The Accidental Reef and Other Ecological Odysseys in the Great Lakes
by Lynne Heasley
Michigan State University Press, 2022 Paper: 978-1-61186-407-6 | eISBN: 978-1-62895-449-4 Library of Congress Classification QH104.5.G7H44 2021 Dewey Decimal Classification 577.78909
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK 2022 NAUTILUS SILVER WINNER FOR LYRIC PROSE—In The Accidental Reef and Other Ecological Odysseys in the Great Lakes, Lynne Heasley illuminates an underwater world that, despite a ferocious industrial history, remains wondrous and worthy of care. From its first scene in a benighted Great Lakes river, where lake sturgeon thrash and spawn, this powerful book takes readers on journeys through the Great Lakes, alongside fish and fishers, scuba divers and scientists, toxic pollutants and threatened communities, oil pipelines and invasive species, Indigenous peoples and federal agencies. With dazzling illustrations from Glenn Wolff, the book helps us know the Great Lakes in new ways and grapple with the legacies and alternative futures that come from their abundance of natural wealth. Suffused with curiosity, empathy, and wit, The Accidental Reef will not fail to astonish and inspire.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY LYNNE HEASLEY is professor in the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at Western Michigan University, in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She is the author of A Thousand Pieces of Paradise: Landscape and Property in the Kickapoo Valley and coeditor of Border Flows: A Century of the Canadian-American Water Relationship.
REVIEWS
Magnificent. Beautifully illustrated and written. Lynne Heasley’s essays branch out to past and present, to the complex Great Lakes environmental web that binds the creatures of the water and we humans together. Her writing style is both soundly science based and also brilliantly literary. It’s a pleasure to be in the presence of a mind that can so adeptly traverse science and history while also maintaining an erudite style and adroit essay structure that keeps my attention. Plus, it’s a big statement about Michigan water intelligence.
—Anne-Marie Ooman, author of As Long as I Know You: The Mom Book, 2021 winner of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs Sue William Silverman Prize for Creative Nonfiction
In The Accidental Reef, Lynne Heasley has done something extraordinary: she has woven together threads from fisheries ecology, environmental humanities, and literary nonfiction into a multifaceted tapestry illuminating the Great Lakes. Heasley explores the ways that biological dramas collide with ecological, historical, and cultural transformations. Her arguments are intelligent, surprising, and provocative, and her writing is lyrical, offering us new insights on the watery creatures that make their homes in the Great Lakes.
—Nancy Langston, distinguished professor of environmental history, Michigan Technological University, and author of Climate Ghosts: Migratory Species in the Anthropocene
Science and art are human attempts to understand and describe the world around us. In The Accidental Reef, Lynne Heasley has used science, history, and literary arts to create a sense of wonder for an obscure reef in the St. Clair River and the Great Lakes. Heasley leads a reader to see, know, and understand these freshwater seas from different perspectives—ones that are essential to developing a stewardship ethic.
—John H. Hartig, visiting scholar, Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research, University of Windsor, and author of Waterfront Porch: Reclaiming Detroit's Industrial Waterfront as a Gathering Place for All
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Foreword, by Jerry Dennis
Preface
Part I. Freshwater Reef: A World Below and Beyond
At the Reef
Underwater Rashomon
Feast and Famine
On Naming and Knowing
Part II. On Seeing and Knowing: An Underwater Biography
Bad Diver
Waters That Bind
An Interview about Seeing
River People
Power in the Visual
A Not-So-Objective Introduction to the Fish Consumption Advisory
Rooted in Sustainability
A Dazzling Discovery
Currents
(Seeing + Knowing) × Time = Hope?
Part III. The Paradox of Abundance: Or, Problems of Scale
Negotiating Abundance and Scarcity, with Daniel Macfarlane
Water, Oil, and Fish, with Daniel Macfarlane
Salt Mines and Iron Ranges (An Extraction Index)
The Paradox of Abundance
The Accidental Reef
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
The Accidental Reef and Other Ecological Odysseys in the Great Lakes
by Lynne Heasley
Michigan State University Press, 2022 Paper: 978-1-61186-407-6 eISBN: 978-1-62895-449-4
2022 NAUTILUS SILVER WINNER FOR LYRIC PROSE—In The Accidental Reef and Other Ecological Odysseys in the Great Lakes, Lynne Heasley illuminates an underwater world that, despite a ferocious industrial history, remains wondrous and worthy of care. From its first scene in a benighted Great Lakes river, where lake sturgeon thrash and spawn, this powerful book takes readers on journeys through the Great Lakes, alongside fish and fishers, scuba divers and scientists, toxic pollutants and threatened communities, oil pipelines and invasive species, Indigenous peoples and federal agencies. With dazzling illustrations from Glenn Wolff, the book helps us know the Great Lakes in new ways and grapple with the legacies and alternative futures that come from their abundance of natural wealth. Suffused with curiosity, empathy, and wit, The Accidental Reef will not fail to astonish and inspire.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY LYNNE HEASLEY is professor in the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at Western Michigan University, in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She is the author of A Thousand Pieces of Paradise: Landscape and Property in the Kickapoo Valley and coeditor of Border Flows: A Century of the Canadian-American Water Relationship.
REVIEWS
Magnificent. Beautifully illustrated and written. Lynne Heasley’s essays branch out to past and present, to the complex Great Lakes environmental web that binds the creatures of the water and we humans together. Her writing style is both soundly science based and also brilliantly literary. It’s a pleasure to be in the presence of a mind that can so adeptly traverse science and history while also maintaining an erudite style and adroit essay structure that keeps my attention. Plus, it’s a big statement about Michigan water intelligence.
—Anne-Marie Ooman, author of As Long as I Know You: The Mom Book, 2021 winner of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs Sue William Silverman Prize for Creative Nonfiction
In The Accidental Reef, Lynne Heasley has done something extraordinary: she has woven together threads from fisheries ecology, environmental humanities, and literary nonfiction into a multifaceted tapestry illuminating the Great Lakes. Heasley explores the ways that biological dramas collide with ecological, historical, and cultural transformations. Her arguments are intelligent, surprising, and provocative, and her writing is lyrical, offering us new insights on the watery creatures that make their homes in the Great Lakes.
—Nancy Langston, distinguished professor of environmental history, Michigan Technological University, and author of Climate Ghosts: Migratory Species in the Anthropocene
Science and art are human attempts to understand and describe the world around us. In The Accidental Reef, Lynne Heasley has used science, history, and literary arts to create a sense of wonder for an obscure reef in the St. Clair River and the Great Lakes. Heasley leads a reader to see, know, and understand these freshwater seas from different perspectives—ones that are essential to developing a stewardship ethic.
—John H. Hartig, visiting scholar, Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research, University of Windsor, and author of Waterfront Porch: Reclaiming Detroit's Industrial Waterfront as a Gathering Place for All
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Foreword, by Jerry Dennis
Preface
Part I. Freshwater Reef: A World Below and Beyond
At the Reef
Underwater Rashomon
Feast and Famine
On Naming and Knowing
Part II. On Seeing and Knowing: An Underwater Biography
Bad Diver
Waters That Bind
An Interview about Seeing
River People
Power in the Visual
A Not-So-Objective Introduction to the Fish Consumption Advisory
Rooted in Sustainability
A Dazzling Discovery
Currents
(Seeing + Knowing) × Time = Hope?
Part III. The Paradox of Abundance: Or, Problems of Scale
Negotiating Abundance and Scarcity, with Daniel Macfarlane
Water, Oil, and Fish, with Daniel Macfarlane
Salt Mines and Iron Ranges (An Extraction Index)
The Paradox of Abundance
The Accidental Reef
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE