This is a nice little book about whitetail deer in northern Minnesota. The author and her husband lived in a remote cabin in the woods. They habitually put out food for the birds and squirrels in winter and one particularly hard year, a starving deer showed up. They helped the buck survive- cutting cedar branches for it to eat (recognizing that corn would be too rich and a shock on its system). They named the deer Peter and he became very accustomed to hanging around their cabin, even stamping on the porch to demand food if it wasn't set out yet. Before long other deer joined Peter in their yard, and then the Hoovers watched fawns appear with the doe they named Mama and grow up, several years in a row. The narrative describes the woods and other widlife- birds, squirrels, a bobcat and lynx that seemed to be companions, a moose that trampled their garden, a groundhog that ate cookies from their hands. A young bear that they were troubled to see tourists feeding (yet they had no qualms about feeding the deer and other wildlife themselves). Mostly though it's about the deer, and the social interactions they observed which was interesting. Sadly and not surprisingly, it turns out that the deer, now being partially tame, were more vulnerable to hunters who showed up even though it was private land with posted signs. In the end I think they regretting having fed the deer so regularly, and were relieved to see the animals grow more wary of people following the hunting season. The author has published several books with titles including A Place in the Woods and The Years of the Forest, which I'll probably pick up if I come across them someday.

from the Dogear Diary ( )

In the late 1950s, before such counter-cultural things were popular, author Helen Hoover and her artist husband, Ade, moved to upstate Minnesota near the Canadian border. Living in a tiny log cabin with minimal conveniences, the Hoovers became intimately aware of the wildlife in the forests that surrounded them, and began consciously trying to live more in harmony with it. When an injured and starving whitetail buck stumbled into their yard one winter afternoon, their relationship with the forest deepened even more. No one who reads the book will forget Peter Whitetail and the beauties of a harsh but lovely land. ( )