Reviews (2)

One of the best books I've read this year!
Burroughs's book is a wonderful tale of exploration into the dense, winding, wonderful Waccamaw River in SC, and into the mostly forgotten past of his native Horry County. His marvelous sense of detail, poetic sensibility, and grand sympathies with all things natural and human make this a memoroble book indeed. I know Prof. Burroughs might hoot at the comparison, but I enjoyed this book as much as anything I've read in Thoreau.

wonderful natural history of the Waccamaw River
A human life, I think, should be well rooted in some spot of native land, where it may get the love of tender kinship for the face of the earth, for the labors men go forth to, for the sounds and accents that haunt it, for whatever will give that early home a familiar, unmistakable difference amidst the future widening of knowledge: a spot where the definiteness of early memories may be inwrought with affection, and kindly acquaintance with all neighbors, even to dogs and donkeys, may spread not by sentimental effort and reflection, but as a sweet habit of the blood. -George Eliot (Daniel Deronda)

This sentiment and the chance discovery of Nathaniel Holmes Bishop's The Voyage of the Paper Canoe (1878), detailing a canoe trip down the East Coast which included a side trip on the Waccamaw River, were the twin impulses that lead Burroughs to return to his native Horry County, SC and make his own trip down the Waccamaw. Burroughs, a professor at Bowdoin, published a terrific collection of essays Billy Watson's Croker Sack in 1991 (it even made Mr. Doggett's Suggested Summer Reading List for Students) and this book is every bit as good.

Whether he's detailing the history of the county, the river and his own family or relating his encounters with the river's unique residents or describing the wildlife he encounters, Burroughs has a sharp eye, a sympathetic ear and a silver tongue. Here is his description of one bird he meets:

Yesterday a red-shouldered hawk had called the day to order, and got its business underway. Today it was a pileated woodpecker: a staccato drum-burst against a hollow tree, then the bird itself. It flew across in front of me, with its peculiar alternation of flap, swoop, and collapse, and its last swoop fetched it up against the trunk of a cypress. It clung there a moment, cocked and primed, a perfectly congruous mixture of Woody Woodpecker, frock-coated nineteenth-century deacon and pterodactyl. Then it gave the tree an abrupt, jackhammer strafing, rolled out its lordly call, and swooped away, leaving the day to its own devices.

If you've ever seen one, you know that a pileated woodpecker has never been described better and if you haven't you must almost feel that now you have.

This is a wonderful bucolic look at the history and nature of the Waccamaw, which will leave you wishing that you too had such a place coursing through your blood.

GRADE: A ... Read more

Book Description

Captian Ron's book "UPPER MISSISSIPPI RIVER HISTORY" begins with the early French explorers and hardy fur trappers. He covers the history of the paddle-wheel steamboats from the first one on the Mississippi River in 1811, the "NEW ORLEANS",to the fonding and growth of the paddle-wheel steamboat companies on the upper Mississippi River -- from passenger and freight steamboats to excursion paddle-wheel steamboats of today.

You will find photographs and early historical stories of the upper Mississippi river towns from St.Louis, Missouri, to Minneapolis, Minnesota.

added to all this history are stories and tales from river pilots about the names and landmarks along the upper Mississippi River. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

This book is a must for anyone cruiseing the Upper Miss. R.
Captain Ron's book begins with the early French explorers and hardy fur trappers. He covers the history of the paddle-wheel steamboats from the first one on the Mississippi River in 1811, the "NEW ORLEANS", to the founding and growth of the paddle-wheel steamboat companies on the upper Mississippi River, from passenger and freight steamboats to excursion paddle-wheel steamboats fo today. Added to all this history are stories and tales from river pilots about the names and landmarks along the upper Mississippi River. Reading this book is like riding in the pilot house listing to Captain Ron telling his river stories. ... Read more

Book Description

A hundred miles northwest of Los Angeles, Sespe Creek flows through some of the wildest territory in California. A mostly roadless expanse of chaparral and mixed forest, in many places nearly inaccessible even on foot, the Sespe is the untamed heart of Southern California, a wilderness on the edge of one of the world’s major metropolitan developments. To nature writer and outdoorsman John Bradley Monsma, the Sespe is both his place of escape and the place "that teaches me to be fully alive."

In The Sespe Wild, Monsma shares his exploration of this unique and fantastic region. His attention ranges from the physical Sespe, examined on foot or by kayak, to the subsurface geology that shaped it, the Chumash people who first occupied it, and the impact of Spanish and then American settlers. He also considers the Sespe through the eyes of some of its nonhuman populations—the nearly extinct condors, the vanished grizzlies, the mountain sheep, the steelhead trout, the red-legged frogs. Through the metaphor of the river, he ponders the tensions between preservation and overmanagement of wildlife and wilderness areas, the ecology of fire, the intricate connections between species, and the almost miraculous ways that the Sespe has escaped the fate of other Southern California streams, dammed or carved up into canals by development.

"To consider this place," Monsma says, "is to call up issues crucial wherever wilderness and cities meet: recreational impacts on wildlife habitat, the dynamics of accessibility and protection, the physical and psychological need for healthy ecosystems, threats of development and resource extraction." Monsma’s engaging text addresses the Sespe’s losses and its ongoing pattern of creation and renewal, leading us through rich layers of natural and cultural history in a narrative as colorful and exciting as a day on a Sespe trail. The Sespe, existing at the intersection of ecological processes and human ideals of wilderness, reminds us that nature and culture have always intermingled, and that the past and present, animal and human, "natural" and "unnatural" are ultimately and irrevocably inseparable. ... Read more

Book Description

Amazon.com

The "essence of the American desert," as the subtitle of Craig Childs's book has it, is water. A desert, by definition, lacks it, but when water does come, it comes in torrential, sometimes devastating abundance. Childs, a thirtysomething desert rat with a vast knowledge of the Southwest's remote corners, knows this fact well. "Most rain falling anywhere but the desert comes slow enough that it is swallowed by the soil without comment," he observes. "Desert rains, powerful and sporadic, tend to hit the ground, gather into floods, and are gone before the water can sink five inches into the ground."

The travels that Childs recounts in this vivid narrative take him from places sometimes parched, sometimes swimming, from the depths of the Grand Canyon to the dry limestone tanks of the lava-strewn Sonoran Desert. As he travels, Childs gives a close reading of the desert landscape ("the moral," he writes at one point, "is that if you know the land and its maps, you might live"), observing the rocks, plants, animals, and people that call it home. Some of his adventures will remind readers of Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire--save that Childs writes without Abbey's bluster, and with a measured lyricism that well suits the achingly lovely back canyons and cactus forests of the Southwest. By turns travelogue, ecological treatise, and meditative essay, Childs's book will speak to anyone who has spent time under desert skies, wondering when the next drop of rain might fall. --Gregory McNamee ... Read more

Reviews (12)

A wonderful guide to the desert
What John McPhee did for North American geology in "Annals of the Former World", Craig Childs does for the deserts of the southwestern U.S. in "The Secret Knowledge of Water". Childs does it better, however: he writes as a son of the desert, one whose intimate knowledge and love of the land and its ways percolate up through these pages like the waters of a favorite desert spring. And he shares his admiration and respect for the desert in a lyric prose that delights as much as it informs.

Childs has worked as a guide and teacher in this area of the country. That he wrote a book based on his knowledge of the terrain is not all that surprising, but his ability to provide a guided tour on paper and to paint word pictures of desert scenes like a novelist would is extraordinary. The successive sections of the book stand on their own as introductions to the desert world and, particularly, to the nature and role of water in the desert. But they also peel away a layer at a time, revealing more and more fascinations as he leads through the book. So we are treated at the start to an account of what John Wesley Powell called the "Thousand Wells" area of the Arizona-Utah border, a collection of potholes, or "waterpockets", each containing hundreds (or thousands) of gallons of water and found sitting on the surface of the land in one of the least likely places on the planet for water to be. But from there we are treated to more delights: underground reservoirs that bubble up to the surface in springs or spout out from a rock face in a waterfall; arroyos that carve the desert into creeks and then disappear; canyons that channel even modest rainfall into floods that are as fierce as they are fickle. Childs' prose is full of wonder and an eye for detail; he can get new-agey at times, though, especially in how often and how strongly he personifies water, and the account he tells of child sacrifice to stop a flood can be either poignant or horrifying, depending on one's point of view. So the accounts hit some bumps here and there, but nothing hard enough to make the jeep he's taking us around in bend an axle.

I have been to, or near, some of the places Childs describes in Secret Knowledge and, as a lifelong resident of the well-watered east, naturally missed every single feature he wrote about. So next time I go, I will be sure to bring this book along to point the way to some of the hidden gems of the desert. It's like having the best tour guide ever lead you around personally, but on the cheap.

A Pleasurable and Informative Read!
"The Secret Knowledge of Water" is prose poetry, without a single word wasted. Three or four months after reading it, many of the images are still in my head: images of ancient trails to waterholes; large, unexpected swimming holes, microbes so hardy their environment can go dry and they just curl up and wait...

This book will become even more valuable and compelling as drinking water supplies diminish in quality and quantity. Childs leads us with great flair to a subject of unparalleled importance. His musings blend with touches of humor, history and fascinating naturalism. "Secret Knowledge" should be on every nightstand and in every science (and literature) classroom. It's truly a work of art!

A Fascinating Read!
I've lived in the desert, I've hiked in the desert, I've camped in the desert and I've cursed the desert but nothing I have read before made me understand and love the desert like The Secret Knowledge of Water does.
Until I read Craig Childs' essay, I never gave much thought to water in the desert except that without it you die. Childs paints a vivid picture of the juxtaposition of desert and water in all of its manifestations. I can still picture the pools of water in the tinajas of the barren, sun-baked Cabeza Prieta and the thunderstorm-fed floods on the Arizona Strip. I can feel the terror he must have felt squatting on a ledge in a feeder canyon of the Grand Canyon as flood waters rose and swirled around him and his relief as they receded, leaving behind tons of debris. I can also feel his awe at the power and majesty of nature at the same time. I can feel his exhilaration as he bathes in a deep, cool waterpocket after a long day's hike. And I can sense his deep respect for the original peoples of the desert and how they have adapted to its caprice.
It is obvious from his style that Childs has an abiding love for the desert. If you know and love the desert, you will find The Secret Knowledge of Water a fascinating read and come away with new respect for the desert and for the waters which both nurture and shape it.

Vicarious desert travel
For desert hikers, the only substitute for "being there" is to be there through someone else's eyes. Childs has opted for a life that few can or will choose...although many of us may wish we had. His experiences are uncommon enough that a simple telling would be sufficient to keep the reader engaged. I could actually feel fear myself during his description of entry into a canyon-side spring against the flow...40 stories up. This book will keep me going a while longer while I wait to get back to this landscape again.

Close to Land, Close to Water
In the southwest, as one strives to get closer to the land it becomes necessary to get ever closer to the knowledge of water that Childs writes of here. Thirst in the desert without this knowledge of water will fan a killing panic long before any real threat of deadly dehydration. Beyond survival though, Childs shares beauty, science, historical anecdote and research in a nice balance.

Every few generations, Childs tells us, civilization sends someone into the desert to gain and map the knowledge of water. In this generation, we are grateful Childs was chosen. Facsinating. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

a canoe trip in the far north
In 1981, four paddlers set out on 800-mile, 38-day canoe trip in the barren region west of Hudson Bay where Saskatchewan, Manitoba, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut come together. Their complicated itinerary on these seldom-visited waterways included Reindeer Lake, the Cochrane River, the Thlewiaza River, Nueltin Lake, the Kognak River, South Henik Lake, and the Maguse River, ending on the western shores of Hudson Bay.
It was the first real wilderness trip for the author who had very little canoeing experience. Fortunately his three partners had lots of paddling miles under their belts and taught him many of the ups and downs of travelling in the wilderness. As a result, this book is filled with astute observations by a curious newcomer to the country and the best way to explore it, the paddling, the portaging, the camping, the vast vistas, the cold wind, surviving the clouds of black flies. It all made a deep impression on the man and it comes through in his writing that reflects, often in well-observed detail, on his new experiences in this harsh but breathtakingly beautiful country. The author also talks about his personal feelings and growth, the evolving relationships between the four men, and the insights he gains from being part of a team on an extended northern trip. The numerous black-and-white photographs, made by George Luste-who also contributed the excellent Foreword -are on the whole quite good in illustrating the country and how the four men travelled through it; unfortunately the quality of their reproduction in the book is not always satisfactory. This well-written book should also have had a more inspiring title and a better cover photograph.

A canoe trip in the far North
In 1981, four paddlers set out on 800-mile, 38-day canoe trip in the barren region west of Hudson Bay where Saskatchewan, Manitoba, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut come together. Their complicated itinerary on these seldom-visited waterways included Reindeer Lake, the Cochrane River, the Thlewiaza River, Nueltin Lake, the Kognak River, South Henik Lake, and the Maguse River, ending on the western shores of Hudson Bay.
It was the first real wilderness trip for the author who had very little canoeing experience. Fortunately his three partners had lots of paddling miles under their belts and taught him many of the ups and downs of travelling in the wilderness. As a result, this book is filled with astute observations by a curious newcomer to the country and the best way to explore it, the paddling, the portaging, the camping, the vast vistas, the cold wind, surviving the clouds of black flies. It all made a deep impression on the man and it comes through in his writing that reflects, often in well-observed detail, on his new experiences in this harsh but breathtakingly beautiful country. The author also talks about his personal feelings and growth, the evolving relationships between the four men, and the insights he gains from being part of a team on an extended northern trip. The numerous black-and-white photographs, made by George Luste-who also contributed the excellent Foreword -are on the whole quite good in illustrating the country and how the four men travelled through it; unfortunately the quality of their reproduction in the book is not always satisfactory. This well-written book should also have had a more inspiring title and a better cover photograph. ... Read more

Book Description

On their remarkable journey across the North American continent, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark's "Corps of Discovery" traveled almost ten thousand miles, about nine thousand of them on rivers-the Ohio, Mississippi, Missouri, Jefferson, Beaverhead, Clearwater, Snake, Columbia, and Yellowstone-or their associated forks, creeks, and tributaries.

With an expert's eye, Verne Huser tells us what it was like to mount and carry out such an expedition. From the construction of the boats in 1803 to the negotiation of the last miles home three years later, the explorers were tied inextricably to the river systems that carried them west into uncharted territory and back again. From the Ohio River to the Columbia, they rowed, paddled, pulled, poled, sailed, and portaged their way into history-mapping, collecting, and recording a country's first glimpse of its Western wealth.

Huser has canoed, rafted, or cruised much of the expedition's route. He brings to the famous story his knowledge of the "ways of wind and water," giving readers a rare, first-hand look at the benefits and hazards of river travel as they might have been experienced by the thirty-three explorers-some boatmen, some not-on the river with Lewis and Clark. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

living history
This book by Huser provides an insightful glimpse of one of the most famous riverine explorations in American history. By defly flipping between historic journal interpretations and personal riverine reflections, Huser provides an incredibly rewarding and fun read, informed from his long experience with, and intimate knowledge of, America's wild waterways. For these reasons, I was very grateful that Huser accepted an invitation from my publisher (Green Frigate Books) to write one of the front-end blurbs for the recently published Deep Immersion: The Experience of Water. ... Read more

Book Description

First published in 1947 and out of print for many years, this book tells the story of New England's longest river, from its birth some 15,000 years ago as a small stream sculpted by glaciers in the last ice age through its rich and colorful history as New England's preeminent waterway. This edition includes a new introduction by Thomas Conuel, placing the book in historical perspective and describing the changes that have occurred since its original publication. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Day trips in abundance
The authors do two things in the book. First they give a brief overview of canoeing techniques, cautions and safety, and then a number of trips that can be taken in the Wisconsin, Upper Michigan, and Minnisota areas. Included are maps and sites, as well as cautions for rapids, barb wire, and other hazards which may need care or avoidance.

The area that was somewhat lacking was the way to piece the shorter trips together for a longer trip, since there was less camping information in the river descriptions. The inclusion of both whitewater sections as well as a number of sections of quiet water was helpful. ... Read more

Book Description

Our Wisconsin River: Border to Border captures the magic of "America's hardest working river". For the past year photographer Nels Akerlund has been combing the banks of this 427 mile liquid highway by car, foot and kayak to capture the beauty of the waterway the Algonquin Indians called "Wees-Konsan", or the gathering of the waters. Akerlund's stunning color photographs are complemented by the historic black & white images to give readers a complete view of this diverse river. The text of the 112 page book by Joe Glickman explores the often tragic and humorous tales of the Indians, missionaries, explorers, lumberjacks, and the assorted collection of eccentrics that inhabited it's banks. In addition, there is the adventurous story of Akerlund, Glickman, and Nel's father Dan, who spent two weeks during the summer of '96 braving the flooded waters, headwinds, and storms, as they portaged their heavily loaded kayaks around the 26 dams that interrupt the river from it's source at Lac Vieux Desert to the mouth at the Mississippi River. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

update- in print now
UPDATE! this book is now in print ... Read more

Book Description

A spectacular life list of Northern rivers.

Alaska to Nunavut showcases magnificent northern rivers and introduces readers to the unique beauty and highlights of each river -- its landscape, flora and fauna. The book's theme revolves around more than 80 stunning color photographs that reveal the rivers as treasure troves of ecological beauty and opportunities for adventure. The book features attractive maps, insights into the unique attributes, history, ecology, and First Nations culture of the regions.

Chapters include: - South Nahanni, River of Gold - Alsek River, World's Largest Bio Preserve - Tatshenshini, Ice Age River - Firth River, Marvel of Diversity- Snake River, An Arctic Mountain River - Wind River, Revels of the Klondike Goldrush - Stikine River, Spatsizi Plateau Wilderness Park to the Alaska'a Inside Passage - Burnside River, Arctic Wonderland - Coppermine River, Sandstone Rapids (Bloody Fall) - Horton River, the Smoking Hills

These rivers are a string of jewels across the top of the continent. They are a definitive life list of destinations for eco-travelers and armchair adventurers alike. ... Read more

Book Description

Delphus E. Carpenter (1877-1951) was Colorado’s commissioner of interstate streams during a time when water rights were a legal battleground for western states. A complex, unassuming man as rare and cunning in politics and law as the elusive silver fox of the Rocky Mountain West, Carpenter boldly relied on negotiation instead of endless litigation to forge agreements among states first, before federal intervention. In "Silver Fox of the Rockies," Daniel Tyler tells Carpenter’s story and that of the great interstate water compacts he helped create. Those compacts, produced in the early twentieth century, have guided not only agricultural use but urban growth and development throughout much of the American West to this day.

In Carpenter’s time, most western states relied on the doctrine of prior appropriation--first in time, first in right--which granted exclusive use of resources to those who claimed them first, regardless of common needs. Carpenter feared that population growth and rapid agricultural development in states sharing the same river basins would rob Colorado of its right to a fair share of water. To avoid that eventuality, Carpenter invoked the compact clause of the U.S. Constitution, a clause previously used to settle boundary disputes, and applied it to interstate water rights. The result was a mechanism by which complex issues involving interstate water rights could be settled through negotiation without litigating them before the U.S. Supreme Court. Carpenter believed in the preservation of states rights in order to preserve the constitutionally mandated balance between state and federal authority.

Today, water remains critically important to the American West, and the great interstate water compacts Carpenter helped engineer constitute his most enduring legacy. Of particular significance is the Colorado River Compact of 1922, without which Hoover Dam could never have been built. ... Read more

Book Description

Exploring the swampy woods of Georgia's Chatham County some years ago, searching out places to photograph, Jack Leigh turned his car onto an obscure dirt road winding farther into the forest. Finally driving into a clearing on the banks of the Ogeechee, Leigh found himself at Uncle Shed's Fishing Camp, and at the beginning of what would be a two-year discovery of the river and its people, a chronicle in images and words stretching from the Ogeechee's headwaters in Greene County to marsh flats near the Atlantic Ocean.

In his photographs and text, Leigh introduces such river natives as George Altman, standing knee-deep in water and reeling out fishing stories as he flicks his line into a shaded area beneath a fallen tree; and Jack Mikell, Sr., whose life on the river is told in the array of frying pans that hang on the wall behind him and in his recollections of long nights tending moonshine stills in backwater swamps. Leigh tells of the many stories the river holds—-of the Muck Runners, Louisville men who each winter slog through swamps and deadfalls two hundred miles to Savannah; of Frank Cox, whose journey down river, taken in numerous pieces with as many reluctant partners, fulfilled a childhood dream; and of a woman's baptism in Warren County, at which beads of anointing oil mingled with the cold water of the rushing river.

At Uncle Shed's Fishing Camp, as tales of fish fries and courtship conjure up more than fifty years on the Ogeechee, the camera ranges across the clearing, capturing the pattern of river life in the faded letters of a hand-painted sign; in the weathered face of camp matriarch Bessie Dickerson; and in the scattered flowerpots, lawn chairs, ceramic swans, and gravestone that lie cluttered against a cabin wall. Recording the wild ramblings and lazy progress of the Ogeechee, the quiet rituals and raucous stories of its people, Jack Leigh chronicles the course of lives that run with the current of the river. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Poignant
This book is an extremely well constructed, balanced perspective about the problems with the Lower Snake River dams. The writing is clear and consise, which is crucial when explaining such a complex issue. The author does not use emotional arguments to outrage the reader. Rather, he presents the facts that surround the issue and uses those to draw a well thought out conclusion. We have much to gain by preserving salmon in the Northwest. ... Read more

Amazon.com

The selections in this inaugural volume of what promises to be a superb classic on contemporary nature writing are simply stunning. Spanning three continents and two centuries, River flows through banks lush with the words and observations of Thoreau and Hemingway, Barry Lopez and Annie Dillard, Mark Twain and Meriwether Lewis, John James Audubon and Joseph Conrad. "Pick a river, any river," challenges Murray in his broad introduction. "If you sit beside it long enough you will hear many things, and most of them are worth waiting for." He might just as well have applied the test to the pieces he's chosen here. Pick one, any one, it really doesn't matter. Each is worth a good deal more than the time it will take to dip in, read, and savor. --Jeff Silverman ... Read more

Book Description

Rushing, rolling, flowing - rivers provide the ultimate metaphor for movement. They carve borders, create livelihoods, provoke adventure, and offer healing. From white-knuckle rafting rides to fishing stories to eco-essays, this collection by top authors explores the historical, practical, and spiritual significance of rivers. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

The gift of "The Gift of Rivers"
This book really is a gift. Once you read former Poet Laureate Robert Hass's beautiful introduction, you won't want to stop -- and you won't be disappointed. We're talking range here -- from Isabel Allende's Amazon to Lorian Hemingway's Arkansas to William Least Heat-Moon's Mississippi ... and from icy mountain torrents like the En in Switzerland to cultural main streets like the Seine in France and the Nile in Egypt and the Ganges in India, to rivers choked by industry and neglect like the Columbia in the U.S. -- honestly, you'll laugh, you'll cry.

Thanks for the River Time
If all of the world's rivers formed a giant continuous watershed (which in a sense they do), I'd put-in at the top and proceed to ride, glide and meander my way down the arteries of our earth. As I entered into each unique river system - Congo, Amazon, Seine, Futaleufu, Siuslaw, Mississippi, Narmada - the human and natural histories of each river would be revealed to me, uncovered, discovered like the layers of time and tide of the Grand Canyon. At the take-out I'd be changed. I'd better understand John Calderazzo's observation that a river can "turn into a state of mind, a kind of feeling." That is the gift of rivers. Of course, there is no such thing as a put-in at the top of the world's watershed, but just as good is Pamela Michael's book, "The Gift of Rivers." Turn the page, enter into river time, hear the stories, and fall in love with our watery ancestors, the world's rivers.

grazie grazie
I feel fortunate to have had the chance to read the precious river stories contained in this collection. Some brought me and my friends to fits of laughter, others to tears and amazement- most of all they inspired us to listen more carefully to the rivers and waterways that bring nourishment and joy to all our lives.

Thank you Pamela Michael for sharing these stories from around the world with us! ... Read more

Reviews (3)

"Zen and the Ways of Rivers"
Thoughtful and well-researched, and a total pleasure to read. This book is a combination of "Blue Highways" and "Travels with Charley" - a wonderful travelogue of life along backroads (and back rivers!) America. But more importantly - I learned an amazing amount about rivers and water management. The author's obvious knowledge of water systems is presented easily and effectively.
Now, living next to the Rio Grande, or visiting New Orleans, I have a much better understanding of how wildlife (and people) are affected by these rivers. If you enjoy reading about real people, their lives (and their rivers), and like to learn a bit at the same time, I highly recommend this book. A great alternative read in these days of "Lewis and Clark remembered".

Enhanced with 30 black-and white photographs and 8 maps
Enhanced with 30 black-and white photographs and 8 maps, Rivers Of Change: Trailing The Waterways Of Lewis & Clark by water resources consultant Tom Mullen introduces the reader to an American yesteryear of devastating floods, exploding steamboats, forced migrations, wandering rivers transforming thriving cities into deserted ghost towns, and wild rivers tamed into domesticated canals by dams and dredges. The focus is on a part of the Lewis and Clark route along the Missouri, Yellowstone, and Columbia rivers. This is a history that is enhanced with colorful characters, quirky historical anecdotes, and candid conversations "from off the beaten trail". Highly recommended as an addition to college and community library American History collections, Rivers Of Change will prove to be especially interesting to non-specialist general readers with an interest in environmental water issues -- past and present.

Rivers of Change makes way to Xanadu
This was published as a column on March 18 in the Atchison Daily Globe, Atchison, Kansas, by Marilyn Fontenot.
Marilyn Fontenot is an award winning journalist and investigative reporter for the Globe.
-------
I'll never forget the day I met Tom Mullen. It was on Memorial Day a couple of years ago when I was assigned to the Missouri River in Atchison, Kansas, to take pictures. It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining, the trees were green and the view from the river from Veteran's Memorial Park was breathtaking. When I stood by the monument, under that great American flag, watching the Mighty Mo move on down the banks under one of the last remaining truss bridges in the world, I knew I was swirled around historical surroundings and I liked it.
Very proud veterans, who still consider themselves soldiers, came to the river for their annual Memorial Day service not far from the Amelia Earhart Bridge.
After I was done, I took a few more minutes to absorb the atmosphere, while thinking of Kubla Khan, the Alph and that "the sacred river," when I noticed someone else in my Xanadue.
And he just sat there watching the river.
He didn't seem to notice me and it looked like he was studying something - paying close attention to something.
So, I walked up to this stranger and stuck out my hand.
"Hi, I'm Marilyn Fontenot, isn't it a beautiful day?" I said.
"It sure is," he said. "I'm Tom Mullen. Glad to meet you."
He told me he and his truck, Six Pack, were "just passing through," and they had come by way of St. Louis, Mo. He was on his way to Oregon and was working on a book. He was in Atchison to find Dan Bowen, the wildlife biologist at Benedictine College. I was intrigued and asked him plenty of questions and he so graciously answered.
He had places to go, people to meet and things to see, he said.
We spent a lot of time together while he was in Atchison. I introduced him to people in town and he found the ones he was looking for.
We met at Mueller's Locker for mozzarella sticks and shrimp for lunch and Purcell's Landing for beer and burgers for supper - all along the Missouri River.
"Tom, you know the hardest thing for a writer to do is write," I told him when he got discouraged.
"I know, I know," he used to say.
The time flew by and soon he said adios and I said happy trails.
I hadn't heard from him in months then a couple of weeks ago in April I got a package in the mail.
"Rivers of Change: Trailing the Waterways of Lewis and Clark," by Tom Mullen, was slipped inside complete with my name in the acknowledgements.
It didn't take me long to read the entire book. It's one of those books you start and can't stop until it's finished.
What a trip that was.
He took me with him to exotic places where I met a slew of colorful strangers. He canoed untamed and scenic river stretches, bicycled beside river barges, scuba dived and explored the makings of dam power plants, all the while he kept meeting strangers.

Tom found Jim Nower, a farmer in Weston, Mo., who said "I'm 81 now. My family's been on this farm since Great Grandfather Nower got here in 1856."
In Doniphan he was looking for a monument, which was placed there by Benedictine Monks along the river when they settled in Doniphan in the middle 1800s.
Then he went looking for Wolf River Bob in White Cloud and found him.
"A man with a tousled Kris Kringle beard and a pony tail stood. He almost saluted when he heard his name," Tom wrote

"Yessir, 'at's me," he said. "Wolf River Bob."
Tom and Six Pack kept going
They followed that ole' river all the way to Astoria and the Pacific Ocean through tamed Crow country where he talks to Joe Medicine Crow then to Fort Peck Lake in Montana, "When the Land Belonged to God."
He and Six Pack finally made their destination.
It wasn't long before he convinced a publishing company to publish his book where his "Rivers of Change" takes us to a Xanadu, with its own twists and turns of prose and lyric with a visual that puts us on the page.
I'm glad I met Tom Mullen that day in May. I'm glad I took the time to make a stranger feel welcome in a strange place. I'm glad he had the courage to keep going.
I'm glad I was intrigued. ... Read more