North Country - by Jon K Lauck & Gleaves Whitney

About the Book

From the fur trade to tourism, fisheries to supper clubs, Finnish settlers to Native treaty rights, the nature of the North Country emerges here in all its variety and particularity: as clearly distinct from the greater Midwest as it is part of the American heartland.

Book Synopsis

Travel north from the upper Midwest's metropolises, and before long you're "Up North"--a region that's hard to define but unmistakable to any resident or tourist. Crops give way to forests, mines (or their remains) mark the landscape, and lakes multiply, becoming ever clearer until you reach the vastness of the Great Lakes. How to characterize this region, as distinct from the agrarian Midwest, is the question North Country seeks to answer, as a congenial group of scholars, journalists, and public intellectuals explores the distinctive landscape, culture, and history that define the northern margins of the American Midwest.
From the glacial past to the present day, these essays range across the histories of the Dakota and Ojibwe people, colonial imperial rivalries and immigration, and conflicts between the economic imperatives of resource extraction and the stewardship of nature. The book also considers literary treatments of the area--and arguably makes its own contributions to that literature, as some of the authors search for the North Country through personal essays, while others highlight individuals who are identified with the area, like Sigurd Olson, John Barlow Martin, and Russell Kirk.
From the fur trade to tourism, fisheries to supper clubs, Finnish settlers to Native treaty rights, the nature of the North Country emerges here in all its variety and particularity: as clearly distinct from the greater Midwest as it is part of the American heartland.

Review Quotes

"In The North Country, Jon K. Lauck defines the region as the transition from the agricultural southern halves of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan to the woods and waters of their northern halves. The book, comprised of thirteen chapters, seeks to explain what the North Country is, where it is, and how it is regionally distinct from the broader Midwest...Focusing particularly on the subregion of northern Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, The North Country does well to incorporate more voices especially from Indigenous history, to complicate narratives of the Midwest. This book should appeal to a general audience interested in the history and culture of the upper Midwest as well as specialists interested in a particular facet of its wide coverage."--Middle West Review

"Of the myriad American diversities--racial, ethnic, religious, lifestyle--one is often neglected: the durable diversity of the nation's regions. Jon K. Lauck redresses this imbalance by restoring the middle of the nation to its proper place in the middle of the national story. You do not need to be a Midwest chauvinist--I, a son of Central Illinois, am one--to appreciate his appreciation of this region's nation-shaping role, and between 1861 and 1865 its nation-saving role."--George F. Will

"I know of no historian other than Jon Lauck who has done such a superb job chronicling and framing the history of the American Midwest."--Gregory L. Schneider, author of Rock Island Requiem: The Collapse of a Mighty Fine Line

"Lauck's full-throated celebration of America's democratic traditions is an invitation to today's most important debate."--John Mack Faragher, author of California: An American History

"The thesis of North Country: Essays on the Upper Midwest and Regional Identity is that the Upper Midwest of the United States constitutes a distinctive region that, while difficult to define, is unmistakable and can be approached from a number of angles. North Country is an admirable attempt to present just such a diverse examination of this elusive and at times mystifying regional identity. North Country is a worthwhile contribution to the study of the Upper Midwest and, more broadly, to the theorizing of American regional identity. By bringing together a diverse selection of essays from quite different perspectives, the editors provide insights into the nature of this elusive regional identity and, at the same time, suggest avenues for further research. The volume is not only well researched and closely focused on the matter at hand, but it is also generally quite readable and accessible to nonspecialists."--World Literature Today


"The Midwest is more than one geography, one livelihood, or one or two crops. North Country defines and explains this important sub-region of the Midwest, emphasizes place and culture as crucial elements of human existence, and provides a range of ways to think about both."--Paula M. Nelson, Professor Emeritus, Department of History, University of Wisconsin-Platteville


From deep forests to Great Lakes, from Ojibwe to Finns, from the bones of a mastodon to the philosophy of Russel Kirk, the subjects of these engaging essays illuminate a subregion within the Midwest, one without the stereotypes of corn, soybeans, and factories. The particularities of the North Country offer fascinating evidence that place matters, that in the northern regions of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota are people, land, and cultures that open distinctive insights into the American experiment.--James H. Madison, author of The Indiana Way: A State History