Remote and rugged, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (fondly known as “the U.P.”) has been home to a rich variety of indigenous peoples and Old World immigrants—a heritage deeply embedded in today’s “Yooper” culture. Ojibwes, French Canadians, Finns, Cornish, Poles, Italians, Slovenians, and others have all lived here, attracted to the area by its timber, mineral ore, and fishing grounds. Mixing local happenings with supernatural tales and creatively adapting traditional stories to suit changing audiences, the diverse inhabitants of the U.P. have created a wealth of lore populated with tricksters, outlaws, cunning trappers and poachers, eccentric bosses of the mines and lumber camps, “bloodstoppers” gifted with the lifesaving power to stop the flow of blood, “bearwalkers” able to assume the shape of bears, and more.             For folklorist Richard M. Dorson, who ventured into the region in the late 1940s, the U.P. was a living laboratory, a storyteller’s paradise. Bloodstoppers and Bearwalkers , based on his extensive fieldwork in the area, is his richest and most enduring work. This new edition, with a critical introduction and an appendix of additional tales selected by James P. Leary, restores and expands Dorson’s classic contribution to American folklore. Engaging and well informed, the book presents and ponders the folk narratives of the region’s loggers, miners, lake sailors, trappers, and townsfolk. Unfolding the variously peculiar and raucous tales of the U.P., Bloodstoppers and Bearwalkers reveals a vital component of Upper Midwest culture and a fascinating cross-section of American society.   “An important re-introduction of an American folklore classic.”—Carl Lindahl, University of Houston   “A collection of traditions, tales, superstitions, practices, and folk biographies that range from the slyly humorous to the bawdy. . . . These are human beings, a folk, not sitting for a portrait, but caught alive as it were in fine amber, a permanent possession.”—Thelma G. James, Journal of American Folklore   “Dorson’s first great book—published amidst Cold War clamoring for Americanism defined in narrow, Eastern-oriented, Anglo-Protestant, assimilationist terms—asserted unequivocally that the Upper Midwest, with its unruly democratic mixture of indigenous and immigrant peoples, its rustic working class babel of Native and foreign tongues, was also an American place, and a quintessential one at that. In writing what he did when he did, Dorson anticipated a whole generation of scholars dedicated to challenging canons by emphasizing the power, worth, and endless creativity of grassroots, plural, hybrid, and creolized cultures fermenting at the margins of staid, hierarchical social orders.”—James P. Leary, from the introduction Third Edition, with additional tales Edited and with an introduction by James P. Leary Richard M. Dorson (1916-1981) was Distinguished Professor of History and Folklore and director of the Folklore Institution at Indiana University. James P. Leary is the Birgit Baldwin Professor of Scandinavian Studies, professor in the Department of Comparative Literature and Folklore Studies, and a co-founder of the Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His documentary recordings and films include Accordions in the Cutover ; Ach Ya!: Traditional German-American Music from Wisconsin (with Philip Martin); Midwest Ramblin': The Goose Island Ramblers ; Down Home Dairyland (with Richard March);and The Art of Ironworking . His books include Wisconsin Folklore , So Ole Says to Lena , and Polkabilly: How the Goose Island Ramblers Redefined American Folk Music (winner of the Chicago Folklore Prize). He is co-editor of the Journal of American Folklore .  “In writing what he did when he did, Dorson anticipated a whole generation of scholars dedicated to challenging canons by emphasizing the power, worth, and endless creativity of grassroots, plural, hybrid, and creolized cultures fermenting at the margins.”—James P. Leary, from the new introduction