NATIVE AMERICAN TRAIL MARKER TREES
Marking Paths Through the Wilderness
by Dennis Downes
This exciting book is a beautiful combination of history and nature, compiling the author’s lifelong journey studying these trees.
Early on the author’s passion was ignited by his own Native American Aunt, along with local historians and scouting groups.
Later, in his early thirties, he would begin to follow in the footsteps of anthropologist and botanist, Dr. Raymond Janssen (graduate of Northwestern and UIC).
Janssen had traveled to thirteen states working with Native Americans and documenting the Trail Marker Trees from the late 1920’s into the 1940’s.
The author has traveled to forty states and five Canadian Provinces over a thirty year period, beginning his study in the states that Janssen visited and expanding from there.
During his travels he has met with Native Americans, anthropologists, arborists, archeologists, and local historians.
He has dedicated much of his life to photographing and documenting the history of the Trail Marker Trees.
This is the first publication to focus in such detail on this unique form of land and water navigation used by the Native Americans, and later, by the early settlers.