1994. 154 pp, ills. True tales of adventure, taken from Jacobson's experiences as a professional guide in Minnesota Canoe country. Paperback.
Fans of the outdoors may enjoy these engaging, if often slight, tales of adventure, friendship and nature. Jacobson, a professional canoe guide in Minnesota and Canada, comes off as a thoughtful, decent chap, and he's collected some good anecdotes along the way. He tells of a nonchalant young Inuit man who repairs a snowmobile in the middle of a blizzard using a piece of his rifle barrel. He meets some obnoxious kids who say they are from a 'church group' but turn out to be escapees from a camp for juvenile delinquents.
He recalls a masterful mechanic who moved between a blue-collar workplace and the white-collar world of his canoeing buddies. If Jacobson expresses reverence for nature, he's not unaware of irony; he reports that most Canadian Indians and Eskimos in the far north rely on power boats and Skidoos and have never even owned a canoe. Some of the better tales reveal something about the author, such as meeting his second wife when she joined his canoe trip and their wedding in the bush; he tells of getting lost as a young forester and of teaching ninth graders environmental science and seeing them develop concern for nature. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Book Description
The stories in this book are all true. Most began with a dream and a conscientious study of maps and logistics. Others are true advertures. The majority of accounts are anecdotes taken from Cliff Jacobson's experiences as a professional guide in Minnesota and Canada. A few stories are based on accounts from close friends whose testimony he trusts.
There's a mixture of humor, joy, sadness, tragedy and testable morality, plus the essence of 'wilderness and fulfillment of dreams.' Feel your hear beat as a grizzly breathes down upon you. Understand the excitement of running a raging northern Canadian river. Experience the cool autumn breeze of Minnesota's boundary Waters. Sense the loneliness of a young man's rural existence as he longs for a suitor. Engage a 20,000 strong heard of caribou as it thunders before you.
