Nominated for the National Outdoor Writer's Award 2006

Thirteen literary short stories set in northern Michigan's Sleeping Bear Dunes. The main character in most of the stories is Jack Young, a teenager working in a canoe livery. Jack comes of age in these stories which focus on his effort to find meaning in a world that seems increasingly dishonest to him. In the first story, The First Season, Jack, then fourteen years old, witnesses the result of the government’s introduction of big trout and salmon into Lake Michigan. McVey writes about the garish spectacle of frenzied fisherman crowding the river mouth for a literal shot at the big fish.

McVey orchestrates dialog among friends, heroes, and villains with accurate depictions of the North County rivers, lakes, and woods, taking you outside in Michigan through the eyes of a young man in search of truth.

The Wild Upriver and other stories
written by James McVey
ISBN 0-9766104-0-X