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Book Review
| On the River with Lewis and Clark. By Verne Huser. College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 2004. xiv + 205 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. Cloth $40.00, paper $17.95.
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| With more than 45 years experience navigating the rivers of North America by raft, canoe, and even tugboat, professional river guide Verne Huser has intimate knowledge of the opportunities and challenges rivers presented Lewis and Clark as they traversed relatively unexplored stretches of the continent, 1803–1806. On the premise that "Knowledge of the rivers, of their basic functions and common characteristics, and of the most fundamental means of negotiating them should help all readers of the journals to better understanding of the Lewis and Clark expedition" (p. x), Huser offers On the River with Lewis and Clark as a work "complementary to the journals," from the perspective of an expert who hass actually paddled, rowed, and motored many of the waterways Lewis and Clark traveled. |
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The subject is an important one. As Huser points out, about 85 percent of the miles Lewis and Clark traveled were river miles. |
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Huser divides his book into what are essentially eight essays and a conclusion. Each chapter/essay, deals with a different aspect of the interaction between man, boat, and water on the wild rivers Lewis and Clark explored. "The Ways of Wind and Water," explores the mechanics of current and wind, dealing with how each helps or hinders travel on the river. "The Crafts" describes in some detail the variety of vessels used by the expedition, while "The Rivers They Traveled" points to the differing challenges each river system presented the explorers. Other chapters discuss the explorers themselves, the benefits and hazards of river travel, incidents on and off the river, and the accomplishments of the Corps of Discovery. |
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Because Huser is an expert on rivers and river travel, On the River with Lewis and Clark, offers a good deal of specialized information not readily available elsewhere in the context of the expedition and truly capable of providing illumination "complementary to the journals." |
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While liberally peppered with nuggets of valuable information, On the River suffers from haphazard organization, both at the chapter level and within chapters. Specialized terms like "pirogue" are introduced and used extensively before they are defined. A considerable volume of material unrelated to the focus of the book, and well-covered by others, is folded into and around bits and pieces of material dealing more directly with water and water craft. Lack of focus makes the work choppy and difficult to navigate. |
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Equally distracting are a significant number of what can only be described as diatribes about modern river management scattered throughout the book, for example, "At taxpayer expense we have traded free-flowing rivers for dying reservoirs, subsidizing agribusiness, barge traffic, and the aluminum industry in a gross example of corporate welfare" (p. 171). |
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Experts with extensive knowledge of the Lewis and Clark expedition are likely to find material adding to their understanding of the mechanics of river travel in On the River. The less knowledgeable will find themselves drawn to learn more. All readers will find themselves having to work harder than should be necessary to extract the material this book wants to deliver. |
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Jack Petree is a freelance writer and public policy analyst with three books and 1,500-plus magazine articles published. Much of his work deals with environmental issues. |
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