The author of this book has long been a tireless investigator of Mississippi Headwaters regional history. His pioneer family and his medical practice in Bemidji provided contacts which stirred his interest in the fascinating past of his locality. He began to collect materials on lumbering and other aspects of regional history. He accumulated photographs and launched an ambitious oral history project to record and preserve interviews with early settlers. Field trips broadened and enhanced the data gathered from the oral reports. 

But Dr. Vandersluis was not content simply to collect materials. He also wished to bring the story of the area to its people. His A Brief History of Beltrami County, appeared in 1963. It contains much original information on lumbering and many other topics. Mainly Logging, published in 1974, is a compilation compilation of the recollections of a surveyor, a timber cruiser and a merchant who was active in the affairs of the Indian community. With copious notes, a detailed index and numerous maps and illustrations, this volume is an indispensable reference for regional history. 

...[Once Covered with Pine]  is the second in the series. It affords the reader a panoramic view of a developing area from raw frontier to settled country. It focuses on the life of the people at the grass roots level with Dr. Vandersluis letting the individual men and women themselves tell much of the story. The reader may share vicariously in the everyday round of pioneer experience, its joys and sorrows, its hopes and disappointments, its achievements and failures. Like the author's other books, this one is an excellent guide for teacher, student, researcher or general reader who wishes to explore the colorful past of the lands around the Mississippi Headwaters. - Harold Hagg
 
 
Book II of a Series

Topics
Missionary Activity Among the INdians Preceding Settle in Bemidji East of the River 
The Carsons
Shay-now-ish-kung and Beginnings of Bemidji
Bemidji Crosses the River
Bemidji Approaches Permanency
Bemidji Area to the Turn of the Century