Loraine Campbell

I picked up this slim volume at a little book shop in Copper Harbor last summer, while we were vacationing there at the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula. It's a brief narrative about a young girl's summer living in one of the lighthouses on the islands that dot Lake Superior. The girl in question was a real person and, although the narrative is conflated to a single summer, she did live several summers on this particular island and in the surrounding area -- the daughter of a lighthouse-keeper, she had islands as her playground and the sound of the lake as her lullaby. The narrative does a fine job balancing the beauty of the area with the very real dangers of living and working in and on Lake Superior -- the weather changes and the shifting emotions of the lake can create real problems, as specified in a few of the anecdotes. Though this was a quick read (maybe an hour, tops), it was interesting and I would seek out other Great Lakes narratives because of it.… (mer)