Scott Spoolman hopes to get people interested in natural history through his books.
Five years ago, Madison-based science writer Scott Spoolman scored a hit with Wisconsin State Parks: Extraordinary Stories of Geology and Natural History.
It became a best-selling title for the Wisconsin Historical Society Press in 2018 and was named best regional adult non-fiction book that year by Foreword INDIES.
“I think it showed how much people love our state parks and there just wasn’t anything written on the geology of them,” says Spoolman.
Now, Spoolman and the Historical Society Press are back with a companion title, Wisconsin Waters: The Ancient History of Lakes, Rivers and Waterfalls. It follows a similar format with a combination of narrative text, illustrations, 20 maps and 82 color photos.
“Scott is terrific at sharing complex topics in simple terms and the popularity of Wisconsin State Parks made us eager to work with him on another book in the same vein,” says Kate Thompson, director of the Wisconsin Historical Society Press.
One glance at a map shows Wisconsin is a water state, bounded on three sides by the Mississippi River and two Great Lakes. But it’s also home to thousands of interior lakes, rivers and streams, each with a story Spoolman is happy to share.
Vilas County, he explains, boasts the largest concentration of freshwater lakes anywhere in the world. The Kickapoo River in southwest Wisconsin is among the oldest rivers on the planet. Lake Michigan is actually an ancient coral sea.
And the oft-photographed “Balanced Rock,” perched atop a quartzite ledge in Devil’s Lake State Park, likely broke off and fell into place during the periods of freeze and thaw cycle of the last glacial advance in Wisconsin some 15,000 years ago.
“I try to get others interested in natural history by explaining about the places people actually like to visit,” says Spoolman, 68, who holds a master’s degree in science journalism from the University of Minnesota and worked for textbook publishing companies, including a stint as geology editor for McGraw-Hill.
Spoolman grew up near Hayward and credits his parents for introducing him to the wild country via blueberry picking as a kid.
The book offers a quick history of Wisconsin’s geologic past, going back some 50 million years, then breaks the state down into the Northern Highlands, the Northeastern Ridges and Lowlands, the Southeastern Glacial Showcase and the Driftless Area.
The new book includes 19 “Travel Guides” which suggest ways for visitors to take their own natural history tour. Madison-area readers will appreciate the section on the Yahara Lakes, which describes how a prehistoric riverway once cut a deep channel through the center of what is today Madison.
“From sites like Picnic Point on Lake Mendota and Turville Point on Lake Monona, where today we gaze out on placid water, a preglacial hiker would have looked down 250 to 300 feet at a wider river winding through the ancient valley,” writes Spoolman.
Later, as the climate warmed and the glaciers began to melt away, large mammals like the wooly mammoth and musk ox migrated up from the south. Giant beavers more than six feet long inhabited local ponds and lakes, with bones of all these animals found in glacial lake beds in eastern Dane County.
It’s believed ancient hunters followed those beasts northward. Eventually, villages sprang up throughout the Yahara chain of lakes, linked by a network of walking trails. The state Capitol today sits at the junction of several well-traveled trails. While the local landscape has obviously changed, Spoolman invites readers to use their imaginations to paint a picture of how water made Wisconsin history and still shapes the state today.
Says Spoolman: “The area around these lakes must have been an amazing place to live.”
