{"product_id":"0773729712-great_lakes","title":"Great Lakes","description":"\n\u003cp\u003eDust jacket notes: \"Those of us who live beside the great lakes accept their magnitude with scarcely a passing thought,\" Pierre Berton writes. \"We have long grown used to them and are not awed by their size or terrified by their power.\" Awe and terror are only two of the themes in Berton's narrative and Andre Gallant's brilliant photographs. In this second collaboration - a companion volume to their best-selling WINTER - Gallant's camera explores the five inland seas in all their variety while Berton's lively prose ranges from the ice ages that created the lakes to his lyrical tribute to Point Pelee, the birder's paradise on Lake Erie. When the first Europeans saw them, one hundred thousand aborigines occupied these shores. The general population now nudges thirty-five million. So the story of the lakes is also about all kinds of invading species and the destruction and pollution of the natural environment. Here are animated accounts of the mindless savaging of the vast white pine forest that once encircled these waters, of the great mining rushes that unlocked the treasures hidden in the rocks, of the colourful days of the fur trade and sailing ships. Berton's tales include the bloody Battle of Lake Erie, killer storms and tragic shipwrecks, and the evolution of canals from the Erie to the Seaway. He compares the waterfronts of Chicago and Toronto while Andre Gallant's camera captures three of the national parks inspired by the postwar camping craze. Paintings, engravings and archival photographs present the lively past. Here is one-fifth of the world's fresh water - enough to cover most of Western Europe. What would North America be like if the Great Lakes had never come to be? One possibility, Berton suggests, is that there would only be one country.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eCategories:\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cul class=\"category-tree\"\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eHistory\u003cul class=\"category-tree\"\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eUnited States\u003cul class=\"category-tree\"\u003e\u003cli class=\"category-tree\"\u003eState \u0026amp; Local\u003c\/li\u003e\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\n","brand":"Stoddart Pub","offers":[{"title":"Used - Good","offer_id":48780002623678,"sku":"0773729712-4","price":32.24,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0640\/9689\/5166\/files\/81YoC91FM-L.jpg?v=1787541489","url":"https:\/\/shop.sustainablebooks.com\/products\/0773729712-great_lakes","provider":"Sustainable Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}