Comments for Darby Nelson

Comment on For Love of Lakes by Star Tribune

Star Tribune — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 18:51:51 +0000

"For Love of Lakes" takes on a hefty challenge: how to explain the paradox of why people love lakes, but continue to do things that ruin them. To search for answers, Darby Nelson, an aquatic biologist, retired teacher and former Minnesota legislator, jumps in with both feet. He snorkels through lily pads, paddles a canoe through dense floating mats of stinky algae, and picks his way along a shoreline crowded with docks, steel cribbing, cement slabs and planking. Read Review

Comment on For Love of Lakes by School Library Journal

School Library Journal — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 18:50:44 +0000

Nelson, Darby. For Love of Lakes. Michigan State Univ. Oct. 2011. c.270p. illus. bibliog. ISBN 9781611860214. pap. $24.95. NAT HIST
Nelson (biology, emeritus, Anoka-Ramsey Jr. Coll.) brings to bear his training as an aquatic ecologist in this eloquent paean to the natural beauty and wonder of lakes. Intermingling a lifelong fascination with lakes and cogent scientific commentary, this book will generate newfound respect for and appreciation of lakes. Nelson invokes prominent naturalists like Henry David Thoreau and Louis Agassiz as he explores the glory of lakes and explains their scientific significance. Like these classic observers of nature, Nelson teaches us to look closely at the minute features of lakes that, under close scrutiny, reflect the larger miracle of the universe. While lay readers may find the science chapters to be slow-going at times, the nature sections, replete with detailed observations, will more than compensate for this challenge. VERDICT Ideal for aficionados of nature writing. Readers who enjoyed Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek will find this book similarly rewarding.—Lynne F. Maxwell, Villanova Univ. Sch. of Law, PA

Comment on For Love of Lakes by Don Shelby on MinnPost.com “Darby Nelson, a Modern-Day Thoreau”

Don Shelby on MinnPost.com “Darby Nelson, a Modern-Day Thoreau” — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 18:49:51 +0000

“It may come as no surprise to regular readers of this column that I am a fan of Henry David Thoreau. I have read all of his works and possess a handwritten page from his journals. I’ve walked the shoreline of Walden Pond and stood on the spot where he built his tiny cabin. I have visited his grave.” “Darby Nelson likes Thoreau even more than I do.” Read More from Don Shelby’s Darby Nelson: A modern-day Thoreau

Comment on For Love of Lakes by Rev. Diane Roth referenced For Love of Lakes in something she wrote. “I really enjoyed your book.”

Wed, 05 Jul 2023 18:48:56 +0000

“This spring I picked up a book by a retired college professor and ecologist, Darby Nelson. It is called For Love of Lakes. The book is part memoir, part geology, as he writes lyrically of his boyhood love of lakes, and yet exposes how many of them have become degraded. How can we say we love lakes, and let them fall to ruin?, he wonders. Is it because we don’t understand them? In a lake, so much happens under the surface, where we cannot see.” “Two paragraphs in his introduction struck me: ‘If I think of time as a river, I predispose myself to think linearly, to see events as unconnected, where a tree branch falling into the river at noon is swept away by current to remain eternally separated in time and space from the butterfly that falls in an hour later and thrashes about seeking floating refuge. But if I think of time as a lake, I see ripples set in motion by one event touching an entire shore and then, when reflected back toward the middle, meeting ripples from other events, each changing the other in their passing. I think of connectedness, of relationships, and interacting events that matter greatly to lakes.‘” See the entire Faith in Community: Of Rivers and Lakes post.

Comment on For Love of a River: The Minnesota by Ted Suss, Minnesota River advocate

Ted Suss, Minnesota River advocate — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 18:43:30 +0000

An informative mix of some of the oldest geological formations on earth, long-lost tallgrass prairie, the basin’s original inhabitants, profiles of modern-day advocates who worked, and still work, to reclaim the river, all framed by one couple’s tale of paddling the length of the Minnesota River. If you love rivers, if you love nature and the outdoors, if you are concerned about the environment, you will love this book.

Comment on For Love of a River: The Minnesota by Steve Woods, Executive Director (retired), Freshwater Society

Steve Woods, Executive Director (retired), Freshwater Society — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 18:43:11 +0000

Darby Nelson flits effortlessly back and forth through time in this accessible biography of the Minnesota River. True, the river has suffered a host of cumulative transgressions–its flow has doubled over his lifespan, for example–but Darby shows where the beauty is and can be again. The geology, botany, history, and agronomy he describes so clearly make the basin come alive.

Comment on For Love of a River: The Minnesota by Forrest Peterson, Communication & Outreach, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency

Wed, 05 Jul 2023 18:42:51 +0000

If you are proud of your state, but not well-acquainted with its namesake river, in For Love of a River: The Minnesota, Darby Nelson will take you on a paddle pictured in words, all delightful, illuminating and reminiscent of Sigurd Olson’s prose about Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area.

Comment on For Love of a River: The Minnesota by Kimberly Musser, Associate Director of the Water Resources Center at Minnesota State University at Mankato

Wed, 05 Jul 2023 18:42:24 +0000

Darby Nelson returns to his childhood home where he developed a love for the land and people of the Minnesota River Valley. Weaving together natural and cultural history, he reveals a complex tale of ecological and water quality transformation and highlights stories of inspirational people working together to effect change and build momentum for restoration. For Love of a River: The Minnesota makes a heartfelt and compelling plea to experience the river’s beauty for ourselves and join in the effort to improve it for future generations.

Comment on For Love of a River: The Minnesota by Tim Palmer, author of America’s Great River Journeys and Rivers of America.

Tim Palmer, author of America’s Great River Journeys and Rivers of America. — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 18:41:20 +0000

This great river of the American heartland now has its voice through a seasoned storyteller and scientist who has immersed himself in its currents and backwaters. Darby Nelson has inspired me to see more, learn more, and paddle more on a river that deserves our care in a new era of stewardship that this book tells us is possible, desirable, and essential. For Love of a River: The Minnesota is an important contribution to the literature of land and water in the Midwest.