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An extraordinary illustrated biography of a Métis man and Anishinaabe woman navigating great changes in their homeland along the U.S.–Canada border in the early twentieth century

John Linklater, of Anishinaabeg, Cree, and Scottish ancestry, and his wife, Tchi-Ki-Wis, of the Lac La Croix First Nation, lived in the canoe and border country of Ontario and Minnesota from the 1870s until the 1930s. During that time, the couple experienced radical upheavals in the Quetico–Superior region, including the cutting of white and red pine forests, the creation of Indian reserves/reservations and conservation areas, and the rise of towns, tourism, and mining. With broad geographical sweep, historical significance, and biographical depth, Making the Carry tells their story, overlooked for far too long.

John Linklater, a renowned game warden and skilled woodsman, was also the bearer of traditional ecological knowledge and Indigenous heritage, both of which he was deeply committed to teaching others. He was sought by professors, newspaper reporters, museum personnel, and conservationists—among them Sigurd Olson, who considered Linklater a mentor. Tchi-Ki-Wis, an extraordinary craftswoman, made a sweeping array of necessary yet beautiful objects, from sled dog harnesses to moose calls to birch bark canoes. She was an expert weaver of large Anishinaabeg cedar bark mats with complicated geometric designs, a virtually lost art.

Making the Carry traces the routes by which the couple came to live on Basswood Lake on the international border. John’s Métis ancestors with deep Hudson’s Bay Company roots originally came from Orkney Islands, Scotland, by way of Hudson Bay and Red River, or what is now Winnipeg. His family lived in Manitoba, northwest Ontario, northern Minnesota, and, in the case ofJohn and Tchi-Ki-Wis, on Isle Royale. A journey through little-known Canadian history, the book provides an intimate portrait of Métis people.

Complete with rarely seen photographs of activities from dog mushing to guiding to lumbering, as well as of many objects made by Tchi-Ki-Wis, such as canoes, moccasins, and cedar mats, Making the Carry is a window on a traditional way of life and a restoration of two fascinating Indigenous people to their rightful place in our collective past.

An exploration of how the ancient Maya engaged with their history by using, altering, and burying stone sculptures.

For the ancient Maya, monumental stone sculptures were infused with agency. As they were used, reused, altered, and buried, such sculptures retained ceremonial meaning. In Memory in Fragments, Megan E. O'Neil explores how ancient Maya people engaged with history through these sculptures, as well as how they interacted with the stones themselves over the course of the sculptures’ long “lives.” Considering Maya religious practices, historiography, and conceptions of materials and things, O’Neil explores how Maya viewers perceived sculptures that were fragmented, scarred, burned, damaged by enemies, or set in unusual locations. In each case, she demonstrates how different human interactions, amid dynamic religious, political, and historical contexts, led to new episodes in the sculptures' lives.

A rare example of cross-temporal and geographical work in this field, Memory in Fragments both compares sculptures within ancient Maya culture across Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, and Belize over hundreds of years and reveals how memory may accrue around and be evoked in material remains.

    Mice in the Freezer, Owls on the Porch is in many ways a love story—about a quiet scientist and his flamboyant wife, but also about their passions for hunting, for wild lands, and for the grouse and raptor species that they were instrumental in saving from destruction.
    From the papers and letters of Frederick and Frances Hamerstrom, the reminiscences of contemporaries, and her own long friendship with this extraordinary couple who were her neighbors, Helen Corneli draws an intimate picture of Fran and "Hammy" from childhood through the genesis and maturation of a romantic, creative, and scientific relationship. Following the Hamerstroms as they give up a life of sophisticated convention and comfort for the more "civilized" (as Aldo Leopold would have it) pleasures of living and conducting on-the-spot research into diminishing species, Corneli captures the spirit of the Hamerstroms, their profession, and the natural and human environments in which they worked. A nuanced account of the labors, adventures, and achievements that distinguished the Hamerstroms over the years—and that inspired a generation of naturalists—this book also provides a dramatic account of conservation history over the course of the twentieth century, particularly in Wisconsin during the eventful years from the 1920s through the 1970s.

Ever since Protestant missionaries from the United States first reached Hawai'i in 1820, they have inspired conflicting passions. In evangelical circles, the missionaries are praised for Christianizing Hawai'i, transforming Hawaiian into a written language, and inoculating the islanders against smallpox. But this celebratory assessment is rejected by modern-day Hawaiian nationalists, who excoriate the missionaries as advance agents of U.S. imperialism. 

In this biography of pioneer missionaries Peter and Fanny Gulick, Clifford Putney offers a balanced view of their contributions. He says the nationalists are right to credit the missionaries with drawing Hawai'i into America's political orbit, but argues that the missionary enterprise helped in some ways to preserve key elements of Hawaiian culture.

Based primarily on letters, journals, and other archival materials, Putney's book provides readers with a detailed portrait of the lives of Peter and Fanny Gulick. Inspired by America's Second Great Awakening to spread the Gospel overseas, the Gulicks voyaged to Hawai'i in 1828 and lived there for the next forty-six years, actively proselytizing and working to change the islands. On Kaua'i, they helped to ensure the success of Hawai'i's first sugar plantation and acquainted Hawaiians with inventions such as the wagon. On Moloka'i (later the site of a leper colony) the couple struggled merely to survive. And on O'ahu, they took up ranching and helped to found Punahou School, the alma mater of President Barack Obama.

While laboring in Hawai'i, the Gulicks interacted with kings, queens, and other historically important figures, and Putney chronicles those relationships. He also explores issues of race and gender, and sheds new light on the democratization of government, the spread of capitalism, and the privatization of land. From these last two developments, a number of missionaries grew immensely rich, but the Gulicks did not, and neither did their descendants. A group that includes influential missionaries, educators, and physical fitness experts, the descendants of Peter and Fanny have had numerous books written about them, but Putney is the first to write extensively about the progenitors of the Gulick clan.