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Taken from the preface of the book:
Preface
There is no region that has produced more lore than that of the Great Lakes region, commonly called the North Country. The Chippewa and Dakota Sioux who once inhabited the upper parts of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota kept few records (and then only pictographs on bark), but preserved their history and way of life through oral tradition, passing on from generation to generation the stories of how life began and how it continued. When the fur traders came, they brought with them the lore of their French, or English, or American way of life. Later in the lumber camps, a rich body of lore developed around the shanty stove when lumber-jacks told stories and sang songs to entertain themselves. The lore of the North County is a large body of beliefs, customs, songs, tales, and sayings, only a small part of which has been written down.
It is not the purpose of this book to bring together the vast body of North Country lore, but rather to present the whimsical, the imaginative, the mythical stories about animals, fish, and birds that never existed except in the yarns of people who lived in this big country. Collected from many sources, some written and some oral, these stories do not pretend to be the only versions of these strange animals, only the one that seems interesting, even fascinating. At the end of each brief chapter is added a list of "Mythical Animals Reported but not Authenticated," which is this writer's way of saying that he does not know many yarns about them.
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