From a Wooden Canoe Reflections on Canoeing, Camping, and Classic Equipment [Paperback]

Jerry Dennis has earned a reputation as one of the finest writers on nature and the outdoors in America today. Now inFrom a Wooden Canoe, he turns his attention to old passions and discovers new reasons to appreciate them.

This engaging collection explores the quintessential American sports of canoeing and camping and pays tribute to the things worth keeping, from wooden canoes to pocket knives to cast-iron skillets. At a deeper level, it is about respect - for our possessions, for the natural world, for ourselves - and about the pleasures of a life well spent.

From a Wooden Canoeis a celebration of the good things and the simple pleasures of life outdoors. It is a book to be treasured, to be read on winter evenings and rainy afternoons, and to be kept handy on a cabin shelf.

Jerry Denniswrites for Smithsonian, Sports Afield, Gray's Sporting Journal, and the New York Times. His previous books, includingIt's Raining Frogs and Fishes, A Place on the Water,andThe River Home, have won numerous awards and have been translated into five languages. In 1999, he was the recipient of the Michigan Author of the Year Award presented by the Michigan Library Association. He lives in Traverse City, Michigan.

From a Wooden Canoe is the most satisfying kind of nature writing because it makes you want to get up and get out. Give these essays a good read, and then find your own canoe. The Wall Street Journal

[Dennis] brings a bright, childlike eagerness to these days on the stream or in the field and forest, burnishing their memory with thoughtfulness and elegance. Kirkus Reviews

Anything [Dennis] writes is worthy of a place on your nightstand, alongside your favorite recliner, or in a special spot on the bookshelf to be taken down from time to time and revisited like an old friend. Oakland Press

With this reader, Dennis is preaching to the converted. But I suspect even clƒ¼