In 1874, the Hedrick family arrived in L 'Arbre croche or "crooked tree," as the Jesuit missionaries had called it one hundred and fifty years earlier. The wilderness of Little Traverse Bay had just been opened for homesteading, and the Hedricks joined a dozen other white families in the trading post of Little Traverse, situated in virgin forest. From the age of four until he left the area at eighteen, U. P. Hedrick saw the shabby trading post rum into the tidy village of Harbor Springs. In those years, mechanized logging replaced the homesteader's crosscut saw; the passenger pigeon disappeared; and the railroad arrived. Hedrick writes of his youth and shows himself to be a sharp and often witty observer of the little details of domestic life on the Michigan frontier. He expounds on cooking whitefish and blackberry rolypoly, on the farmer's "arsenal of axes," on pigs and their parts-both edible and useful, on wild and cultivated fruits, on trees, on kettles, and on Indians of the area. Lovers of Michigan's woods and fields, lakes and rivers; professional historians; and storytellers will find themselves delighted by Hedrick's account. The Land of the Crooked Tree is a Great Lakes Books reprint.

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"In these etchings I explore the Native American practice of marking significant places with trees that have been purposefully deformed to create living signposts. These marker trees were mostly along ancient trail-ways and because those native trails have become our modern-day roadways, few of these remarkable trees have survived. The handful I did find, have served as my models. ... Of the several dozen marker trees I saw throughout Northern Michigan, it was the circle of maples planted near the Greensky Native American Church that moved me most. This well-defined circle of maples above Lake Charlevoix had been planted in the 1830's when a church was being built on a former council site under the leadership of Native American pastor, Peter Greensky. The Odawa culture was still dominant in the early 19th century, but their language and traditions were hybridizing with the new and finding a balance. The maples were planted to designate this new place of worship and though it was to be Christian, the congregation was still Odawa. They altered the trees in traditional fashion to honor this location that would continue to be sacred to their people."--Artist's website (viewed January 22, 2016)