Robert Thorson

Chapters : From Beyond Walden: The Hidden History of America's Kettle Lakes and Ponds.

1 - Ice Sheet Invasion
2 - Birth of Kettle Lakes and Ponds
3 - Extinction, Early Humans, and Stabilization
4 - Natives and the lake-Forest Ecosystem
5 - Fur Trade, Northwest Passage, and Source of the Mississippi
6 - Kettles and Early America
7 – Family Lake Culture
8 – How Lakes Work
9 – Habitats, Flora and Fauna
10 – Loving Lakes too Much
11 – Lake Futures

Leaves like this are actually part of the lake system because they decompose back into organic molecules, especially carbon. That which is not taken up to feed new leaves or thicken the mulch moves into groundwater, streams, and lakes. The walleye you catch is in part, recycled leaves.

In sequence, readers will encounter the making of continents, the spread of glacier ice, sandy glacial sinkholes from the meltdown process, fossil bones from shaggy ice-age creatures, artifacts left by pre-Algonquin foragers as if footprints in the northern lake-forest ecosytem, journals of the voyageurs, the 19th century rise of American literature, the emergence of a 20th century recreational “lake culture,” a background knowledge of lake science and aquatic habitats, the environmental damage wrought by exploitation and indifference to this important water resource, and plans for the future.

Library Journal: The author “provides a complete natural and cultural history of kettle lakes, which are remnants of the Ice Age scattered along the path of retreating glaciers from Maine to Montana.

Beyond Walden: “The good news is that part of the EPA, albeit a tiny fraction, is working hard to assess small lakes nationally, and that the states are being involved to the maximum extent possible. The bad news is tht no more than one our of every five thousand kettles will receive any attention at all.” [page 21]