Northland: A 4,000-Mile Journey Along America's Forgotten Border
-
-
4.0 • 21 Ratings
-
-
- $12.99
-
- $12.99
Publisher Description
“Romantic, urgent, valuable and appealing as hell.” —Andrew McCarthy, New York Times Book Review
Writer Porter Fox spent three years exploring 4,000 miles of the border between Maine and Washington, traveling by canoe, freighter, car, and foot. In Northland, he blends a deeply reported and beautifully written story of the region’s history with a riveting account of his travels. Setting out from the easternmost point in the mainland United States, Fox follows explorer Samuel de Champlain’s adventures across the Northeast; recounts the rise and fall of the timber, iron, and rail industries; crosses the Great Lakes on a freighter; and traces the forty-ninth parallel from Minnesota to the Pacific Ocean. He weaves in his encounters with residents, border guards, Indian activists, and militia leaders to give a dynamic portrait of the northland today, wracked by climate change, water wars, oil booms, and border security.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this contemplative narrative, Fox (Deep) travels the United States' border with Canada, following the footsteps of pre-Columbus Native Americans, European explorers, mountain men, and 18th-century government surveyors. The narrative is more ruminative than eventful aside from a red fox defecating on a lawn or some sidelong glances from patrol agents, there's not a whole lot that actually happens during Fox's three-year exploration; in ways, the inactivity itself reflects the stasis of this borderland area. Fox has a keen eye for flora, fauna, geology, and meteorology (North Dakota is equidistant between the North Pole and the equator, making it "the most extreme weather zone in the world"); he's also adept at conveying his knowledge and capturing the natural beauty and ancient landscapes of the borderlands ("Minnesota's Boundary Waters is still primitive, carved by nature and untouched by humans"). Fox's travels uncover a secret: this largely ignored border is key to the U.S. economy as it is home to an abundance of water, oil, and natural gas, and it will loom large if and when America's more easily accessible natural resources become depleted. This is a worthy travelogue that explores the beauty of America's untouched land.
Customer Reviews
Northland
Porter Fox's journey across the top of our United States is a timely reminder of many aspects of our history as well as current immigration issues: our past and continued injustice towards indigenous people many of whom inhabit these borderlands across two nations, our ecological rape of the very sources of our nation's water and forests, our sometimes ridiculous efforts at treaty making, and the increased oversight and suspicion at border crossings since 9/11. These are all worthy, necessary and well described in Fox's clear writing style. Beyond the informative, he illuminates the experiences of his journey with McPhee like descriptions of the changing geological and biological landscapes, and the lived experiences of the current inhabitants of the northern border. I felt as though I traveled alongside him in his canoe, on the lumbering Great Lakes freighter, hiking into remote campsites, and intermittently in his car across flat highways and mountain passes to the Pacific Ocean. I couldn't put this book down and was gratefully exhausted at the end! I look forward to his next journey!
Less than half a book
If you stop at Maine this would be five stars. Once past there, it devolves into a simplistic series of travel articles one might find in a magazine - information gleaned from other books and highlights of Fox’s own stopovers.
While providing great detail of the border in Maine, he glosses over the rest of the 4000 mile expanse - not even much on NH and VT right next door. The rest is more a social commentary than anything else.
Once west of ND, it goes to nothing. Almost like a tourist who hits a couple of highlights then rushes back to catch his flight. We are left with a boring slide show of “what I did on my summer vacation.”
Northland.
Enjoyed parts of it. Halfway through, it became increasingly politically biased. I liked the history; keep the leftist diatribes. I found it too repellent to finish, and deleted it. No more from this author.