Notes From The North Country

A year-long diary of observations of the seasonal changes in Eustis's northern Michigan home.

A remarkably fresh piece of Dylan scholarship, focusing on the profound impact that his Midwestern roots have had on his songs, politics, and prophetic character.

“The idea is inspired and the treatment piercingly beautiful . . . Two formidable artists have shown respect for the integrity of each other’s work here and the result is magnificent.” —Independent “Bob Dylan’s back catalogue is used to glorious effect in Conor McPherson’s astonishing cross-section of hope and stoic suffering . . . It is the constant dialogue between the drama and the songs that makes this show exceptional.” —Guardian “Beguiling and soulful and quietly, exquisitely, heartbreaking. A very special piece of theatre.” —Evening Standard “A populous, otherworldly play that combines the hard grit of the Great Depression with something numinous and mysterious.” —Telegraph Duluth, Minnesota. 1934. A community living on a knife-edge. Lost and lonely people huddle together in the local guesthouse. The owner, Nick, owes more money than he can ever repay, his wife Elizabeth is losing her mind, and their daughter Marianne is carrying a child no one will account for. So when a preacher selling bibles and a boxer looking for a comeback turn up in the middle of the night, things spiral beyond the point of no return . . . In Girl from the North Country, Conor McPherson beautifully weaves the iconic songbook of Bob Dylan into a show full of hope, heartbreak and soul. It premiered at the Old Vic, London, in July 2017, in a production directed by the author. Conor McPherson is an award-winning Irish playwright. His best-known works include The Weir (Royal Court; winner of the 1999 Olivier Award for Best New Play), Dublin Carol (Atlantic Theater Company) and The Seafarer (National Theatre). Bob Dylan, born in Duluth, Minnesota, in 1941, is one of the most important songwriters of our time. Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016. He released his thirty-ninth studio album, Triplicate, in April 2017, and continues to tour worldwide.

In celebration of his first half century of life, Mosher set off on a journey, following America's northern border from coast to coast, to discover a harsh and beautiful region populated by some of the continent's most self-sufficient, independent-minded men and women.

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In 1862, four years after Minnesota was ratified as the thirty-second state in the Union, simmering tensions between indigenous Dakota and white settlers culminated in the violent, six-week-long U.S.-Dakota War. Hundreds of lives were lost on both sides, and the war ended with the execution of thirty-eight Dakotas on December 26, 1862, in Mankato, Minnesota--the largest mass execution in American history. The following April, after suffering a long internment at Fort Snelling, the Dakota and Winnebago peoples were forcefully removed to South Dakota, precipitating the near destruction of the area's native communities while simultaneously laying the foundation for what we know and recognize today as Minnesota. In North Country: The Making of Minnesota, Mary Lethert Wingerd unlocks the complex origins of the state--origins that have often been ignored in favor of legend and a far more benign narrative of immigration, settlement, and cultural exchange. Moving from the earliest years of contact between Europeans and the indigenous peoples of the western Great Lakes region to the era of French and British influence during the fur trade and beyond, Wingerd charts how for two centuries prior to official statehood Native people and Europeans in the region maintained a hesitant, largely cobeneficial relationship. Founded on intermarriage, kinship, and trade between the two parties, this racially hybridized society was a meeting point for cultural and economic exchange until the western expansion of American capitalism and violation of treaties by the U.S. government during the 1850s wore sharply at this tremulous bond, ultimately leading to what Wingerd calls Minnesota's Civil War. A cornerstone text in the chronicle of Minnesota's history, Wingerd's narrative is augmented by more than 170 illustrations chosen and described by Kirsten Delegard in comprehensive captions that depict the fascinating, often haunting representations of the region and its inhabitants over two and a half centuries. North Country is the unflinching account of how the land the Dakota named Mini Sota Makoce became the State of Minnesota and of the people who have called it, at one time or another, home.

“A richly observant memoir of a coast-to-coast journey along the US-Canada border . . . An armchair traveler’s delight” (Kirkus Reviews). “Part travelogue, part memoir, part meditation, part exploration,” North Country is an account of a trip along the northern border of the United States in search of the country’s last unspoiled frontiers (The Boston Sunday Globe). In this vast, sparsely settled territory, Howard Frank Mosher found both a harsh and beautiful landscape and some of the continent’s most independent men and women. Here, he brings this remote area to vivid life in a book “bright with anecdote and history and lore and most importantly with affection for his human subjects” (Richard Ford, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Independence Day). “A classic road book. You could, with confidence, place this book on the shelf next to such American classics as John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley and Jonathan Raban’s Old Glory.” —Detroit Free Press “What Mosher’s northern journey is really about is our society’s loss of Eden, the garden we were promised when we came here. The garden we’ve turned into pulp fiction and rocket ranges. The very fact that this brave book can stir up so many thoughts about the predicaments of civilization is surely an indication that it is well worth reading.” —Ottawa Citizen

Rhyming verse and illustrations describe the arrival of spring in the north. Includes section with facts about animal behavior.