I'll admit; I am an admirer of Pierre Berton, having read The Impossible Railway by Pierre Berton. Otherwise, I never would have fastened my eyes on what looks like, at first blush, a coffee table book. The photos are excellent. The verbiage in between is pure gold, pure Pierre Berton.

Pierre Berton, like another one of my favorite artists, the singer Gordon Lightfoot, is a great Canadian story teller. The written part of this book spans the entire historical range from the time when the glaciers left behind the five oversize puddles, the lakes, to the First Nations/American Indians dominance, to the British/American rivalry that manifested itself in the inconclusive but bloody War of 1812, to the knitting together of the lakes by man-made canals, to, finally, its present as a mixture of industry and parkland.

My finding of Pierre Berton was pure accident. I was looking up The Impossible First: From Fire to Ice—Crossing Antarctica Alone by Colin O'Brady to make a decision on reading it. The title of The Impossible Railway popped up in the search. Since Gordon Lightfoot's epic Canadian Railroad Trilogy was one of my favorites and the Antarctica book was on wait-list at the library, I took it out and loved it, and was hooked.

Serendipity has its role. ( )

Anybody who ever lived by or sailed any of the Great Lakes and anybody who is interested in learning about a significant feature of the North American continent owes to themselves to read this masterful boo. It is profusely illustrated but, more to the point, it describes how the Great Lakes fir into the history of the continent. ( )