History

Articles
Good Morning Doctor!
Books History Medicine
W.A. Rohlf (1938)

This little book was conceived neither as a medical history nor as a technical discussion of surgery. It is instead a story of people, of friends with whom I have shared joy and sorrow, in short, bits of the day-to-day drama which is the life of a country doctor. Many of the incidents are trivial, in one sense of the word, yet each has had in it something which appealed to me enough to make me remember it as a highlight in my forty-five years as a country doctor.
Galápagos Islands
Birds Galleries History Nature Travel Video 2013

We arrived about noon and proceeded to nearby Black Turtle Bay where we saw Sea Turtles, Sharks, and Golden Rays amongst the mangroves. If you have enough bandwidth you should also view the 12 Minute Video I’ve prepared to see them in motion!
Road Trip West 10, Arches National Park
Birds Flowers Galleries History Panoramas Road_Trip_2026 Travel 2026

We entered Arches National Park about 8am the next day. This was a great time for photographing the rock formations in the southern part of the park (near the entrance). Our plan was to take a leisurely drive north—exploring along the way—until we reached the Devil's Garden area. This is where the majority of the notable arches are. You might also like to view photos from My November 2024 Trip.
Road Trip West 2, New Mexico
Flowers Galleries History Road_Trip_2026 Rock_Art Travel 2026

I established my campsite and went for a walk about an hour before sunset. It was a magical time to be out in the desert. Some of the rocks are volcanic in origin. I think that may be a cinder cone in the distance. There is a large abstract petroglyph on the right (click to enlarge).
Road Trip West 11, Nine Mile Canyon
Birds Flowers Galleries History Road_Trip_2026 Rock_Art Travel 2026

We left Green River heading north to Wellington and the Petroglyph megasite known as Nine Mile Canyon. The backway road went over a small pass before descending into a beautiful flat-bottomed canyon. This is the best map I could find on the web. [source: National Scenic Byways Program]
Road Trip West 4, Crane Petroglyph Site
Birds Flowers Galleries History Road_Trip_2026 Travel 2026

My target for this segment was inspired by a used book I came across while working at my local Friends of the Library Sinagua Sunwatchers by Kenneth Zoll. At first I had a bit of trouble finding the site online because the name has been changed very recently to better reflect its Native American origins. [The old name was V Bar V in reference to the now defunct ranch on the property.]
Everglades Talk — Where the Birds Are!
Everglades Galleries Travel Video 2025

My Presentation to the Sante Fe Audubon Society on Jan 14 2025, including photos and personal stories from 28 wilderness trips over 25 years! I've canoed, kayaked, and sailed most of the navigable areas. In the talk I briefly cover the geology, hydrology, flora, fauna, and history of this unique national treasure.
Bikecentennial - Summer 1976
Galleries History Travel 1976

In 1976 I was a sophomore at Carleton College in Northfield, MN. I had already done a few cross-country, multi-state bicycle trips in High School and continued planning short trips during my weeks off. The Bikecentennial was too good to pass up! In 2002 I scanned my 35mm slides and created this travelogue with representative quotes from my journal. What you see here is the current version updated in 2026, fifty years later!
Duluth Panoramic Postcards (1914)
Bookhouse History Panoramas
L. P. Gallagher (1914)

I came across these rolled-up postcards (yes, they have a place for a stamp and address on the back!) in an old collection of regular postcards that had nothing to do with Duluth or Minnesota. After some research by friends and family we came up with approximate dates. Based on the early automobiles and horse-carts we dated the downtown view before 1920 (Full-Res Image).
Road Trip West 8, Leaving California
Flowers Galleries History Road_Trip_2026 Travel 2026

My original plan was to find a BLM campground in the Sierra Foothills and have an easy first night. This became untenable due to a Pacific storm blowing in that would deposit snow on Donner Pass. So the plan became a quick up and over the pass and on into northern Nevada. We drove until we could leave the I-70 and got a motel in Fallon.
Road Trip West 3, Petrified Forest
Birds Flowers Galleries History Road_Trip_2026 Travel 2026

The next day I had a three hour drive to my next destination—Petrified Forest National Park. The southern entrance is less used than the north but two of he major hiking trails are there: Crystal Forest & Blue Mesa. Unfortunately there is no trail to Newspaper Rock—a major Petroglyph site. It was cold and windy, but apparently I came at a good time to see the many desert flowers in bloom. 🙂
Road Trip West 12, Wyoming, South Dakota, & Home
Galleries History Panoramas Road_Trip_2026 Travel 2026

And so we headed home via Myton and Rock Springs WY. The roads were mostly deserted. We crossed the Flaming Gorge Dam after dark—which was surreal. The next day we stopped and took a hike around Independence Rock where thousands of pioneers stopped and etched their names in the 1800s.
Road Trip West 6, The Longest Day
Birds Flowers Galleries History Road_Trip_2026 Travel 2026

I planned to stay overnight in Flagstaff, AZ so I could visit the Lowell Observatory in the evening. Apparently they give tours during daylight hours and then setup smaller telescopes to view whatever's happening in the sky that night. Alas, dark clouds moved in and there was precip predicted for the early evening. So I went to bed early…
Duluth Aerial Ferry Bridge (1905)
Books History Technology
Thomas F. McGilvray (1905)

The northern city of Duluth Minnesota is famous for its Lift Bridge connecting the Canal Park area with the long sandy beach of Minnesota Point. However, the current bridge was not the first. The original structure was a more exotic Ferry Bridge. There are only a few examples left in the world. I found these images in a digitised book from that time.
Okefenokee Canoe Trip 2024
Camping Galleries Hammocks History Okefenokee Travel Video 2024

After doing the Green Trail to Bluff Lake and Round Top three years ago—this year we set out to retrace My First Trip in 2004 on the Red Trail and cut back via Floyds Island. My old friend Peter from Minnesota and youngest brother Bruce from Wisconsin joined me.
Lake Powell 2010
Flowers Galleries Hdr History Panoramas Travel 2010

This was only my second trip to Lake Powell with my friend Rick. We had made a multi-stop journey across western Colorado and Utah, stopping in Moab and Colorado National Monument. (I returned to the area once again for a houseboat trip in 2020.)
Road Trip West 9, Green River Utah
Critters Galleries History Road_Trip_2026 Rock_Art Travel 2026

We decided to get a room in Green River Utah for two nights so we could: visit nearby Dinosaur Track and Rock Art sites that day, return to have a real cooked dinner, head out early the next day for Arches, then on to Nine Mile Canyon the next day.
Picket Wire Canyon Dinosaur Tracksite
Critters History Travel Video 2019

On my trip west this year I made sure I had time to visit this unique area. The Dinosaur Tracks are located within and along side the Purgatoire River within the COmanche National Grassland. It is located 35 miles south of La Junta, CO off the lightly maintained County Road 25 (upper left in the map above). The last few miles are on a primitive forest service road that ends at the Withers Canyon Trailhead and Campground (four sites with fire grates and a pit toilet).
Arizona & Utah Rock Art
Galleries History Rock_Art Southwest_2024 Travel 2024

Photos of Petroglyphs (pecked into the rock) and Pictographs (painted onto the rock) from my most recent trip to Arizona and Utah. In some cases the panels are Palimpsests (newer inscriptions covering older, faded work).
Julia Belle Swain & John Hartford
Books History Music 2006

While vacationing on the Mississippi River we noticed this small steam-powered riverboat called the Julia Belle Swain. That name seemed very familiar. Then I recalled a John Hartford song by the same name (from his 1976 album Mark Twang). Sure enough, this was the very boat he piloted and sang about!
Road Trip West 5, Arizona
Flowers Galleries History Road_Trip_2026 Travel 2026

I originally ventured into Arizona to visit the Crane Petroglyphs Site so I took in other sights as they appeared. The first of these was Montezuma Castle—a Ancestral Puebloan cliff dwelling site.
Road Trip West 1, Westward Bound
Birds Flowers History Road_Trip_2026 Travel 2026

I was called to California for a family wedding. The first part of my journey took me through several southern states, the Florida Panhandle, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, New Mexico, & Arizona. I left about two in the afternoon so I arrived in Pitcher Plant territory after dark. Fortunately I knew where there was a patch just off the shoulder of a county road.
Epitaph of Edward Carter (1742)
History 1742

Farewell Vain World I have Enough of thee and now I'm Careless what thou Say'st of me. What Fault thou See'st in me Take Care to Shun. There's worke within thy Self That Should be Done. Thy Smiles I Court not, nor thy Frowns I fear. My Cares are past, my head lies quiet here.
Taliesin (Frank Lloyd Wright)
Galleries History Photography Travel 2023

Taliesin was the home and architectural school of Frank Lloyd Wright. It is located near Spring Green in southwest Wisconsin. The area was originally settled by his grandfather and Wright returned to the area in 1911 with his then mistress, Mamah Borthwick. The family and buildings suffered many disasters over the years—including two fires, a mudslide, and the murder of Borthwick and six others. The current site is referred to as Taliesin III and is a canonical example of The Prairie School of architecture.
Cedar Key & Hall Creek 2021
Birds Camping Galleries History Travel 2021

I went for a quick solo kayak trip to Hall Creek near Cedar Key (putting in at the #4 Bridge off of Highway 24). I last visited this area in 2012 with a friend. The first mile or so is very shallow and I made a few mistakes on my way to Live Oak Key, where there is a narrow channel through the oyster beds. Surprisingly the old oak tree on the point is still alive! [compare with 2012]
The Fireless Cook Book (1919)
Bookhouse Books History Reviews Technology
Margaret J. Mitchell (1919)

When I first saw this book I thought it was about making meals for a camping trip. It turned out to be much more interesting. Cooking with Insulation is a mostly forgotten technique with great potential. (The author knew this over one hundred years ago!) The concept is very simple: after heating food to the desired temperature, hang on to that heat and make it do some work!
Stockon Island Camping Trip
Apostle_Islands Birds Camping History Plants Travel 2021

We made an amphibious landing to offload our gear and then moored the boat about a mile away at the pier. I pitched my hammock tent right on the beach between mature white and red pines. The level of Lake Superior had recently gone down so there was a more normal amount of beach exposed.
China Trip (2012)
Galleries History Travel 2012

A concise collection of photos from our 2012 trip to China. Including the Li River Valley, Terraced Mountain Rice Fields, Many Museums, Taoist Temples, Buddhist Temples, The Terra Cotta Army, Pandas, Shanghai, The Great Wall, and Beijing.
Through the Brazilian Wilderness (1914)
Bookhouse Books History Reviews
Theodore Roosevelt (1914)

This book records an expedition lead by Teddy Roosevelt in 1913-14 after he was president! It has the most amazing cover… embossed, leather (I assume) with a Golden Anteater?!
Lake Superior Sea Caves
Apostle_Islands Galleries Hdr History Panoramas Photography Travel Video 2022

Over the past eight years I’ve walked along the Lakeshore Trail to admire the Cliffs and Sea Caves from above.
Fort Zeller Pennsylvania
History 1745

Distant relatives of mine built this Fort in southern Pennsylvania before the Revolutionary War. (Yes, a stone farmhouse was considered a fort back then!) The fort/house had two things going for it: fireproof walls and a fresh water spring in the basement.
Telegraph Codes (1914)
Bookhouse Books History Reviews Technology
C & B Johnson (1914)

Back in the days when long distance telephone calls were very expensive, families had various ring codes to let their loved ones know that they got there safe but avoided paying for an actual call. Ours was to let it ring twice and hang up (if I remember correctly).
El Verde Puerto Rico Radiation Experiments (1970)
Bookhouse Books History Reviews 1970

Turns out I had volume two of a three part report on a decade of radiation research done in a national forest. There is an official Fact Sheet for this program which reads in part…
Through the Fray (1886)
Bookhouse Books History Reviews
G. A. Henty (1886)

The original Luddites were millworkers who rebelled against factory automation back in the 1800s. They had a lot to lose. In the present time, to call someone a Luddite or Neo-Luddite is to write them off as a kind of techno-hermit, using a non-smartphone and writing in a paper notebook. This is a mischaracterization.
Chaco Canyon 2023
Galleries Hdr History Panoramas Travel Video 2023

After braving the nearly washed out road from the north I arrived around 9am. I had to walk my Prius diagonally over piles of gravel and exposed rock faces. This was my third attempt over twenty years to visit this important site. (The first two failed because the roads were completely washed out!)
Clair Cameron Patterson, The Age of the Earth, & Environmental Lead
History Science 2010

I’m currently reading A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. About a third of the way in he introduces Clair Cameron Patterson who could be the model of the modern citizen/scientist.
The Motor Mill
Galleries History Technology Video 1870

The Town of Motor with a large gristmill took shape in the 1870s along the Turkey River in Clayton County Iowa. Nothing remains of the town itself, but the mill and associated buildings survive. The Mill is situated at a narrow bend in the river. It was built of limestone quarried from the nearby cliff top, and oak from the surrounding forest.
RFK Jr. & the Pasteurisation Controversy
Commentary History Medicine
Lawrence P. Garrod (1944)

Consider the so-called War on Raw Milk. I was amazed to discover in my Grandfather's scrapbook an article from 1944 debating the benefits of unpasteurised (raw) milk. These are echoed today by the public health nihilist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
BWCA Canoe Trip 2025
Birds Bwca Galleries History Photography Travel 2025

This year we decided to visit the big lakes at the end of the Gunflint Trail. We planned to spend the first night in the bunkhouse on Seagull Lake. It was nice weather when we arrived, but the forecast called for thunderstorms, lots of wind, and near freezing temps. We elected to stay at the Trail's End campground and do day trips instead of heading out onto the big Lake Saganaga.
White Rim Trail 2018
Camping Canyonlands Galleries Hdr History Travel Video 2018

I recently returned from a backcountry bike trip on the White Rim Trail in Canyonlands National Park near Moab Utah. We were a mixed group of twelve riders with three high ground clearance support vehicles coming after us. We started near the Island in the Sky Visitor Center and camped four nights along the trail.
Electric Vehicles (1916)
Bookhouse Books History Reviews Technology 1916

I rescued this thick, encyclopedic volume from the trash. (Notice the page numbers are up to the 2800s!) These pages are from the chapter on Electric Vehicles. This illustration is so similar to a modern garage I was intrigued to consider what opportunities had been missed as we progressed to our petro-industry fueled present?
Yucatan Maya Trip
Hdr History Travel 2009

First on our list was Uxmal, my personal favorite! Located in the gently rolling Puuc Hills, it is one of several significant Late Classic Mayan centers in that area. The so-called Pyramid of the Magician dominates the modern entrance to the site. The main temple entrance takes the form of a huge mouth, still intimidating even today. The pyramid was actually built in five stages, each covering older parts of the structure.
The Book of Birds (1849)
Birds Books History Reviews
George S. Appleton (1849)

Below is a limited sampling of historically significant pages that contain many surprising (and perhaps inaccurate) facts. Alas the Elegant Plates mentioned on the title page appear to be missing. Also missing is any mention of smaller birds such as wrens and warblers?!
Rebuilding the Food Pyramid
History Medicine Science
Willett & Stampfer (2003)

For more than ten years the U.S. Department of Agriculture has promoted its food pyramid as a guide to proper nutrition. The only problem is that it isn't very good advice! The authors of this January 2003 article in Scientific American provide much better guidance. But first a little history…
The Brimson Forest Fire
History 2025

In the late 1970s two friends and I invested in a three room cabin on thirty acres embedded in Superior National Forest in Northern Minnesota. That cabin and other buildings are no more after the Camp House Road forest fire swept through.
Thoughts on the Approaching COVID19 Pandemic (2020)
Commentary History Medicine 2020

I've annotated this NY Times graphic, rounding the estimates for COVID19 (aka the 2019 novel coronavirus) to 2% mortality and 2 people infected for every one who has the disease. What this suggests is the infection rate will be similar to a bad cold season, but unlike the common cold, a significant number of people will die of the disease.
Vermilion Cliffs
Galleries History Panoramas Southwest_2024 Travel 2024

We made several day trips to Lee's Ferry Utah while waiting for our other adventures (Paria Canyon, Coyote Buttes & The Wave) to start.
Treatise on Panopainting
Galleries History Panoramas Photography 2015

Panopainting (verb, noun) — Panoramic photographs captured in real-time with unpredictable, non-deterministic distortions due to movement of the camera and subject. The aesthetic value of these images depends on the camera's stitching algorithm and the physical brush stroke performed by the photographer. A degree of glitching is expected and often leads to cubist or impressionistic effects. Each exposure is unique due to inevitable variation in subject and technique.
Hand Counting by Twelves
History Technology 2023

Ever wonder why we sometimes count things by the dozen, or why there are 60 minutes in an hour? We may have the ancient Babylonians (or earlier societies) to thank. They came up with this ingenious way to keep track of large numbers using only their two hands. There are variations on this theme, but it becomes pretty obvious if you have a hand with four fingers, with three bones each, and a thumb.
Patent Medicines in the Age Before Scientific Pharmaceuticals
Galleries History Medicine 1930

My Wife's Grandfather worked as a chemist for The Tilden Company in Upstate New York during the early 1900s. As a result we came into possession of his Recipe Book for the plethora of nostrums and remedies he helped create. Some of the ingredients are still sold today under various brand names. Some are humorous, others are forgotten, while still others are downright dangerous. The following installments are my exploration of this unique window into the medical past. [Note: We donated the actual book to the historical section of the National Library of Medicine.]
Lake Powell 2020
Birds Flowers Galleries History Panoramas Travel Video 2020

It had been ten years since I last visited Lake Powell. This year I went with my college friend Al and his partner Marian. Not having our own boat, we decided to rent a houseboat from the Bullfrog Marina. This turned out to be a great idea! With a few exceptions it was clean and well maintained (certain lights and the gas grill did not work).
Trump v Moby-Dick
Commentary Galleries History 2017

I’ve become a real fan of @MobyDickatSea, a bot-based feed of random quotes from the book. It’s amazing how well some of these fragments stand up as individual thoughts!
Binge Watching Great Movies About Real Conspiracies That Affect Us All
Books Commentary History Reviews 2016

I was on a short business trip recently and had a chance to view three new movies about real conspiracies that affect us all. This prompted me to go back and re-watch some documentaries from the recent past. Talk about dark night of the soul! Here are my brief reviews in no particular order…
The Ancient City of Ephesus (Gallery)
Art Galleries Hdr History Panoramas Travel Turkey_2016 2016

In 2016 we had the privilege of touring the ruins of Ephesus in Turkey. Originally built by the Greeks—the Romans took over the site in 129 BCE. The ruins are dominated by a long avenue lined with statuary and temples. This descending pathway leads to the Library of Celsus with it's two story facade mostly intact. There is a huge overhead structure protecting the Terrace Houses of wealthy inhabitants—looking very much like luxury condos today!
Hagia Sophia, Istanbul Turkey
Art Galleries History Photography Travel Turkey_2016 2016

Hagia Sophia is one of the most historic buildings in the world! It is a strange palimpsest of Islam superimposed on top of Orthodox Christianity. Finished around 537 CE in Constantinople (now Istanbul), it was the largest building in the world for a thousand years. When we visited it was a secular museum and world heritage site. In 2020 a theocratic government turned it back into a functioning mosque. I do not know if the Christian art and iconography has been covered or possibly removed since then.
Ephesus Museum Turkey (Gallery)
Art Galleries History Travel Turkey_2016 2016

In 2016 we had the privilege of touring the ruins at Ephesus and the associated museum a few miles away. The photo above is the symbol-rich Statue of Artemis, which at one time was the centerpiece of the temple to the goddess. That temple is now in ruins but it was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World!
Turkey Panoramas (Gallery)
Galleries History Panoramas Travel Turkey_2016 2016

Here is a gallery of all the panoramas from our 2016 trip to Turkey and the The Turquoise Coast. We started in Istanbul and ended at Ephesus. Best viewed on a large screen!
Fort Clinch State Park
Galleries Hdr History Travel 2015

This fortification along the Florida/Georgia border dates from the era of the Second Seminole War (1847) and served the needs of both the Confederacy and the Union in the Civil War. It is a asymmetric pentagon built out of red bricks with gun emplacements on the top of four walls. There are several lovely internal architectural features such as arched ammunition magazines and spiral stairways, No shots were ever fired here!
BWCA Fire & Canoe Trip 2011
Birds Bwca Galleries History Travel Video 2011

Just back from a challenging trip to the BWCA with my friend Ross. We had intended to start on the Sawbill Trail, but were told to evacuate just as we got to the entry point due to the rapidly expanding Pagami Creek Fire. (Satellite photos show this plume forming in less than two hours!)
The Evolution of the Human Capacity for 'Killing at a Distance'
History Technology 2010

Anthropologists Steven Churchill & Jill Rhodes recently wrote a fascinating article on the development of projectile weapons by early Homo sapiens and subsequent effects on large carnivores (extinction!) and human evolution.
History of 200 Countries Over 200 Years
History Science Video
Hans Rosling (2010)

This spectacular section of 'The Joy of Stats' tells the story of the world in 200 countries over 200 years using 120,000 numbers - in just four minutes. Plotting life expectancy against income for every country since 1810, Hans shows how the world we live in is radically different from the world most of us imagine. [source:youtube]
The March of Folly
Books History Reviews
Barbara Tuchman (1984)

With America “at war” [2006] on several fronts, I was stimulated to recall this wonderful and important book by the eminent historian Barbara Tuchman. The first line says it all…
The Demon in the Freezer
Books History Reviews
Richard Preston (2002)

This is one of the scariest books I've read in a long time—and it’s not fiction! Published in 2002, it chronicles the strange tale of Smallpox, its world-wide eradication, and the lingering threat of its return. Millions are alive today thanks to the efforts of D. A. Henderson (who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002), the World Health Organization, and an army of public health workers. Smallpox is probably the worst disease the human race has ever known, and now it’s gone—well almost… The demon lives on in at least two freezers, one at the CDC in Atlanta and one in Russia. But there is no way to know how many other caches exist. In a cruel twist of fate, the fact that smallpox no longer exists in the wild makes it well suited for bioterrorism. It is the biological equivalent of an atom bomb. This New Yorker article by Preston summarizes the major themes of the book.
Hypertext before the World Wide Web (1988)
History Projects 1988

When I was a resident in 1988 I wrote a bit of software called HYTEXT—a hypertext publishing system for MS-DOS computers. I knew nothing about networks at the time, but I did create a markup language that anticipated HTML in many ways. I recently came across a paper copy of my original documentation and thought it would be a good idea to reproduce a few pages here for posterity. The original program and documentation are on 5.25 inch floppy discs that I have no way to read. But I found my 22 year old documentation file online! So the circle is complete.
The Plague (Review)
Books History Reviews
Albert Camus (1947)

The Plague by Albert Camus is a allegorical novel set in the modern city of Oran on the north African coast. The principal character is Dr. Rieux, who confronts a series of medical, ethical and moral dilemmas as an epidemic of bubonic plague breaks out and the city is quarantined. Rieux must overcome his fear, loneliness and despair in order to function while conceding that he is mostly powerless in the face of his microscopic enemy. He is not alone. A number of memorable characters share his sojourn, each of them responding to the crisis in different ways: escape, repentance, debauchery, suicide, work, fantasy...
The Profession of Medicine
History Medicine
James Guthrie (1888)

To Dr. Guthrie every word of that lecture was the living truth, a truth which found practical expression daily in his long professional career. And when, one tragic day in the dead of winter—when he was confined to his bed by illness—a patient needed him, he did not hesitate but arose and went to minister to him. Giving his last ounce of strength of this unselfish act, his own illness overcame him and he passed on in March of 1930.
Contested Election 1876 — Tilden vs Hayes
Commentary History 1876

There are many interesting parallels between the 1876 and 2016 presidential elections. Both had enormous impact on their times and what came after. Both had a great deal to do with race. Both where marred by chicanery and a split between the popular and electoral vote.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Books History
Lewis Carroll (1865)

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, and what is the use of a book, thought Alice without pictures or conversations?

This is a slide!