Gunflint Falling: Blowdown in the Boundary Waters

by Cary J. Griffith Narrated by Jonathan Yen

Overview

On July 4, 1999, in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, a bizarre confluence of meteorological events resulted in the most damaging blowdown in the region's history. Gunflint Falling tells the story of this devastating storm from the perspectives of those who were on the ground before, during, and after the catastrophic event.



The forecasts in Duluth predicted the day would be "warm and humid. Partly sunny with a 30% chance of thunderstorms." But as the evening settled, the first eyewitness accounts began to tell a terrifying story. Friends camping on Lake Polly watched in wonder as the sky turned green and the winds began to whip. They scrambled to pull canoes on shore when a tree snapped and struck one of them in the head, rendering her unconscious. Three women enjoying their last day of a camping trip took shelter in their tent as winds increased. Water drenched the nylon walls as trees crashed around them, one flattening the tent and pinning a woman beneath it. A family vacationing at their cabin dodged falling trees and strained against straight-line winds as they sprinted from the cabin to the safest place they knew: a crawl space underneath it. They watched as trees snapped, their twisted root balls torn out of the earth. By the time the storm began to subside, falling trees had injured approximately sixty people, but amazingly, no one died.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"Cary J. Griffith makes full use of his impressive talents for interviewing people to obtain truly interesting and previously unknown perspectives and details on the 1999 blowdown. He skillfully weaves these interviews into a complex and captivating story that conveys how incredible this event was and why it deserves a prominent place in Minnesota’s history."—Lee E. Frelich, director, Center for Forest Ecology, University of Minnesota

 

"In the tradition of The Perfect Storm, Cary J. Griffith brings readers into the Boundary Waters moment by moment as an epic gale sweeps through. Ample maps and in-depth interviews with witnesses both immerse us in one terrifying day and offer a glimpse of the past and future of Minnesota’s boreal forest."—Kim Todd, author of Sensational: The Hidden History of America’s “Girl Stunt Reporters”

 

"In Gunflint Falling, Cary J. Griffith provides an accurate, comprehensive narrative of those impacted by one of the region’s most devastating storms. The damage and pain brought by the derecho storm was more severe than anything previously experienced in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The reader is taken into the personal experiences of the injured and those searching for them for fourteen days in the million-acre wilderness, and Griffith’s narrative of these experiences demonstrates how, when faced with an emergency, we come together to help one another."—Jim Sanders, retired forest supervisor, Superior National Forest (1996-2011), USDA Forest Service

 

Product Details

BN ID:	2940191342177
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	05/14/2024
Edition description:	Unabridged

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