Books by Sue Leaf

Winner of the 2021 Minnesota Book Award for Minnesota Nonfiction The story of the scientist who first mapped Minnesota’s geology, set against the backdrop of early scientific inquiry in the state At twenty, Newton Horace Winchell declared, “I know nothing about rocks.” At twenty-five, he decided to make them his life’s work. As a young geologist tasked with heading the Minnesota Geological and Natural History Survey, Winchell (1839–1914) charted the prehistory of the region, its era of inland seas, its volcanic activity, and its several ice ages—laying the foundation for the monumental five-volume Geology of Minnesota. Tracing Winchell’s remarkable path from impoverished fifteen-year-old schoolteacher to a leading light of an emerging scientific field, Minnesota’s Geologist also recreates the heady early days of scientific inquiry in Minnesota, a time when one man’s determination and passion for learning could unlock the secrets of the state’s distant past and present landscape.Traveling by horse and cart, by sailboat and birchbark canoe, Winchell and his group surveyed rock outcrops, river valleys, basalt formations on Lake Superior, and the vast Red River Valley. He studied petrology at the Sorbonne in Paris, bringing cutting-edge knowledge to bear on the volcanic rocks of the Arrowhead region. As a founder of the American Geological Society and founding editor of American Geologist, the first journal for professional geologists, Winchell was the driving force behind scientific endeavor in early state history, serving as mentor to many young scientists and presiding over a household—the Winchell House, located on the University of Minnesota’s present-day mall—that was a nexus of intellectual ferment. His life story, told here for the first time, draws an intimate picture of this influential scientist, set against a backdrop of Minnesota’s geological complexity and splendor.

Part travelogue, partnatural and cultural history, Portage is the memoir of one family'sthirty-five-year venture into the watery expanse of the world. Exploring theriver means encountering the inevitable changes that occur as a family canoesthrough time and learns what it means to be human in this natural world.

The Western approach to nature has always operated under both spiritual and scientific views. While Christianity decrees that human beings have dominion over nature, evolutionary biology teaches us that we are but highly adapted animals among a biological network of millions of other species. What is our proper relationship to wild animals-and what is our responsibility to them?In The Bullhead Queen, Sue Leaf exemplifies the moral aspect of humans to nature through a collection of engaging meditations on the places she sees every day on Pioneer Lake in east-central Minnesota. Reflecting on the birds she peers at through binoculars and the Lutheran church that anchors the lake's southern shore, Leaf contemplates how her relationship to nature has been colored by the Christian theology of her childhood. Acknowledging the influence of the church on her view of the natural world, she follows the liturgical calendar as a thread, chronicling the change of seasons over the year.Leaf considers the results of the assumption that nature is ours to use: we continue to fish, trap, and hunt animals whose populations are ghosts of their former selves and produce mounting environmental pressures on their habitats. Observing the ways in which the heavy hand of human beings has changed the landscape of Pioneer Lake, and many others like it, she also rejoices in the ways in which the lakes remain wild and exuberant, influencing the lives of all who encounter them.