Image: UMN Press

By Laura Durenberger-Grunow - Boreal Community Media - September 19, 2025

Minnesota author David Hakensen will be in the Grand Marais area to discuss his new book, Her Place in the Woods: The Life of Helen Hoover (University of Minnesota Press, 2025), a biography of the Minnesota nature writer. Hakensen's talks will take place at the Chik Wauk Nature Center on Saturday, September 20, at 2 p.m. and the Grand Marais Public Library on Wednesday, September 24, at 6 p.m. 

Her Place in the Woods documents the life of Helen Hoover, who, in 1954, left a successful career as a research metallurgist (a person who studies or knows about metals) in Chicago to move to a remote cabin on Gunflint Lake with her artist husband, Adrian. The biography details her life in the wilderness, which served as the inspiration for her best-selling nature books, including The Gift of the Deer and A Place in the Woods. Hakensen, who is a strategic communications consultant and former president of the Minnesota Historical Society, became interested in Hoover after he read her book, A Place in the Woods, while searching for a cabin in the north woods himself. He was left inspired by her story of leaving a corporate career for an off-grid life and the "foibles they had trying to establish themselves," and wondering what would motivate someone to make that switch.

He told Boreal Community Media that the Hoovers "were able to figure out how to live in ways that most people wouldn’t be able to tolerate." This inspired him to search for a biography of her, but he discovered none existed. 

"I said, 'There’s gotta be a biography on Helen Hoover,'" and there wasn’t anything published, he said.

In his research, Hakensen went to the Minnesota History Center, where he found a long-lost, unpublished biography of Hoover written by Florence Carr for an MFA creative writing program at Hamline University. Carr had passed away, but through her obituary, Hakensen was able to track down her daughter to see if she had donated the research to a library. Turns out, her daughter had kept the papers in a barn and invited Hakensen to use them whenever he needed. 

"What was amazing is that Carr did all of her research pre-internet. She wrote letters, she kept great notes, she found people who knew the Hoovers when they lived in Wyoming, and even hired a researcher in Helen’s hometown in Ohio to track family history.  So I had a jump start on her early years from the research Carr had done," he said. Hakensen was also able to track down papers on Hoover at the UMD Special Collections and Archives, thanks to information in the footnotes of Carr's thesis. 

Hoover's writing is often compared to that of other well-known nature writers, such as Sigurd Olson and Rachel Carson. However, Hakensen shares that while others focused on conservation and preservation, Hoover's approach was more "immersive." 

Hakensen stated that her writing conveyed a personal philosophy that "our role is not to impose man on nature, but to blend in and be a part of nature, and observe and coexist." Of the well-known nature writers of that time, he considers her a "forerunner" of this idea, noting that she was "one of the first to really talk about how man can’t control nature, but how man can live among nature."

Her background as a scientist also played a significant role in her writing. Hoover worked in a male-dominated field, solving a manufacturing problem and earning a patent. According to Hakensen, like Carson, Hoover was a scientist and used observations to provide insights into the things she saw. 

"Hoover was intellectually very smart and did her homework about animals and their behavior, using reference books and other material to inform her writing," he said. 

The Hoovers were unprepared for life on the Gunflint Trail, and their time there was filled with challenges. 

"The Hoovers were woefully unprepared for life off the grid," Hakensen stated. Beyond the practical difficulties of, say, fending off bears and converting sheds into coops, Helen's "fiery personality" led to "clashes with hunters and other Gunflint neighbors." Despite these difficulties, she "would craft a prolific literary livelihood from her keen observations of nature," he said.

Hoover eventually left the Gunflint Trail and north woods, but as she wrote in her final book, The Years of the Forest, her connection to the place remained: "From this time on it would be both here and with me wherever I might be, as long as I should live." 

Of his upcoming talks, Hakensen says that "there are several generations of folks in Cook County who have no idea a beloved and best-selling nature writer lived on Gunflint Lake, so I hope the book re-introduces her writing to new readers." Additionally, there are rumors that Hoover wrote romance novels under a pseudonym to make a living, and that she made up everything in her books. 

 Hakensen said, "I do hope the book dispels some of the myths about Hoover," and added, "I hope to set the record straight on some of those myths."

David Hakensen will be presenting at Chik Wauk Nature Center on Saturday, September 20, at 2 p.m. and the Grand Marais Public Library on Wednesday, September 24, at 6 p.m., where he will discuss the book, Her Place in the Woods.