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The Third Coast: Sailors, Strippers, Fishermen, Folksingers, Long-Haired Ojibway Painters, and God-Save-the-Queen Monarchists of the Great Lakes | 
| Author: Ted Mcclelland
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy Used: $13.58
You Save: $11.37 (46%)
Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 328642
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 352
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.1 x 1.2
ISBN: 1556527217
Dewey Decimal Number: 917.704
EAN: 9781556527210
ASIN: 1556527217
Publication Date: February 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Has been read, but remains in great condition. Ships within 2 business days. 100% Customer satisfaction guaranteed.
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Chronicling the author’s 10,000-mile “Great Lakes Circle Tour,” this travel memoir seeks to answer a burning question: Is there a Great Lakes culture, and if so, what is it? Largely associated with the Midwest, the Great Lakes region actually has a culture that transcends the border between the United States and Canada. United by a love of encased meats, hockey, beer, snowmobiling, deer hunting, and classic-rock power ballads, the folks in Detroit have more in common with citizens in Windsor, Ontario, than those in Wichita, Kansas—while Toronto residents have more in common with Chicagoans than Montreal's population. Much more than a typical armchair travel book, this humorous cultural exploration is filled with quirky people and unusual places that prove the obscure is far more interesting than the well known.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
The Third Coast Says Something New December 11, 2008
vic foerster
By Vic Foerster (Grand Rapids, MI USA)
Starting from his lakeside apartment in Chicago, Ted McClelland goes for a drive--a long drive. With the blessing of his publisher, McClelland goes in search of what he calls the "Fresh Water Nation." Always keeping the water to his right, he circumnavigates every Great Lake, a coastline longer than the entire Eastern and Western seaboards combined.
The Third Coast: Sailors, Strippers, Fishermen, Folksingers, Long-Haired Ojibway Painters, and God-Save-the-Queen Monarchists, is a contemporary look at the people who live around the Great Lakes. Suspecting we have as distinctive a culture as the Deep South or California, he seeks out individuals who reflect that culture, and as the title suggests, Mr. McClelland has a knack for finding the more interesting residents.
He discovers that butchers are celebrities in Sheboygan County, Wisconsin and that Garrison Keeler is a superstar in St. Paul, Minnesota, a state that's the home of progressive politics; i.e. Hubert Humphrey, Gene McCarthy and ... Bob Dylan. Traveling the remote north shore of Lake Superior, he learns that two of Canada's largest cities--Thunder Bay and Sault Ste. Marie, border the shore that most Americans think of as inside the Arctic Circle, and that to Canadians, the north shore of Lake Erie is the "deep south." He learns that the south shore of Lake Ontario is a laboratory for social progress--the jump off spot for the Underground Railroad, and home of women's suffrage and temperance.
Attending a Styx / REO Speedwagon concert in Cleveland, he recalls how arena rock bands, Davey & Goliath morality cartoons, and Great Lake mariners are icons of the area's culture. He describes Cleveland as so uncool it's cool and after spending time with Detroiter's, concludes they are surviving in one of the poorest large cities in North America--the equivalent of the New Orleans of the north.
Making the point that the U.S. is not "fifty states of Texas," he suggests that Minnesotans and Michiganders are more similar to the Canadians who live across the lake than they are to Georgians or even Kentuckians. He draws the social, political, and the religious demarcation line at the Ohio River and north into Canada.
By his journey's end, I knew he'd like to go back to visit each person he spent time with, share a beer, and probably remember their children's names. McClelland leaves it up to the reader to determine how each of their stories fits into the overall picture of the Fresh Water Nation, and does so without belaboring the area's geography, history or doing any labeling.
The Third Coast: Sailors, Strippers, Fishermen, Folksingers, Long-Haired Ojibway painters, and God-Save-the-Queen Monarchists is the book about the Great Lakes that needed written. If you want to know what the people are like, you'd have to go a long ways to find a better description or one more interesting.
 A Splendid Tour of Lakes, Villages, and Loonies November 21, 2008
Lorilee J Craker (Grand Rapids, MI United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I bought this book for my husband, and swiped it from him one night when I had nothing to read. To my surprise, I couldn't put it down. Chapter by chapter, the author paints a colorful and enchanting portrait of grand, sometimes deadly lakes, fascinating places, and even more captivating people. As a 16-year resident of Michigan, I found I had been to many of the places McClelland describes, yet with his keenly observed eye for detail and story, he uncovered these places in wonderful ways and made me want to go back!
I loved the quirky people along the way; indeed, this is a book of travel essays that reads like a novel.
McClelland is a writer's writer, a droll and witty wordsmith whose writing isn't pretentious but is very good. I would call this book a true find, and would recommend this to anyone who likes to curl up in a chair and get lost in a story (or 20 stories!). Especially, "The Third Coast" will stir pride in anyone who lives on or near the great, Great Lakes.
A GREAT READ! October 21, 2008
R. Ellenstein (Detroit, MI USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The author takes you on a fascinating tour of the Great Lakes, discovering people and places that make this part of the Midwest so unique. As a lifelong Michigan resident and frequent visitor to Canada, Mr. McClelland's portrayal of the residents of the Great Lakes was spot on, and I often found myself laughing out loud at the quirkiness of their behavior. This book is essential for anyone looking to travel this section of the world, or at least learn about the culture and its origin. I couldn't put it down!
The Third Coast February 20, 2008
Expecting More (Bloomfield Hills)
2 out of 10 found this review helpful
I'm sorry to say that Mr. McClellan's Latvian sailor may have been from Riga, Latvia but he did not speak Latvian but rather Russian. Did the author forget about the Soviet Union? There are Latvians in Latvia who speak the language but many who were born and educated after 1945 grew up Russian. Since the early 1990's, Latvia has been once again independent. Smaczna is pretty much the same in Polish and Russian. I was sorry that the author thinks that he had communicated to Yuri (Latvian = Juri) the sailor in Latvian.
All in all, The Third Coast was fun to read. Having grown up in Michigan, much of it had an endearing familiarity.
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