Boundary Waters

by Greg Breining

Wild, spectacular country has the power to evoke images, stir memories, rouse emotions, and inspire awe. This quality is what distinguishes a region such as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, a land that, in the words of writer Greg Breining, "seems to conceal a ghost in every cliff and churning brook." ... In their book Boundary Waters, Breining and photographer Jerry Stebbins use words and color photography to re-create their own visions of this wilderness. It is a world of sights, sounds, sensations, and emotions - of "faint wolf howls on a frosty night; the pale, elusive lights of the aurora borealis; the warm yellow and brown of grasses and forest; and the brilliant white of birches as sunlight tears away thunderheads after a spring rain." Stebbins 83 photographs, compiled over a year's time, depict the Boundary Waters in its many aspects and in its seasonal changes - from low marshlands to rocky cliffs, and from the frozen whiteness of winter to the languid summer months