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                                                              True North Minnesota

When I bought my farm in 1971, I sought solitude and escape from a city environment that I felt alien to my nature. I did not seek places of social activity, but places of tranquility with semblances of wilderness; not lakes with boaters and water skiing, but tree-lined lakes and rivers, canoe waters, few people. My wife and I take pleasure planting trees, noting their growth and resulting beauty of forty-one years, photographing the landscape. This must be the most photographed farm in all of Minnesota. So this separates us from those in our families whose lives center wonderfully at lively lakeside cottage communities or embrace urban lifestyles of unlimited entertainment resources--until autumn arrives and leaves begin to fall, up here in True-North Minnesota (the part of Minnesota beyond Brainerd and Bemidji) when the tamaracks turn golden in contrast to the dark green spruce and pines, and hunting seasons begin. Then is when family and friends come North to see us and all our woodland friends:)

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