Circling the Wolf's Head is a series of eight loosely connected essays about the Lake Superior region that trace a clockwise route around the lake, beginning and ending in Duluth, Minnesota. While the essays circle the lake, the book is not intended to be a compendium of information about it, a comprehensive natural or cultural history of the lake and its environs, or even a travel guide to the area. Rather, it is simply the author's attempt to capture in words his personal experiences while traveling in the region over the course of several years beginning in the late 1990s. By skillfully blending accounts of his contemporary travels with historical anecdotes and descriptions of the landscape's primal power, Eaton evokes the spirit of this remarkable region.