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

  • States -- Those who like to travel may want to start with their own state before looking elsewhere. Nineteen states have kettle lakes
  • Interests -- Others may want to begin with an interest area such as politics, archaeology, or environmental science and explore its lake connection.
  • Book -- Readers and educators may want to poke around Beyond Walden from dust jacket cover to the index and read the brief chapter summaries.
  • Lakes -- Or perhaps you either own or rent lakeshore property for summer use, in which case you may want to search for your own.
  • Blog -- Finally, you might want to imagine being on a road trip during the summer of 2009 that led to the blog: Walden to Wobegon: A Freshwater Journey from Maine to Montana.

"Itasca Lake," by Seth Eastman (1808-1875) showing exploration of the Mississippi headwaters at Lake Itasca, Minnesota by the American explorer Henry Rowe Schoolcraft in 1832. The lake had three previous names: Omushkos, La Biche, and Elk, from the Ojibwe nation, French voyageurs, and English trappers. One can hardly discover a lake with three previous names.

Kirkus Reviews: "A “lively chronicle of a hitherto obscure environmental feature.  A rich, exhaustive account of one of America’s threatened ecological jewels."

Beyond Walden: "On November 15, 1620, Captain Myles Standish and a party of sixteen well-armed Pilgrims made t heir first foray deep into the woods of America...becoming the first English setlers to experience the joy of American kettle lakes, which are called ponds in New England." , page 1

February snow at the Connecticut-Rhode Island border reminds us that being frozen is an important part of the lake experience.

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PHOTO BANNER : Red kayak invites geographic exploration of modern-day lake ecosystems and recreational lake culture from one end of the Blue Galaxy to the other. Dried up lakebed of Glacial Lake Agassiz, which disappeared more than 10,000 years ago, invites exploration of prehistory. Channel of Mississippi River near Bemidji, Minnesota invites exploration of American history: this was the downriver path Henry Rowe Schoolcraft paddled in 1832 after christening Lake Itasca with its fourth name.