Along the way he reacquaints us with some hallowed names in American history ... Fox is faithful to these figures, and to the ways their actions helped shape the United States and its northern border. But to his credit, he’s equally concerned with the consequences these men brought to the indigenous population, giving equal time to important leaders such as Sacagawea, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. Northland is a respectable primer on the fraught ways history has been unkind, indeed criminal, to Indians. But it’s also a travelogue, complete with the adventures—and misadventures—of a man traversing what is, in many places, still absolute wilderness. Fox is an excellent guide, capturing the majesty of the Northland’s diverse geology, flora, weather and seasons ... But Fox’s greatest accomplishment is that he uses all of the landscape and history to capture the people who live and work on the border now. Fishermen, ship’s captains and crews, canoe guides, Indian activists, militia members—each is brought to life with respect, and taken together they serve as an excellent portrait of the contemporary United States, and all the challenges we face.

Fox’s trek along that border is chronicled in the keen-eyed and -eared Northland ... Fox can’t help but trespass pretty much all the way from the coast of Maine to Minnesota’s Boundary Waters as the border is poorly marked if long in the making (border negotiations stared right after the Treaty of Paris was signed), giving that touch of jump and sparkle that every good travelogue needs ... For all the hugeness of everything, Fox can be an intimately sharp observer of place, noting, for instance, that the northern cold makes light shine upward through the airborne frost and reduces the landscape to a charcoal sketch ... The remainder of Fox’s journey is as natty and crisp, and quite lighter of spirit than the [Standing Rock] reservation story. One comical episode has him trying to enter a little snaggle-tooth blip on the straight line to the coast along 49’40' or fight, a eensy piece of the U.S. protruding into Canada, but no way to get there except through Canada. The border patrols are deeply suspicious about why he wants to go to such an isolated spot. Then again, that is the leitmotif of the entire story.

Fox is an amiable, entertaining guide to the past and present of this porous, rugged border with Canada. While Northland touches on various political disputes related to Native American issues, oil and gas production, and fishing and water rights, it is more an engaging travel memoir that highlights the lives of those who dwell on our northern edge. Like the meandering border itself, Fox wanders down whatever path catches his interest.

Each section breaks down into a colorful tapestry of history, geology, culture and happenstance ... Throughout his journey Fox weaves together a fascinating history: of the original people and their different tribes; of the first explorers, especially the French; of the surveyors who laid out the border bit by bit throughout the 19th century. His encounters with the men and women who currently populate the northland are well drawn ... At the end of the line, something about the book doesn’t quite click. Despite his statement at the beginning that, 'There was no time line,' there are occasions when the reader feels he travels from stop to stop like the much-mocked birdwatcher searching just to check off a species on his life-list ... For this reader, Fox’s 'arcadian concept' felt too much like a self-conscious construct, with more than a hint of Game of Thrones.

Throughout, Fox chronicles in detail [Samuel de] Champlain’s adventures, good and bad, as well as those of many other explorers and adventurers from the border’s past. This gives the book an added richness, providing helpful historical context to the places the author visits ... Richly populated with fascinating northlanders, Native Americans, and many border patrol agents, this is highly entertaining and informative travel literature.

The narrative is more ruminative than eventful—aside from a red fox defecating on a lawn or some sidelong glances from patrol agents, there’s not a whole lot that actually happens during Fox’s three-year exploration; in ways, the inactivity itself reflects the stasis of this borderland area. Fox has a keen eye for flora, fauna, geology, and meteorology...he’s also adept at conveying his knowledge and capturing the natural beauty and ancient landscapes of the borderlands ... This is a worthy travelogue that explores the beauty of America’s untouched land.