Welcome Steve,

Thank you for coming on board to our site...from your ancient
waterway in W. Minnesota or coastal Santa Cruz, California, to each
of ours.

Mutual friend Marion Dahm spoke frequently and fondly of you,
Steve, was enthusiastic about the work you were doing in regard to
the Kensington Runestone, ancient viking seafarer exploration of
North America, and especially mooring stones. Days prior to Marion's
untimely death, I'd spent over an hour on the phone reading to him,
verbatum, letters you and others had posted to the PreColumbian
Inscriptions and Ohio Rock "thor" group message boards. Marion
remarked that you were a real sleuth and no doubt possessed the same
kind of passion and energy for the kind of work that both of you
were doing. He added, that you would need it. I, too, miss him very
much. See Posts #30, 31, & 35 to this group, particularly the fine
eulogy about Marion from Ancient Waterways Society member Pam Giese
that she wrote to the "thor group" and also included in a post to
this group.

Surveyor James Scherz, also a longtime friend of Marion, had been
planning an October, 2006 trip with Marion up to Lake Nipigon or
Nippising (cannot redcall the name of the Canadian lake) prior to the
AAAPF Conference. Jim is courting my good friend Laurie in Central
Wisconsin and spends considerable amounts of time in the Wausau area.
He stopped yesterday while I was seated reading posts. I showed him
the Ancient Waterways Society web site and your post, which he asked
me to run a print of. Also a couple of posts from Stan re: the AES
meeting Jan. 18th (which he plans to attend), along with the whale
bone and MSNBC article about the upcoming documentary on the Great
Lakes 10,000 years ago.

I have long been using the name "Ancient Waterways Society" based on
papers by retired UW Madison prof. James Scherz, also from
writings and talks by Fred Rydholm, author/researcher David Hoffman,
and others. Marion Dahm also included himself as a member of
an "Ancient Waterways Society" but did not own a computer in order to
follow group posts. All three friends listed above held very close
ties with Marion Dahm, housed him when Marion asked me to transport
him through northern Wisconsin, Keweenaw Peninsula, Marquette, then
down along Lake Michigan to Door County where Marion was following up
a lead seeking his first mooring stone in that area.

In your post, Steve, did you indicate that you purchased an entire
set of the mid-1800's survey maps of Minnesota? Dr. Scherz is
working with a survey group researching the origins of the
Mississippi River and we wondered if a single survey map can be
purchased. I want to mention to this group, by the way, that when I
first told him an Ancient Waterways Society web page had been set up,
Jim thought this site would be a good place for researchers to
display papers. He offered a full 24 page research article to us to
post to this site, which he also sells through the Ancient American
Magazine Book Club. The retired professor doesn't have an operational
computer; I don't own Microsoft Word, am using dial-up service, and
neither the computer nor myself has the sophistication to download
large files. Title page of Jim's paper reads:

"OLD WATER LEVELS AND WATERWAYS During the Ancient Copper Mining Era
(about 3000 BC to 1000 BC)"

James P. Scherz, Prof. Emeritus
Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering
(Surveying and Mapping Section)
University of Wisconsin
Madison, WIsconsin
July, 1999

David Hoffman, mentioned above, emailed a day or two ago he was
having difficulty signing on as a member of this web group so that he
could write posts. His latest work on ancient seafarers into the
Great Lakes focuses on a N. Wisconsin origin of the Wisconsin River.
I emailed back to David that I believe one must first sign on as a
member of Yahoo groups, which includes obtaining a Yahoo email
address. When I joined my first Yahoogroup (PreColumbian
Inscriptions), a post to the group from Mike White assisted me step-
by-step in joining. I have been unable to find Mike's helpful message
to that site.

Before signing off, I wish to include other web groups mentioned
in this letter. A few of us posting here view Messages or are
members of the other specialty Yahoogroups:

PreColumbain Inscriptions (host Mike White):
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Precolumbian_Inscriptions/

The Thor (Ohio Rock) site (host William Smith):
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/thor-thehuntersohiorock/

American Runestones (recently resurrected by Steven Hilgren):
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/americanrunestones/

Ancient American Artifact Preservation Foundation (AAAPF), host Rick
Osmond, Indiana):
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/americanrunestones/

Looking forward to hearing more about your work. Also from those of
you who continue on patiently, as members, despite the sometimes
infrequency of posts. We do hope that the letters posted here make
it worthwhile. Any comments or ideas to improve this web page would
be welcome.

Sincerely,

M. Susan English

--- In ancient_waterways_society@yahoogroups.com, "hilgren"
<hilgren@...> wrote:

Hi Susan,Stan and other members
My name is Steve and I am from west central minnesota. I do
ancient viking research and have found an interesting map that members
may not have. There are a set of 48 maps that are the original land
survey from the mid 1800,s. These maps cover an area from the dakota
minnesota border, east thru wisconsin and Michigan. They are very
detailed and the whole set is over $200. Each map is 2x3 and is $5 and
can be ordered separately. These maps are copywrited and so can be
only purchased from the Trygg Land Office in Ely minnesota...

http://www.trygglandoffice.com/maps.html

These maps have been a great help in my research. They show clearly
the higher water marks that the first settlers were encountering and
the waterways that were once the highways to the interior.

In the last year I have began viewing the glass not as half full or
half empty but as FULL and the midwest covered by water and large
shallow inland seas. I started with an all blue picture and then
started dropping the waters and mapping the islands as they began to
emerge. Soon I could then see the remains of these inland seas and
ancient waterways on the trygg land maps.

On the (KRS) kensington runestone, the last line says, "from this
island,year 1362"..... ISLAND???.Where was the water???

I have tried this last year to picture the more extreme high waters
that would correspond with the different dates. Norse explorers of
1362, viking explorers of a 1000 years ago and then even more ancients
of 2-5 thousand years ago.

In july I found a new higher water mark and have begun mapping these
beaches. I am working on these maps this winter and mapping these
islands as the ancients would have found them.

Thanks and happy hunting in the new year.

STEVE