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Saving Arcadia

A Story of Conservation and Community in the Great Lakes

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

A David and Goliath conservation story set on Lake Michigan.

Saving Arcadia: A Story of Conservation and Community in the Great Lakes is a suspenseful and intimate land conservation adventure story set in the Great Lakes heartland. The story spans more than forty years, following the fate of a magnificent sand dune on Lake Michigan and the people who care about it. Author and narrator Heather Shumaker shares the remarkable untold stories behind protecting land and creating new nature preserves. Written in a compelling narrative style, the book is intended in part as a case study for landscape-level conservation and documents the challenges of integrating economic livelihoods into conservation and what it really means to "preserve" land over time.

This is the story of a small band of determined townspeople and how far they went to save beloved land and endangered species from the grip of a powerful corporation. Saving Arcadia is a narrative with roots as deep as the trees the community is trying to save, something set in motion before the author was even born. And yet, Shumaker gives a human face to the changing nature of land conservation in the twenty-first century. Throughout this chronicle we meet people like Elaine, a nineteen-year-old farm wife; Dori, a lakeside innkeeper; and Glen, the director of the local land trust. Together with hundreds of others they cross cultural barriers and learn to help one another in an effort to win back the six-thousand-acre landscape taken over by Consumers Power that is now facing grave devastation. The result is a triumph of community that includes working farms, local businesses, summer visitors, year-round residents, and a network of land stewards.

A work of creative nonfiction, Saving Arcadia is the adventurous tale of everyday people fighting to reclaim the land that has been in their family for generations. It explores ideas about nature and community, and anyone from scholars of ecology and conservation biology to readers of naturalist writing can gain from Arcadia's story. Winner of the Eric Hoffer Book Award; The Next Generation Indie Book Award; and the Michigan Notable Book Award.

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    • Booklist

      Starred review from March 15, 2017
      When Shumaker (It's OK to Go Up the Slide, 2016) took a job with the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy in 1998, she joined a small staff that undertook the daunting challenge of saving Arcadia, a 6,000-acre area of sand dunes, forest, and farmland in western Michigan. Consumers Power Company had bought the land in 1969, intending it to be used for a pumped storage power plant, but the plant never materialized. Trying to buy back the land required untold hours of researching, planning, and negotiating with Consumers. It also required educating the public about what was at stake while asking people to pledge the land's multimillion-dollar purchase price. Many people thought the project was worthwhile, but getting to the goal in one summer seemed impossible. Countless people helped to make the project a success, and Shumaker deftly recounts the setbacks and intricate legal struggles, as the conservancy finally prevailed in 2003. Many readers will identify with the deep feelings stirred up by changes threatening geographic areas of personal significance and be inspired by Shumaker's chronicle. Formidably and accessibly tackling a very complex story, this will appeal to people who love wild places and want to see them preserved.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

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Languages

  • English

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