Audiobook9 hours
Northland: A 4,000-Mile Journey Along America's Forgotten Border
Written by Porter Fox
Narrated by Jonathan Yen
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
()
About this audiobook
America's northern border is the world's longest international boundary, yet it remains obscure even to Americans. Travel writer Porter Fox spent two years exploring its length by canoe, freighter, and car-and in Northland, he delivers the little-known history of the region and a riveting account of his travels. Fox follows explorer Samuel de Champlain's adventures; recounts the rise and fall of the iron, wheat, and timber industries; crosses the Great Lakes on a freighter; and tracks America's fur traders through the Boundary Waters. Northland is full of colorful characters (railroad tycoon James J. Hill, Chief Red Cloud of the Lakota Sioux, Captain Meriwether Lewis) and extraordinary landscapes (Glacier National Park, the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, Montana's Medicine Line country). Throughout, Fox weaves in his encounters with residents, border guards, Indian activists, and militia leaders to give a dynamic portrait of the northland wracked by climate change, water wars, and heightened border security.
Related to Northland
Related audiobooks
The Living Great Lakes: Searching for the Heart of the Inland Seas Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Longest Road: Overland in Search of America, from Key West to the Arctic Ocean Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5That Wild Country: An Epic Journey through the Past, Present, and Future of America's Public Lands Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Good Rain: Across Time and Terrain in the Pacific Northwest Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lasso the Wind: Away to the New West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Aloha Rodeo: Three Hawaiian Cowboys, the World's Greatest Rodeo, and a Hidden History of the American West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Pine Barrens Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRiver Horse: A Voyage Across America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Man Who Walked Through Time: The Story of the First Trip Afoot Through the Grand Canyon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leave It As It Is: A Journey Through Theodore Roosevelt's American Wilderness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Becoming Odyssa: Adventures on the Appalachian Trail Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Chesapeake Requiem: A Year with the Watermen of Vanishing Tangier Island Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Walking to Listen: 4,000 Miles Across America, One Story at a Time Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Walden on Wheels: On the Open Road from Debt to Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Thousand-Miler: Adventures Hiking the Ice Age Trail Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5One Man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5AWOL on the Appalachian Trail Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Travels in Alaska Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Biking Across America: My Coast-to-Coast Adventure and the People I Met Along the Way Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Open Road: A Midlife Memoir of Travel Through the National Parks Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Take a Hike!: A Long Walk on the Appalachian Trail Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The World's Worst Backpacker Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rough Beauty: Forty Seasons of Mountain Living Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Passage to Juneau: A Sea and Its Meanings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hiking Through: One Man's Journey to Peace and Freedom on the Appalachian Trail Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All the Wild That Remains: Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner, and the American West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Thirst: 2600 Miles to Home Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube: Chasing Fear and Finding Home in the Great White North Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
United States History For You
Killing the Witches: The Horror of Salem, Massachusetts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the Guys Who Killed the Guy Who Killed Lincoln: A Nutty Story About Edwin Booth and Boston Corbett Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51776 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Land of Delusion: Out on the edge with the crackpots and conspiracy-mongers remaking our shared reality Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Book of Charlie Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of September 11, 2001 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5John Adams Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dragonfire: Four Days That (Almost) Changed America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Valiant Women: The Extraordinary American Servicewomen Who Helped Win World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cuba (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize): An American History Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5UFO: The Inside Story of the US Government's Search for Alien Life Here—and Out There Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The House of Hidden Meanings: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Letter from Birmingham Jail Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ghosts of Honolulu: A Japanese Spy, A Japanese American Spy Hunter, and the Untold Story of Pearl Harbor Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Sullivanians: Sex, Psychotherapy, and the Wild Life of an American Commune Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Untold History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lies My Teacher Told Me: 2nd Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lafayette in the Somewhat United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Northland
Rating: 3.6969695757575756 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
33 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Interesting mix of travelogue and history of the border between the US and Canada. The author captures the beauty of the mountains, forest and lakes and the people who inhabit the wilderness. I really enjoyed it.
Good narration. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Continuing with my recent theme of travel books, this is by a travel writer who decided to travel across the northern boundary of the US, from Maine to Washington. Along the way, he tells about his travels--from kayaking in Maine to riding a freight ship across the Great Lakes to passing through Standing Rock in North Dakota--and also surveys the history of colonial settlement and the Native Americans in the northern regions of the US.I actually was surprised by how much this book worked for me. The beginning felt a little disjointed with the switching back-and-forth between Fox's trip and the history of European voyages of exploration, but especially as the book went on it seemed that the two strands wove together better. I also definitely learned a lot about the northlands, but it never felt overwhelming.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Northland is the border with Canada and the second longest border in the world. The author travels by car and boat from Maine to Washington. It is a travelogue, but also includes a fair amount of history which is unfortunate because that part is not very good, like filler. The author Porter Fox is from Maine and a competent writer in the NYC scene, in his 30s. It wasn't really an adventure of serendipitous discovery, more like a self-imposed writing assignment with prearranged itineraries and meet-ups, on the journalistic side. It's a decent book to learn more about the border region. The culture of northern Maine has spread westward to the Great Plains. Some of the most remote and wild parts of the US are along the border - because few go there. Borders are contested lands at the edge, travelers quickly pass through ports on the way to somewhere else, the result is a long ribbon of undisturbed areas between ports. I was particularly impressed by the Boundary Waters area in Minnesota. Once Fox gets to the Dakotas and Montanna, the entire states are included as part of the Northlands, which stretches the concept thin and challenges the very idea of a contiguous Northland.