Born and raised in the parched desert country of the lower Colorado River, Murl Emery came to know the currents of the muddy river as no other man. He worked as a beaver trapper, cattle rustler, bootlegger, house mover, storekeeper, ferryman, prospector, cowboy, truck driver, inventor, miner, river freighter, aviator, astute mechanic, fishing fleet operator and became the lead boatman during the construction of Hoover Dam.But Murl Emery was never one to sit still, never one to take anyone himself included seriously. In later life, he meandered from beachcomber, to desert philosopher, storyteller, advisor to scientists and congressmen, desert detective, dude wrangler, devilish troublemaker, showman, powder monkey, consummate kidder, defeated politician, museum curator, joker, incorrigible vagabond, homesteader, and self-styled Old Goat.In Desert Riverman, Robert S. Wood interweaves two depictions of Murl Emery: Emery s rich and unparallelled history in the desert Southwest, told in Murl s own words; and the Emery the author knew and accompanied on madcap adventures in the 1960s in Baja California, western Grand Canyon, and a last trip through Glen Canyon before it was inundated. Throughout, the tale is salted with Emery s hilarious outbursts and actions, painting a vivid picture of the early days on the Colorado and the eccentric character reared by this desert river environment. A great read, rich in character, deep in history, and just plain fun. Heavily illustrated with a map and more than sixty historic images, most published here for the first time.

Desert Riverman: The Free-spirited Adventures of Murl Emery

Sports & Outdoors

Wood, Robert S.

Water Sports

Fretwater Pr

In 1911, The Kolb brothers, Emery and Ellsworth, young photographers living on the South Rim of Grand Canyon, conceived a preposterous expedition: although neither of them knew much about whitewater, they had two wooden rowboats built, and proposed to row them the entire eleven hundred miles of the Green and Colorado Rivers. The trip was not solely for thrills. They planned to make not just still and stereo photographs, but moving pictures as well. 
In early September they launched from Green River, Wyoming. For the next four and a half months, the brothers rowed, careened, roped, dragged, and carried their boats through and around the rapids, often finding themselves swimming in the freezing river, patching and repatching their boats, and salvaging what film and equipment they could from their flooded hatches. 
Their first assistant left in tears after the first week, but was replaced on the last leg of the journey by stalwart Bert Lauzon, a miner, cowboy, and roustabout. Against all odds, the three men emerged from Grand Canyon in January, 1912, with photographs and movies they would show and sell for the next sixty years. 
Here for the first time are their on-the-spot accounts, transcribed from the journals they penciled late at night along the shore. Theirs is a tale of phenomenal courage, terrific luck, and dogged perseverence. And in spite of unending hardship, the brothers had nearly as much fun doing it back then, as you will have following along nearly a century later.

The Brave Ones: The Journals and Letters of the 1911-12 Expedition Down the Green and Colorado Rivers (Colorado River Chronicles, 1)

History

Suran, William C.

Kolb, E. L.

Kolb, Emery Clifford

Americas

Books of the Colorado River & the Grand Canyon: A Selective Biography

Farquhar, Francis Peloubet

Sunk Without a Sound : The Tragic Colorado River Honeymoon of Glen and Bessie Hyde

Dimock, Brad

Buzz Holmstrom is the subject of the popular biography, The Doing of the Thing. It was Holmstrom's brilliance as a boat designer and builder, and his pioneering solo runs down the great rivers of America, that first brought him national attention. But it is his humble and insightful prose that sets him apart from the chest-thumping men of his day and brings him into the modern heart. 
Every Rapid Speaks Plainly brings together his river journals from 1936, '37, and '38, along with letters he wrote home, and the 1938 accounts of his companions. Each of these was painstakingly transcribed from the original pocket notebooks, which were often scribbled in pencil, and smudged from repeated dousings. 
For those who have read The Doing of the Thing and want to know Holmstrom better, or for those who simply want to follow a brilliant man, through his own words, as he moves uneasily from the age of wilderness expeditions to the more modern commercialized era, Every Rapid Speaks Plainly will speak to you.

Every Rapid Speaks Plainly: The Salmon, Green and Colorado River Journals of Buzz Holmstrom (Colorado River Chronicles, 2)

Biography of America's great river runner, Buzz Holmstrom: the first to run the Green and Colorado Rivers alone in 1937. Born in the coastal logging communities of coastal Oregon, Holmstrom built his own wooden boats and soloed several of the country's great whitewater rivers. He died mysteriously on the Grande Ronde River at age 37.

The Doing of the Thing : The Brief Brilliant Whitewater Career of Buzz Holstrom

Conley, Cort

Welch, Vince

The mystery of Glen and Bessie Hyde is whitewater navigation's equivalent to Mallory and Irvine's disappearance on Everest in 1924. Just four years later in October 1928, the Hydes, a bright, attractive, and talented young couple built their own wooden sweep scow and launched on a honeymoon voyage down the Green and Colorado Rivers through Grand Canyon. Bessie was the first woman to ever attempt the river. Halfway through Grand Canyon they talked to the press, then disappeared into the gloomy November depths of the gorge. They were never seen again. Despite an extensive series of searches, no trace was found except, eerily, their boat: upright, intact, fully loaded, and snagged in calm water. Glen and Bessie had vanished without a trace. For the next seven decades their tale evolved from simple facts to convoluted folklore and myth. A woman appeared on a river trip in 1971 claiming to be Bessie, having murdered Glen and hiked out. In 1976 a skeleton was found at Grand Canyon with a bullet through the skull. Size, age and circumstance suggested it was the body of Glen Hyde. In 1985 a woman surfaced with a tale of her father, Glenn Hyde, who had disappeared in 1928, but reappeared seven years later with tales of having rafted rivers. He said he had attempted the Colorado through Grand Canyon but "it didn't work out." And he carried a scar on his back from a knife wound, delivered by a woman named Bessie. And in 1992, when Georgie Clark, the most famous of all river runners, died, her past was discovered to be pure fiction. She had been born Bessie, and her lingerie drawer held a marriage record for Glen and Bessie Hyde. And a pistol. Author and boatman Brad Dimock tackled this story with an obsession, tracking each clue, lead, and rumor, even going to the extreme of building a replica of the Hydes' archaic sweep scow for a harrowing journey through Grand Canyon with his own bride. The resulting book, a masterful interweaving of past and present, of pathos and humor, is a classic in outdoor adventure, mystery writing, literary nonfiction, and investigative journalism. With 304 profusely illustrated pages, this beautiful book is not only a joy to look at, but a true page turner.

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the Fretwater Pr publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Fretwater Pr