The Land of the Crooked Tree

In 1874, the Hedrick family arrived in L 'Arbre croche or "crooked tree," as the Jesuit missionaries had called it one hundred and fifty years earlier. The wilderness of Little Traverse Bay had just been opened for homesteading, and the Hedricks joined a dozen other white families in the trading post of Little Traverse, situated in virgin forest. From the age of four until he left the area at eighteen, U. P. Hedrick saw the shabby trading post rum into the tidy village of Harbor Springs. In those years, mechanized logging replaced the homesteader's crosscut saw; the passenger pigeon disappeared; and the railroad arrived. Hedrick writes of his youth and shows himself to be a sharp and often witty observer of the little details of domestic life on the Michigan frontier. He expounds on cooking whitefish and blackberry rolypoly, on the farmer's "arsenal of axes," on pigs and their parts-both edible and useful, on wild and cultivated fruits, on trees, on kettles, and on Indians of the area. Lovers of Michigan's woods and fields, lakes and rivers; professional historians; and storytellers will find themselves delighted by Hedrick's account. The Land of the Crooked Tree is a Great Lakes Books reprint.