MSU Press will be attending the Quiet Adventures Symposium held on February 28th, 2026. Quiet Adventures promotes non-motorized outdoor recreation and environmental stewardship in Michigan. The Symposium will be held at the MSU Farm Bureau Pavilion (4301 Farm Lane) at Michigan State University between the hours of 9:00 A.M. and 5:30 P.M..
Author Jeffery M. Holden of Dead Moose on Isle Royale: Off Trail with the Citizen Scientists of the Wolf-Moose Project will be attending the Quiet Adventures Symposium and signing books!
Dead Moose on Isle Royale will be available for purchase at MSU Press’s table.
Enjoy 20% off our nature titles with code MSUP20.
Check out MSU Press’s upcoming book Retracing the Dragoon Trail in Iowa: Environmental Transformation along the Des Moines River by Keven T. Mason!
In Retracing the Dragoon Trail in Iowa, historian Kevin T. Mason presents a vivid and deeply researched account of Iowa’s evolving landscape, beginning with the 1835 expedition of the First U.S. Dragoons. Drawing from archival records, maps, government surveys, Indigenous histories, and ecological data, Mason explores how Iowa’s prairies and wetlands gave way to farms, towns, and transportation networks. He situates these environmental shifts within the broader forces of Manifest Destiny, military expansion, and settler colonialism, while amplifying the voices of the Sauk, Meskwaki, Dakota, and other Indigenous nations whose histories are often marginalized.
But Mason doesn’t just write about history—he walks it. His 371-mile journey retracing the original dragoon route across Iowa blends scholarship with storytelling, captured through video essays, photography, and writing. This modern-day trek, featured on Iowa PBS’s Iowa Life and Iowa Public Radio’s Talk of Iowa, brings the past into the present, offering a compelling look at how landscapes remember. The result is a powerful contribution to environmental history, regional studies, and Indigenous scholarship—one that reveals the layered interactions between land use, policy, and historical change.