North Country: Essays on the Upper Midwest and Regional Identity

Travel north from the upper Midwest’s metropolises, and before long you’re “Up North”—a region that’s hard to define but unmistakable to any resident or tourist. Crops give way to forests, mines (or their remains) mark the landscape, and lakes multiply, becoming ever clearer until you reach the vastness of the Great Lakes. How to characterize this region, as distinct from the agrarian Midwest, is the question North Country seeks to answer, as a congenial group of scholars, journalists, and public intellectuals explores the distinctive landscape, culture, and history that define the northern margins of the American Midwest.

Paperback. 248 pages. 2023, University of Oklahoma Press. Edited by Jon K. Lauck and Gleaves Whitney, featuring an essay by Ray E. Boomhower.