Deep Woods, Wild Waters: A Memoir

A journey through the wilds of nature and the twists and turns of daily life with an icon of the North Woods--now in paperback​

Wait, young Douglas’s grandfather says as the bobber twitches on the surface of Little Lake. Be patient. And so begins an encounter with the wonder and promise of nature that will last a lifetime. Deep Woods, Wild Waters traces the winding path that carried Douglas Wood from one marvel to the next, through a landscape of rocks, woods, and waters, with stops along the way for questions and reflections that link human nature to the larger mysteries of the natural world.

Like life itself, the author’s way is not linear. One landmark leads back to a favorite campsite, another prompts him to consider the ＂gospel of rocks,＂ another launches him into the wilderness beyond the stars--a contemplation of time and space and humanity’s place in all of it. The creator of thirty-four books, including the classic Old Turtle, and an expert woodsman and wilderness canoe guide, Wood brings all his storytelling and bushwhacking skills to bear as he takes us hurtling down wild rapids, crossing stormy lakes, or simply navigating the treacherous currents and twisty trails of everyday life.

A warm, generous, and knowing guide, Wood maps a journey that, as he says, ＂anyone can take, through a landscape anyone can know.＂ Turning the pages, hiking the portages, running the rapids, or scanning the wild country from a high promontory, he invites us to say, in a soul-satisfying moment of recognition, ＂I know that place.＂

Douglas Wood is an artist, musician, educator, wilderness guide, and award-winning author of several books, including A Wild Path, also published by the University of Minnesota Press. He lives with his family in a log cabin on the Mississippi River in Minnesota.