Frilufsliv.
Every so often, a book comes along that is a pure joy to read from start to finish. For me, Ice Cream & Fish is one of those books.
Linnea Ljosenvoor, 12, and Iris Works, 10, teamed up with some friends to author and create Ice Cream & Fish, a children’s illustrated history of Grand Marais, Minnesota.
Filled with colorful paintings, poems, posters, interviews, and short histories, this is both captivating and enriching. There is a series of interviews with Joyce and Gordon Lindquist about the depression era, early schools, and the effects sea lamprey had on Lake Superior Lake Trout.
Beyond the text, there is a visual timeline of 200 years of Grand Marais economic history authored by Sammie Garrity.
In collaboration with the YMCA Kids’ Camp, 15 kids (students in kindergarten through fourth grade) submitted work to the chapter titled “Poster Parade Project.” Earlier chapters were created at Outdoor Book Camp, a 10-day outdoor camp that “took place on the porches, lawns, playgrounds, rocks, shallows, and shoreline of Lake Superior and Grand Marais,” wrote Anne Brataas, lead mentor and guide behind Story Scouts and this entire venture.
These descriptive pages are dedicated “with deepest gratitude and respect,” to the late Bob Pratt of Grand Marais, and his wife, Bev Pratt, and “their lifelong mentoring and teaching friends, Gordon and Joyce Lindquist. All make Grand Marais a better place to live.”
Published by Minnesota Children’s Press, this 30-page tome was produced in creative collaboration with editor and publisher Anne Brataas of Minnesota Children’s Press, and Brittany Lynk, who is responsible for the design and layout.
If you want to learn more about the early history of Grand Marais, or how many movie theaters were here at one time, or how many ice cream shops one could visit and how far a nickel could go in the 1930s, or what the heck “frilufsliv” stands for, you really ought to buy this book.
Editor’s note: Anne Brataas is donating 32 copies of this history of Grand Marais to five local sites in honor of “My publishing mentor and friend, Joan Drury.” Ice Cream & Fish can be picked up at Drury Lane Bookstore, YMCA of Cook County, Cook County Historical Museum, Lake Superior Trading Post, and the Fishing Museum in Tofte.
This colorful paperback will also be available online at Minnesota Children’s Press, once Anne has the time to upload it.
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