This isn't an e-book. It's a guided set of lanscape literacy practices you can start using--today.

Let me show you how to see the place you're about to visit.

Most visitors leave the Wisconsin South Shore with beautiful photographs.

My goal is for you to leave with a completely different way of understanding the landscape itself.

This premium illustrated guide introduces the ideas behind Landscape Literacy so every hike, ferry ride, overlook, beach, and harbor becomes more meaningful.

Why Most Travel Feels Forgettable

Travel blogs tell you where to go.

Guidebooks tell you what happened there.

This guide teaches you how to notice.

Before you even arrive you'll begin seeing connections between:

Geology

Gorests

Lake Superior

Indigenous histories

Logging & Mining

Historical & Present-day Communities

And the landscape around you

What You'll Learn

Inside Before You Go: A Landscape Literacy Guide you'll discover:

Four stories that shaped Wisconsin's South Shore

Learn how stone, water, forests, and people have created the landscape you'll be exploring.

Why the Wisconsin Shore look different than Minnesota's North Shore

Understand the billion-year geological story hiding behind the sea caves, cliffs, and sandstone shoreline.

Why these forests aren't as old as they appear

Discover the surprising history of the Cutover, wildfires, recovery, and how today's woods still tell the story.

Five questions that will transform every stop on your trip

Questions you'll carry from overlook to harbor to hiking trail that help you notice what almost everyone else misses.

Simple observation exercises.

Slow down.

Notice more.

Understand more.

Travel differently.

Exactly the philosophy behind everything I teach.

This Guide Is Perfect For You If . . .

You're the kind of traveler who loves understanding the places you visit.

You enjoy history, nature, and culture—not as separate subjects, but as one connected story.

You'd rather come home with a new perspective than another checklist completed.

You believe the best trips don't just change where you've been—they change how you see.

Get Know Before You Go: Wisconsin's South Shore

Meet the Outdoors Historian

I'm Emily Macgillivray, PhD, and I created The Outdoors Historian because I believe the best trips don't just take us somewhere new—they help us see the world differently. As a historian and educator, I've spent years exploring how geology, ecology, history, and culture shape the places we visit. Today, I help curious travelers uncover those stories and experience landscapes with greater understanding and intention.

I call this reading the landscape. When we learn to notice the layers of a place—from ancient rock formations to Indigenous histories and living ecosystems—we don't just travel farther. We travel deeper.

Lake Superior is the perfect place to begin. Its remarkable landscapes are filled with stories waiting to be discovered, and I hope my articles, guides, and personalized planning services inspire you to explore this extraordinary region with fresh eyes.

The Outdoors Historian

Helping you read the landscape.

So you can see places differently.