According to thirteen-year-old Ben Ward's father, lumberjacks look forward to two things: mealtime and springtime. In the winter of 1898, Ben leaves school for a job as a cook's assistant to his father at the Blackwater Logging Camp. As Ben spends long hours peeling potatoes and frying flapjacks, he dreams of working in the woods with the other men, felling trees, driving a team, and skidding timber. While enduring a long, cold winter in a camp filled with outlandish characters, as well as an orphan boy named Nevers, Ben comes to understand himself and his family's past. Peppered throughout with heart and humor-and including a glossary and afterword with facts about logging-Blackwater Ben paints a vivid picture of the north woods of Minnesota at the end of the nineteenth century.

 

This book is part of a book series called Fesler-Lampert Minnesota Heritage .

This book is aimed at children in secondary school.

There are 216 pages in this book. This book was published 2014 by University of Minnesota Press .

Barbara Durbin is a lifelong educator who has worked as an elementary school teacher and a teacher of gifted and talented programs.