Susan Billingsley - Grand Canyon River Guides

With one of the first copies of this book to come offthe press, Dan Dierker and I tried out the instructions inmid-July. A week later, at the cost of about $300 inconstruction-grade materials, we had a beautiful replicaof Woodie Hindman’s original 16-foot Double Enderwith Transom. We can vouch for the clarity andcompleteness of the methods and drawings. With a fewgood tools, a pile of sticks from the lumberyard, andhealthy dollop of elbow grease, you, too, can have yourown riverboat.Although the book retails for about fifty bucks,Amazon is selling them for $32.97 postpaid—ascreaming deal. Buy one, study it, and build yourself adory.Brad Dimockthought he, too, was dead.“The time has finally come to tell my story,” saidRock Me on the Water author Renny Russell, speakingfrom the house he built in the foothills of the Sangre deCristo Mountains of northern New Mexico. “This storyhas been distilling for forty years, though the words onlycame when I returned to the Green River andconfronted my doppleganger at the rapid that took mybrother’s life.”Rock Me on the Water is “part memoir, part naturewriting, part philosophy, and part political polemic,”notes Derrick Jensen, author of Listening to the Land. It isa bittersweet meditation on family and loss; on twobrothers’ shared love and the myriad ways in whichunspoiled country can shape a life. It is also a furtheranceof ideas for the generation that was coming of agewhen On the Loose was released in 1967. Readers willfind that Rock Me on the Water carries considerableemotional impact, intellectual depth, and realism.The framework Russell constructs for the reader is atrip down the Green River through Desolation and GrayCanyons. He titles the chapters after memorable campsitesalong the river—Red Moon Camp, Mosquito HellCamp, Camp Revolution, Camp of the Bear, Camp ofDreams. As he travels downriver in Seedskeedee (thewooden dory he crafted), Russell witnesses the beauty,the magic, and the power of a wild river. He writes, “ Ilooked out at the savage spectrum of the Green River,upon that unfathomable topography where all the colorsof the world explode soundlessly.” Apparitions appear;Rock Me on the Water: Down the River of Rememberanceby Renny RussellRenny Russell grew up running wild in theWestern wilderness with his older brother,Terry, in the late ’50s and early ’60s. Theiryouthful quest for the beauty and solitude of natureinspired their book On the Loose—a life-changing titleas well as a million-copy best seller. A paean to wildplaces, On the Loose became a touchstone of the environmentalmovement. Forty years later, it remains theSierra Club’s all-time most popular book.But as comments on Amazon.com show, readershave been intrigued and want to know more. On theLoose was a collection of grainy nature photographsand philosophical quotes handwritten in soulful calligraphy.But it conveyed little detail about the brothers’lives. In fact, few knew that Terry Russell drownedtragically in a swollen Green River rapid even beforeOn the Loose was published. Some believed that thesurviving brother had vanished without a trail; othersboatman’s quarterly review page 15