Rob Nurre is a landscape historian whose work focuses on the interactions of natural and cultural history. Nurre uses character portrayals in his educational presentations to illustrate these interactions. Along with portraying Increase A. Lapham, Nurre also portrays Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley, the original General Land Office surveyors, and bird's-eye-view artists. He has been fascinated by Lapham's life and legacy for years. A decade ago he undertook a project to locate the extant volumes from Lapham's personal library, which are now in the collection of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Library. Nurre wrote the introduction for a reprint edition of Lapham's The Antiquities of Wisconsin (University of Wisconsin Press, 2001).
