Wisconsin writer Richard D. Cornell has lived close to the Chippewa River for most of his life. In writing his account of the river, Cornell spent time canoeing the waterway and also visited local history museums, read books about the people who once lived on its banks and conversed with contemporaries in homes, diners and festivals. “From these conversations I gathered a history of the Chippewa River Valley that felt as active and fluid as the river,” he writes. The Chippewa is a descriptively written travelogue grounded in history and observation.
