JIM ROOKS R.I.P.

Jim Rooks died four years ago.

We learned of his passing the day after we arrived in Copper Harbor.
We had not known.

We had been away six years.
And we were not really friends.
No one would ever have thought to send word.

But we treasured having met him many times.

He did not really know us . He met many, many visitors like us.

But to us, there was only one Jim Rooks.

His credits were many.

We knew him as expert guide and naturalist regarding the area known as the Keweenaw Peninsula.

We shopped in his Laughing Loon store.
His Bear Track Tours took us to places we would not have gone and taught us things we would never have known..

He was a preservationist, a conservationist, a tireless worker who successfully protected his part of the world from so-called progress.

He once jokingly urged us to visit his world often but not to stay, unless we replaced a person already there.
And if we did decide to stay, to make as small a footprint on the land as possible.

He was the kind of man who would stop his car, an old van, pulling off on the side of the road, to pick up a piece of litter.

He took care of his part of the world.

He was/is a part of our thoughts and feelings about The North.

We miss knowing that he is in his favourite environment, teaching and guiding and protecting.

We wish him Godspeed.