The Big Water - by Thomas A Buhr (Paperback)

About the Book

The Big Water tells the epic story of the Au Sable, the crown jewel of Michigan waterways, from the First Peoples to the PFAS Crisis.

Book Synopsis

As one of the country's most popular recreational streams - with an international reputation for fly fishing - the Au Sable River is a crown jewel of Michigan waterways. However, underneath its surface lies a history of controversy and conflict. For twelve thousand years, its sylvan banks and clear waters have attracted everyone from the First People of North America to European explorers and American settlers. They came to trap, lumber, hunt, fish, canoe, and lately, to conserve.

The Big Water: A History of Michigan's Lower Au Sable River is an up-to-date, comprehensive, and unified account of the region's history, from pre-European times through French and English exploitation, American Manifest Destiny, resource extraction and redemption, the rise of outdoor recreation, and the legacy of pollution from modernization. The Big Water is a tale of the Wild West ways of early industrialization that flows hopefully towards a future where we try to live in harmony with wild places.

Review Quotes

Tom Buhr's The Big Water is the epitome of what René Decartes meant when he said that in reading history we live with men of an earlier age as if we are traveling in foreign lands. Once I waded in, I kept wading all the way.

The Big Water is the product of prodigious research, incisive analysis, and a storyteller's on-spot ear for a good tale. One of the book's many strengths is how the author ties local history to larger state, national, and international events and movements beyond the Lower Au Sable. This book will be read for a long time by all who love the Au Sable in all of its personalities, and by those who love history, especially the many jewels that comprise the collective natural treasure of our glorious state. -Joseph Heywood, author of The Snowfly, Covered Waters: Tempests of A Nomadic Trouter, The Berkut, and the Grady Service Woods Cop mystery series

The Big Water, by Thomas Buhr, is a deeply felt narrative of the history of a particular stretch of the Au Sable river, fed by the "holy waters." It is at once a flowing ride through its indigenous history up through and into the recent past, as well as a record of those who have been loving stewards of the river, and those who have not. Read these beautiful chapters and come to know this big water more intimately, and know you are getting a spectacular view told from the grassroots and from the "grasstops." This book is a living reminder that rivers are the blood of our landscape. -Michael Delp, author of The Mad Angler Poems, and co-editor emeritus of the Made in Michigan book series from Wayne State University Press