The Midwest and Great Lakes Region offers an array of opportunities for those who reside there, and tourists as well. The landscape is painted with farmland, steep hills and rolling plains, dense forests with sparkling waterfalls and lots of lakes! The Great Lakes serve as a major transportation route but also an important recreational hotspot. Many fish, water ski, sail, snowmobile, and even dive among the shipwrecks! Cities like Chicago, St. Louis, and Detroit, which are filled with music, great food, and loyal sports fans, are fun to explore. So grab your camera and discover this diverse U.S. region. This book will allow students to identify the main purpose of a text, including what the author wants to answer, explain, or describe.

Ideal for hikers, adventurers, travelers and curious nature-lovers of all ages, compact field guides from On The Spot Nature Guides offer instant access to identifying information about plant and animal species in specific geographical regions. Trees of the Great Lakes Region includes photos of trees in their natural settings, descriptions of physical characteristics for at-a-glance identification, and details about seasonal changes and preferred habitat. Designed to fit easily into a pocket or backpack, the accordion-fold guides are lightweight and laminated for durability, and include a unique click-lock closure to keep the guide neatly folded when not in use.

The Midwest is known as the breadbasket of America because it produces many of the cereal crops used to feed our nation. It is also a leader in manufacturing. This region is divided into two areas, which are the Great Lakes region and the Great Plains region. The plains are home to many farms and ranches, while the Great Lakes and the surrounding river system have led many cities to spring up there. Readers will find out about the ways in which a region’s geography shape its settlement, industries, and culture. Sidebars and recipes extend the learning and strengthen the reader’s understanding of the region.

Ideal for hikers, adventurers, travelers and curious nature-lovers of all ages, On The Spot Nature Guides offer instant access to identifying information about plant and animal species in specific geographical regions. Wildflowers of the Great Lakes Region includes photos of plants in their natural settings, descriptions of flowers and foliage, bloom time and plant size for at-a-glance identification. Designed to fit easily into a pocket or backpack, the accordion-fold guides are lightweight and laminated for durability.

The Great Lakes sport fisheries (both in the lakes and the streams that flow into them) are extremely popular and key recreational outlets for anglers around the country who want premier fishing for trout, steelhead, salmon, bass, and other species on the fly fishing frontier such as drum and carp. Jerry Darkes, in his successful book, Fly Fishing the Inland Oceans, only scratched the surface of the innovative fly patterns coming out of the Great Lakes region. Now, working with professional photographer Jimmy Chang, Darkes goes beyond that to compile in this book the first ever collection of GL patterns (steelhead, salmon, brown trout, musky) by contemporary tiers of the region. Over 600 patterns and recipes cover the historically important patterns from well-known tiers such as Schweibert and George Griffith and Swisher and Richards as well as flies that are on the cutting edge from tiers such as Kevin Feenstra, Walt Grau, Jon Kluesing, Rick Kustich, Jeff Liskay, Dave Pinczkowski, Ray Schmidt, Greg Senyo, and Matt Supinski.

This first-ever encyclopedia of the Midwest seeks to embrace this large and diverse area, to give it voice, and help define its distinctive character. Organized by topic, it encourages readers to reflect upon the region as a whole. Each section moves from the general to the specific, covering broad themes in longer introductory essays, filling in the details in the shorter entries that follow. There are portraits of each of the region's twelve states, followed by entries on society and culture, community and social life, economy and technology, and public life. The book offers a wealth of information about the region's surprising ethnic diversity -- a vast array of foods, languages, styles, religions, and customs -- plus well-informed essays on the region's history, culture and values, and conflicts. A site of ideas and innovations, reforms and revivals, and social and physical extremes, the Midwest emerges as a place of great complexity, signal importance, and continual fascination.

In this edition in the popular series, the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy presents the best of the Great Lakes rail-trails, home to the most rail-trails in the country. With 113 rural, suburban, and urban trails threading through nearly 2300 miles, Rail-Trails Midwest: Great Lakes covers Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Many rail-trails are paved and run through the most popular parts of town, such as the 61-mile Illinois Prairie Path, which links Chicago-area suburbs. Others take you back in time for a look at regional history, like Ohio's 11-mile Holmes County Trail. The Midwest has thousands of miles of rail corridor that have been turned into 360 rail-trails in the Great Lakes alone. Every trip has a detailed map that includes start and end points, trailhead, parking, restroom facilities, and other amenities. Many of the level rail-trails are suitable for walking, jogging, bicycling, inline skating, wheelchairs, and horses.