The Whole Forest for a Backyard: A Gunflint Trail Wilderness Memoir. It is mostly about his growing up years in the 1950s and 1960s at the resort his parents owned 32 miles into the boreal forest from the town of Grand Marais, Minnesota. The book reflects the perspective of a small, free-range boy with a large imagination reared in one of our nation's most cherished wilderness areas. It also reflects fully the bearing this wilderness has had since that boy has grown. Far more than a sentimental journey into the past, this memoir is a story of triumphs, tragedies, and transitions, which reveals in full the cathartic powers of nature. The lessons presented are all the more relevant today. Our need to reconnect with the wild has never been greater.