It started with a mother's love... Fleeing from a forest fire, a mother bear urges her two cubs into the watery shelter of a vast body of water. Though it will be difficult, she knows if they can swim across to the opposite shore, they will be safe. With calls of encouragement and steadfast love, Mother Bear guides her cubs across the great lake, Lake Michigan. And the story of what happens once Mother Bear reaches the far shore becomes the legend behind the natural wonder known as Sleeping Bear Dune. In 1998 writer Kathy-jo Wargin and nature artist Gijsbert van Frankenhuyzen combined their talents to bring The Legend of Sleeping Bear to life. Published to wide acclaim, the book was soon named the Official Children's Book of Michigan.

2022 NAUTILUS SILVER WINNER FOR LYRIC PROSE—In The Accidental Reef and Other Ecological Odysseys in the Great Lakes, Lynne Heasley illuminates an underwater world that, despite a ferocious industrial history, remains wondrous and worthy of care. From its first scene in a benighted Great Lakes river, where lake sturgeon thrash and spawn, this powerful book takes readers on journeys through the Great Lakes, alongside fish and fishers, scuba divers and scientists, toxic pollutants and threatened communities, oil pipelines and invasive species, Indigenous peoples and federal agencies. With dazzling illustrations from Glenn Wolff, the book helps us know the Great Lakes in new ways and grapple with the legacies and alternative futures that come from their abundance of natural wealth. Suffused with curiosity, empathy, and wit, The Accidental Reef will not fail to astonish and inspire.

"With its comprehensive explanation of dune formation and variety, the book also includes information on activities at the dunes, including hiking, skiing, picnic and swimming areas, directions and parking, number of campsites, interesting and unique natural features found in and around each dune, and types of dune flora and fauna. Detailed maps provide a ready guide for all outdoor activities." "With nearly 50 duneland areas, from the remote to the well know, this book will inspire travelers to take a closer look at one of the most awesome natural features found in the state. Even those who think they know the dunes well will find this book an amazing resource for their trips back to a specific dune or their exploration of a new dune."--BOOK JACKET.

Sculpted into graceful contours by countless centuries of wind and water, the Great Sand Dunes sprawl along the eastern fringes of the vast San Luis Valley of south-central Colorado. Covering an area of nearly thirty square miles, they are the tallest aeolian, or wind-produced, dunes in North America, towering 750 feet above the valley floor. With the addition of the enormous Baca Ranch and other adjacent lands, the dunes—originally designated as a National Monument in 1932—attained official National Park status in 2004. In Sea of Sand, Michael M. Geary guides readers on a historical journey through this unique ecosystem, which includes an array of natural and cultural wonders, from the main dunefield and verdant wetlands to the summits of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Described by explorer Zebulon Pike as “a sea in a storm” and by frontier photographer William Henry Jackson as “a curious and very singular phase of nature’s freak,” the Great Sand Dunes are a nexus of more than 10,000 years of human history, from Paleolithic big-game hunters to nomadic Native Americans, from Spanish conquistadores and transcontinental explorers to hard-rock miners and modern-day tourists in motor homes. Like these successive waves of visitors, Sea of Sand follows the water, analyzing its critical role in the settlement and development of the region. Geary also describes the profound impact that waves of human use and settlement have had on the land—which ultimately inspired the early grassroots efforts by San Luis Valley citizens to protect the dunes from further exploitation. He examines as well the more recent legislative effort led by an unprecedented coalition of local, state, and federal agencies and organizations, including The Nature Conservancy and the National Park Service, to secure the Great Sand Dunes’ national park designation. Amply illustrated, Sea of Sand is the definitive history of the natural, cultural, and political forces that helped shape this incomparable landscape.

"Stemming from research in the three upper Great Lakes basins (Superior, Michigan, and Huron), the volume is organized by geologic time, beginning with the reconstructed drainage for glacial Lake Minong southward across Michigan's Upper Peninsula and ending with the use of remote sensing and geospatial analysis in monitoring Lake Michigan coastal dunes"--

A concise but comprehensive introduction to the biology of coastal sand dunes. The emphasis in this book is on the organisms that dominate this predominantly marine environment, although pollution, conservation, management and experimental aspects are considered.