Maplewood Cottage Home-Lessons

• Apr. 21, 2008 - North To Iron Country

Lina pretends she's in a sled! winter 2008 North To Iron Country by Janie Lynn Panagopoulos provided a great look into the era of mining in Minnesota,Wisconsin, Upper  Michigan and Upstate New York. The book focused on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan... a boy and his father ( a doctor) learn together of the people and needs of these mining settlements during the mid-1800's. One learns so much about all the ethnicities that were involved in the construction of the Erie Canal and advancement of settling these areas. French, Indian, Swedish and Finnish were prominent. We found this extra interesting as we have friends of Finnish decent from the U.P. and family members that live in Minnesota of Swedish decent. We live in Ohio and thought it interesting the mention of the Toledo War ( Mike and I am from Toledo, Ohio).  Also called "The Bloodless War." It was fought over the boundary between Ohio and Michigan. The narrow strip of land included the town of Toledo. The United States Congress settled the problem by giving the strip to Ohio and the U.P. to Michigan! The exploration of the Great Lakes particularly Lake Superior and Lake Michigan was very educational. The boy is coming of age and learning the much needed medical profession of his father. As assistant to the father  he has to be very brave and help make big decisions. We see he makes good judgments in critical times. He has an adventure learning to journey on sled and manage sled dogs. A great boys book - I read aloud to Luke - there were some words and short sections I skipped over  because  of being less wholesome than we  were comfortable emphasizing. A great addition to our far north studies Sites I found interesting and helpful were: Hunt's Guide december.com rock collecting enthusiasts We also made pasties pastie's pasty Another neat pasty site pasty.com Move over hotpockets there IS something meatier! The girls get a ride from brothers winter of 2008 P.S.This book reminded me of a book I once read called Mrs. Mike. A young lady married a Canadian Mounty and had many adventures and hardships along the way as they served the people of the northern Canada. We'll have to see if we can get a copy of that.

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