Nikki Rajala

No wonder Nikki Rajala writes about voyageurs—her French-Canadian ancestors paddled birch bark canoes on many fur trade brigades. One family story that inspired this book is of a great-great wintered who for 16 years in fur posts west of Lake Superior. On Girl Scout canoe expeditions as a teen, Nikki explored Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and Ontario's Quetico Provincial Park. She loves rendezvous re-enactments, reading fur trade journals, visiting museums and tasting voyageur foods. In 2014 Nikki and her mother, Agnes Peloquin Rajala, published “Waters Like the Sky,” the first book in this series. The book earned the Jeanette Fair Book Award from Delta Kappa Gamma, Tau State (an honorary organization for key women educators). Earlier she researched her Finnish heritage for "Some Like it Hot: The Sauna, its Lore and Stories." She's married to writer Bill Vossler, her best friend.