The nation’s rivers connect mountains to sea, communities to natural places, and people to wildlife. America’s Wild & Scenic River system recognizes these values. Paddling America provides descriptions for paddling and exploring 50 Wild and Scenic Rivers across the country. Woven throughout the river descriptions will be small anecdotal sidebars touching on the history of the Wild & Scenic Rivers Act, the adventurers themselves, and tips for paddling. Each chapter will contain one map, specifications in accordance with paddling guidelines including GPS coordinates, put-in/takeout information, an overview of the paddle, miles and directions, full-color photos, and sidebars.
The rivers of America flow from mountains, forests, and grasslands with astonishing beauty, essential to all life. Many of the best of these streams have been safeguarded under the National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968--America's premier program for the protection of our finest natural waterways. Wild and Scenic Rivers celebrates this creative conservation initiative with 160 stunning photographs and a lively history involving citizen activists, scientists, dedicated public officials, and enlightened political leaders. In commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, award-winning author and photographer Tim Palmer illuminates the values of this irreplaceable system of free-flowing streams, probes its problems, and addresses its future. With a depth of experience dating almost to the inception of the wild and scenic rivers program, Palmer has captured the splendor and essence of our most extraordinary rivers with his camera, and he has told their remarkable story as no one else could do.
Rivers of Oregon captures the beauty and the intrinsic qualities of the state's irresistible riverscapes like no other book has done. From the underwater view and from the refuge of riparian forests, from the seat of a canoe or raft and from distant mountain summits, readers will gain new perspectives on the extraordinary features that provide us with water, with life, and with scenes whose loss would leave us deeply impoverished.
A new vision is sweeping through ecological science: The dense web of dependencies that makes up an ecosystem has gained an added dimension-the dimension of time. Every field, forest, and park is full of living organisms adapted for relationships with creatures that are now extinct. In a vivid narrative, Connie Barlow shows how the idea of "missing partners" in nature evolved from isolated, curious examples into an idea that is transforming how ecologists understand the entire flora and fauna of the Americas. This fascinating book will enrich and deepen the experience of anyone who enjoys a stroll through the woods or even down an urban sidewalk. But this knowledge has a dark side too: Barlow's "ghost stories" teach us that the ripples of biodiversity loss around us now are just the leading edge of what may well become perilous cascades of extinction.
Meandering through Orange, Lake, and Seminole Counties, this "purest form of Central Florida nature," as described by one of its champions, is also bordered by some of the region's most densely populated suburban sprawl. The Wekiva River makes up some of the best protected waters in the state with laws designed for its preservation, as it is recognized as a regional "jewel" and a resource worth saving in public trust as parks, preserves, and forests. Today visitors who paddle, boat, and hike here discover a sanctuary that seems unchanged since its earliest history, when ancient tribes piled fresh water shells, sand, bone, and pot shards to create midden mounds, and when Clay Springs and other early settlements helped draw river traffic and railroads hauled out its forest products. Its cooling springs have provided recreation for generation after generation.
When a team of five explorers embarked on a 1,200-mile journey down the Rio Grande, the river that marks the southern boundary of Texas and the US-Mexico border, their goal was to experience and capture on film the rugged landscapes of this vast frontier before the controversial construction of a border wall changed this part of the river forever. The crew—Texas filmmaker Ben Masters, Brazilian immigrant Filipe DeAndrade, Texas conservationist Jay Kleberg, wildlife biologist Heather Mackey, and Guatemalan-American river guide Austin Alvarado—began the trip in El Paso, pedaling mountain bikes through the city’s dry river bed. Their path took them on horseback through the Big Bend, down the Wild and Scenic stretch of the river in canoes, and back to bikes from Laredo to Brownsville. They paddled the last ten miles through a forest of river cane to the Gulf of Mexico. As they made their way to the Gulf, they met and talked with the people who know and live on the river—border patrol, wildlife biologists, ranchers, politicians, farmers, social workers, locals, and travelers. They climbed the wall (in twenty seconds). They encountered rare black bears, bighorn sheep, and birds of all kinds. And they sought to understand the complexities of immigration, the efficacy of a wall, and the impact of its construction on water access, wildlife, and the culture of the borderlands. The River and the Wall is both a wild adventure on a spectacular river and a sobering commentary on the realities of walling it off.
Before the novel and the film Deliverance appeared in the early 1970s, any outsiders one met along the Chattooga River were likely serious canoeists or anglers. In later years, untold numbers and kinds of people have felt the draw of the river’s torrents, which pour down the Appalachians along the Georgia-South Carolina border. Because of Deliverance the Chattooga looms enigmatically in our shared imagination, as iconic as Twain’s Mississippi—or maybe Conrad’s Congo. This is John Lane’s search for the real Chattooga—for the truths that reside somewhere in the river’s rapids, along its shores, or in its travelers’ hearts. Lane balances the dark, indifferent mythical river of Deliverance against the Chattooga known to locals and to the outdoors enthusiasts who first mastered its treacherous vortices and hydraulics. Starting at its headwaters, Lane leads us down the river and through its complex history to its current status as a National Wild and Scenic River. Along the way he stops for talks with conservation activists, seventh-generation residents, locals who played parts in the movie, day visitors, and others. Lane weaves into each encounter an abundance of details drawn from his perceptive readings and viewings of Deliverance and his wide-ranging knowledge of the Chattooga watershed. At the end of his run, Lane leaves us still fully possessed by the Chattooga’s mystery, yet better informed about its place in his world and ours.
Story of the waters that divide Wisconsin and Minnesota, from the days of the Sioux and Chippewas to their contemporary status as a "wild" preserved vacationland.
