Muskrat City

Muskrat City is one of the small and rare, self-published, "Birch Bark Books" written by Henry Abbott. It is a real-life story about the Adirondack mountain region in New York state, near Long Lake, and how the author and his partner Bige, camped out, got lost, made their shelter, cooked with no utensils, and found their way back to Dan'l Boone Camp. Bige makes the discovery of a beaver meadow that has so many muskrat huts, he names it Muskrat City, which they revisit several times. Other people mentioned in the story are Jim Flynn, who works for the state in a fire look-out tower on Owl's Head Mountain, and Sam Lapham who roams the forest collecting spruce gum. Abbott gives descriptions and habits of the fur bearing animals that live in the area, such as the mink, marten, woodchuck, fisher, raccoon, red fox, and of course, the muskrat.