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. And, it has seen its share of controversy and conflict. For 12,000 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.