Ham Lake and set about making a campfire. Over the next two weeks, the fire he set would consume 75,000 acres of forest and 144 build

Stories from survivors of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness’s epochal weather disaster On July 4, 1999, in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW), a bizarre confluence of meteorological events resulted in the most damaging blowdown in the region’s history. Originating over the Dakotas, the midsummer windstorm developed amid unusually high heat and water-saturated forests and moved steadily east, bearing down on Fargo, North Dakota, and damaging land as it crossed the Minnesota border. Gunflint Falling tells the story of this devastating storm from the perspectives of those who were on the ground before, during, and after the catastrophic event—from first-time visitors to the north woods to returning paddlers to Forest Service Rangers. The pre-dawn forecasts from the National Weather Service in Duluth for that Sunday of the holiday weekend predicted the day would be “warm and humid. Partly sunny with a thirty percent chance of thunderstorms.” But as the afternoon and evening settled over the Boundary Waters, the first eyewitness accounts began to tell a dramatic and terrifying story. Five friends camping on Lake Polly watched in wonder as the sky turned green and the winds began to whip. They scrambled to pull canoes on shore and secure tarps when a tree snapped and struck one of them in the head, rendering her unconscious. Three women enjoying their last day of a camping trip near the end of the Gunflint Trail took shelter in their tent as winds increased. Water drenched the nylon walls as trees crashed around them, one flattening the tent and pinning a woman beneath its weight. A family vacationing at their cabin dodged falling trees and strained against straight-line winds as they sprinted from the cabin to the safest place they knew: a crawl space underneath it. They watched in awe as trees snapped and toppled, their twisted root balls torn out of the water-logged earth—as they prayed their cabin would hold. By the time the storm began to subside, falling trees had injured approximately sixty people, and most needed to be medevacked to safety. Amazingly, no one died. The historic storm laid down timber that would later blaze in the Ham Lake fire of 2007, ultimately reshaping the region’s forests in ways we have yet to fully understand.

"The best way to get to know Justine Kerfoot would be to explore a northern forest with her. The next best way to know 'Just' is on these pages. Here Justine is at her best, sharing with us her romantic and colorful, and sometimes a tad dangerous, life." --Les Blacklock Step off the Gunflint Trail, stride to a high point, and savor the view. Only the dark, cool waters and the rugged granite shores interrupt the panorama of the sweeping forest. In this engaging memoir, local pioneer Justine Kerfoot chronicled a year's worth of experiences and insights while living on the legendary Gunflint Trail. The unique month-by-month chapters of Gunflint and Kerfoot's rich memories provide a year-round view of a wilderness life that most of us glimpse only in all-too-short weekend interludes. Justine Kerfoot (1906-2001) lived on Minnesota's remote Gunflint Trail for more than six decades. She wrote of her adventures and travel in a weekly column for the Cook County News-Herald for forty-five years and is the author of Woman of the Boundary Waters (Minnesota, 1994).

A murdered conservation officer and a multi-million-dollar poaching business—how are they connected to Sam Rivers’ childhood friend? Holden Riggins is an expert outdoorsman and a known poacher. He’s made a small fortune by exploiting nature’s bounty. So it’s no surprise when two conservation officers (COs) from the Department of Natural Resources come upon Holden’s fishing boat, anchored beside an illegal walleye net. What is a surprise, though, is Holden’s condition: nearly frozen to death on the bottom of his boat. That’s not the COs’ most shocking discovery. Twisted and tangled within the twines of another nearby net is the dead body of their missing colleague. After the COs save Holden from the icy grip of hypothermia, the suspected murderer refuses to answer questions. The only person he’ll speak with is Sam Rivers, a man he last saw when they were 12 years old. Since then, Holden has become a known scofflaw and ex-con, using wilderness and everything in it for his ill-gotten gains. Sam has become a special agent for the US Fish & Wildlife Service, hunting, capturing, and incarcerating criminals—like his childhood friend. Throughout the state’s finest walleye lakes, the population of Minnesota’s most prized game fish has been unaccountably dropping. Holden’s net might explain why. Has he resurrected his illegal netting ring, cashing in on the state’s $25-million walleye industry? Did he commit murder to evade the law? One thing is certain: Sam will follow the facts wherever they lead—but is he the one reeling in suspects, or is he just the bait? Natural history writer Cary J. Griffith brings back Sam Rivers for his fourth outdoors-themed mystery—a suspenseful novel filled with fast-paced action.