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On an Inland Sea <\/em>transcends the genre of nature writing, but it\u2019s undeniably full of evocative descriptions of the great outdoors. Callen Harty captures the \u201cspiritually elevating, mystical and magical\u201d experience of visiting Lake Superior\u2019s Apostle Islands ice caves in his essay, \u201cOn Thinning Ice.\u201d Other authors describe a host of sensory details: the bodily shock of plunging into a frigid Lake Michigan (\u201cWater Kisses,\u201d Santiago Barraza Lopez); the gritty traces of the beach carried home after long summer days (\u201cSand,\u201d Joan Donaldson); the taste, smell, and texture of fried walleye freshly caught from Lake Huron in Michigan\u2019s \u201cThumb\u201d region (\u201cRituals and Revelations at Days on the Lake Bar and Grill,\u201d Sarah Pazur). The ghostly confluence of the manmade and natural worlds haunts \u201cPrins Willem V,\u201d Benjamin Madeska\u2019s account of diving to explore one of Lake Michigan\u2019s numerous shipwrecks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As I would hope to find in a collection of creative nonfiction, many contributors go beyond beautiful physical descriptions to contemplate the deeper significance of these places in their own lives and for the communities who inhabit them. In \u201cThe Queen of Sherwin Avenue,\u201d Kathleen Rooney writes, \u201cPlace is a space that resonates with meaning. Spaces become places when humans create social connections to and within them.\u201d Meaningful connections tied to particular places run throughout this collection, especially in the more memoir-style pieces, which relate memories such as summer romances, friends lost too young, and the birth of a first child. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For Shea S. Davis, childhood memories of family reunions at Lake Huron echo during lakeside walks in Chicago, where she moved as an adult in search of \u201ca new life that involved community with other Black and queer people\u201d (\u201cA Siren\u2019s Song: Melancholic Beats of the Midwest\u201d). As she contemplates the sense of belonging she felt at the lake as a young child and the loneliness she later experienced among her family and peers, Davis connects her own story to Black Trans elders such as Jackie Shane, a pioneering soul\/R&B singer who similarly \u201chad to leave to find a place where her voice was loved.\u201d Davis writes, \u201cI felt like an imposter there [back home] for so long, and I held my breath waiting for someone to tell me I wasn\u2019t, and I heard my ancestors speak. I returned to the water to find them and found my roots were already planted.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Staci Lola Drouillard, who is a direct descendant of the Grand Portage Band of Ojibwe, highlights Indigenous traditions of rice harvesting in \u201cThe Gift of Manoomin.\u201d A process \u201cmore like a ceremony than an agricultural harvest,\u201d manoomin harvesting techniques have been passed down by her people for thousands of years, with current practitioners including Drouillard\u2019s cousin, Sue Zimmerman. \u201cUntil you have experienced how difficult the process is, you can never understand why every single grain that makes it onto your plate is a precious gift that connects people to the land,\u201d Drouillard writes. This gift is not only precious but also precarious, with many wild rice waters currently facing threats from industrialization and climate change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Haudenosaunee poet Kenzie Allen, a first-generation descendant of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, reflects on her ancestors\u2019 journey across the Great Lakes region in the collection\u2019s closing poem, \u201cIn Our Long Walk, My People Came on Ships.\u201d The Oneidas served as key allies of George Washington\u2019s colonial army during the American Revolution, but in the following decades, New York State illegally annexed much of their territory, prompting many to migrate to northeastern Wisconsin in the 1820s. (For more on this history, see Douglas Metoxen Kiel\u2019s forthcoming book, Unsettling Territory: The Resurgence of the Oneida Nation in the Face of Settler Backlash<\/em><\/a>.) Evoking their first approach toward \u201cMillioke<\/em>1<\/a><\/sup>, the good land,\u201d Allen writes, \u201cThe water \/ welcome, welcoming. \/ The shoreline already \/ harboring light. \/ No tear trails, \/ but a ship sailed toward a horizon \/ so distant, and so dear.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to these thoughtful reflections on place and home, several contributors focus on themes of embodiment, drawing parallels between great bodies of water and the experience of living in a human body. In \u201cBallast,\u201d Jessica Leigh Hester compares the ubiquitous species of zebra mussels to the tumor that doctors discovered on her pituitary gland in her 20s\u2014two ecosystem-altering entities that can\u2019t be eradicated but only managed with a flexible, resilient approach. Martha Lundin contemplates Lake Superior\u2019s near-total freeze in 2014 and their own complicated relationship to breast-binding (\u201cThe Bound Body\u201d), while Kristin Idaszak sees similarities between her chronic illness and the Great Lakes\u2019 vulnerability to climate change (\u201cchicago has a great lake\u201d). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Although climate change is a common theme, it isn\u2019t the only threat to the Great Lakes region that looms in this collection. Joan Donaldson (\u201cSand\u201d) highlights the ongoing fight to preserve Michigan\u2019s Saugatuck Dunes from a billionaire\u2019s plans to build a gated resort. Looking back at the region\u2019s history, she recounts how deforestation and sand erosion caused by the logging industry literally buried the sawmill town of Singapore, Michigan in the 1800s. She cautions, \u201cNineteenth-century avarice destroyed an ecosystem.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n In \u201cLittle Bloody Run,\u201d Laura Marris recalls the decades-long toxic chemical pollution discovered in 1977 in the Niagara border region of Western New York, noting that \u201cNo one fully knows, now, where all the chemicals are.\u201d Lisa John Rogers outlines an urgent issue of environmental injustice in \u201cHeat Islands in the Great Lakes: The Human Health Cost,\u201d and Sara Maurer wonders what will become of the \u201ccold, hard heritage\u201d that residents of Michigan\u2019s Upper Peninsula hold so proudly in \u201cWhat Are Yoopers Without Winter?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n On an Inland Sea<\/em> significantly expanded my own knowledge of the region where I\u2019ve spent most of my life. Growing up in northwest Illinois, my first encounters with a Great Lake were on family vacations to Washington Island, Wisconsin, a 23-square-mile island off the tip of the Door County peninsula. Though the location is idyllic in many ways, the power of Lake Michigan instilled in me an awed fascination, mixed with a healthy fear, as ocean-worthy waves pounded the limestone shores of Schoolhouse Beach when the northerly winds hit just right. Reaching the island by ferry, now a generally safe journey, requires traveling over a stretch of water ominously called \u201cDeath\u2019s Door\u201d for the many historical vessels that sank in its currents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n During most of my adult years in Chicago, I\u2019ve been lucky enough to live within walking distance of Lake Michigan, and I still feel a thrill when high winds whip up angry waves or massive ice floes form overnight during a sudden chill. But mostly, I associate the lake with a sense of peace. Like many Chicagoans, daily walks along the lakeshore offered solace during the most isolating months of the pandemic, and it\u2019s still my favorite place to walk with an audiobook or let my mind wander as I gaze into the blue-green depths. Even as I write these words, the weather is unseasonably warm, and the lake beckons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n About the author:<\/strong>\u00a0Emily McClanathan is a freelance arts journalist and critic based in Chicago, primarily covering theater, books, and music. Her work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Magazine, Chicago Reader, American Theatre, Playbill, INTO, and more.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n About the illustrator: <\/strong>Julia O\u2019Brien was born and raised in Colorado before earning her Bachelor of Fine Arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work explores how the body can hold histories and tell stories as the boundary between internal and external identity. She describes herself as an image maker and a storyteller who loves learning new skills and hearing silenced voices. @pepperplease612<\/a> Website<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A reflection on the vastness of The Great Lakes through poems, essays, and personal stories set in Belt Publishing’s newest anthology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":74353,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"[{\"content\":\"\u00a0An Algonquin word commonly recognized as a root word for \u201cMilwaukee\u201d\",\"id\":\"bd263a5d-e73e-43dc-953b-4c96d0533490\"}]"},"categories":[9428,3750],"tags":[3459,3607],"byline":[9544],"class_list":["post-74207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book","category-essays-reviews","tag-review","tag-writers","byline-emily-mcclanathan"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/sixtyinchesfromcenter.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Lake-Michigan_Loyola-Beach-1024x768.jpeg\")
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