Boundary Waters

The book is 'Boundary Waters - The Grace of the Wild' by Paul Gruchow.

I originally received this book as a gift from my lovely wife, Heather. I read it hoping for some history about the boundary waters canoe area, which I had visited for a canoe trip many years ago, in 1984. There was a little history in this book, and it was nice, but not the real value of this book.

I was also hoping that the book would remind me of some of what I felt when I visited the Boundary Waters, and there is some of that, particularly at the end, when Paul writes about seeing a moose walk through water. A similar moment is one of my most cherished memories of my trip.

Paul speaks about the nature of teaching and education, and about the book "Walden" by Thoreau. He intersperses his observations and comments as a sort of thread throughout the book, as the ideas occurred to him in his life.

Since this book wasn't quite what I thought it would be, it took me more time and effort than usual to get through it - perhaps six or seven hours. But it is a good book, a deep book, a worthwhile book.

The real value of this book, I think, to others, will be the nuggets of thought that are scattered throughout the book. Many readers may not have visited the Boundary Waters area of far northern Minnesota and southern Canada, so they will read it for different reasons. One such nugget concerns the nature of names, near the end of the book:

"Names can be both blessings and curses. ... they can be reductive ... a form of acknowledgment ... a way of establishing ... connection ... Names could be seen ... as ways of calling upon the things we name ..."

It's a good book, one I will read again some day.