One Winter Up North

A picture-book journey through the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in winter, snowshoeing the frozen lakes and silent forest with family, encountering the wonders of northern wildlife in the cold season


In winter the Boundary Waters, way up north in Minnesota, is not the same place you canoed last summer-but still it beckons and welcomes you. Grab a pack, strap on snowshoes, make a path (Oh! they take some getting used to!), and venture out across the frozen lakes and through the snowy woods. The vast wintery world here is so still and quiet, you might think you're all alone-but no! Who made these tracks? A deer? A hare? A fox? And far off there's a musher, making tracks with his sled dogs.

It's a magical place. The bright sun brilliant on the snow, the sparkling silence-wait, is that a wolf calling? Try to answer! And when the dark descends, the stars and pine trees holding up the night, your nose gets cold and it's back to camp, to your warm winter tent, where Father feeds the stove with wood you gathered, Mother snuggles into her big sleeping bag, and you curl up in the fire's glow and know that in your dreams and memories you will return again and again to this one winter up north.

A wintery adventure that unfolds in pictures, John Owens's delightful book gives readers a chance to discover-or rediscover-another season full of wonder in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.