As the nights turn colder and the days shorten like the line in front of the donut shop – evening spilling over the hilly green forested land like silky dark ink – now is a good time to slow down, sit down, and read a good book.
Gunflint Burning by Cary J. Griffith should fill that need quite nicely.
Griffith is the author of four other nonfiction books including Lost in the Wild: Danger and Survival in the Northwoods; Opening Goliath (winner of a 2010 Minnesota Book Award) and the novels Savage Minnesota and Wolves, which received a Midwest Book Award.
The May 2007 Ham Lake fire scorched 75,551 acres, destroyed 140 homes, cabins and outbuildings, and was estimated to have cost more than $100 million, with $11 million spent fighting the fire that burned for 13 long days and took more than 1,000 firefighters and volunteers to put out.
Five days after the fire was extinguished, May 23, 2007, Griffith traveled to the Gunflint Trail from his Rosemount, Minnesota home and was astonished by the devastation. “I felt really bad for the people,” he said when he stopped by the Cook County News- Herald office on Sunday, Sept. 2.
Still it would be “two or three years later,” that he decided to write Gunflint Burning, a title his wife picked out.
Once he decided to author Gunflint Burning Cary realized he had a lot to learn about putting out a forest fire. “I didn’t know anything about fighting fires. None of the nomenclature, none of the common terms for equipment or planes or phrases used by firefighters.”
The first seven years Cary, who was also working full time, spent interviewing people who fought the fire, assisted those who fought the fire, or talked to those who lost cabins or homes. This includes a long list of conversations between resort owners, Forest Service workers, law enforcement, volunteer firefighters, cabin/homeowners, people that were camping and canoeing in the area at the time, and on and on.
“It took a long time to track down some people. And some people I had to interview a couple of times to make sure I got the information I needed. Once that was done, it took 10-12 months to put the book together.”
While the facts in this book are accurate, Griffith calls his work nonfiction because as he explains, “Gunflint Burning uses both nonfiction and fiction, or quasi-nonfiction, to tell the story of Minnesota’s Ham Lake fire.
“I never met Steve Posniak. He died before I ever thought about writing a book about the fire or his participation in it. In sections of this book, I convey Steve’s thoughts and actions, but of course, I could not and did not interview him to confirm his thinking and what he did. More important, the way I describe him starting the fire is conjecture.
“To write it, I interviewed people who knew Steve. I spoke with and e-mailed his widow on several occasions, I have read most, if not all, of what has been written about him. I paddled the route he took to get to his camp, and I spent some time at the site. I feel confident that his personal history, the wilderness locations he visited, the weather, the campsite from which the Ham Lake fire started, and more are all factual.”
It has been said by many that there was only one fatality caused by the Ham Lake fire. That would be, of course, Steve Posniak, who committed suicide while he was in the midst of being prosecuted for starting the fire.
Griffith recounts the case carefully, from the initial investigation, Posniak’s first denial and then admission that he had started the fire, to the subsequent indictment by federal prosecutors and grand jury that would have decided Posniak’s fate if not for Steve taking his life.
There are no villains in these pages. Posniak was undoubtedly no villain. His campfire accidentally got away from him, and the rest is history. In these 312 pages Griffith gives us the nitty-gritty of normal people who come together to do extra ordinary things as they battled one of the great forest fires in Minnesota history.
Griffith, who makes about $10,000 per book, is retired and out of his “cubbyhole” at work and ready to start working on Gunflint Rising, a post apocalyptic look at the rebirth of the land, wildlife, and the people who stayed to rebuild.
Gunflint Burning can be purchased locally at Drury Books, Lake Superior Trading Post and Birch Bark Books and Gifts, as well as ordered from the University of Minnesota Press.
Pick up a copy. It will make for a great read while the summer winds down and fall turns to winter.
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