William Least Heat-Moon

William Least Heat-Moon discusses River-Horse.

The acclaimed, best-selling author of Blue Highways and Prairyerth chronicles his one-of-a-kind journey through America's waterways from Atlantic to Pacific. Brimming with history, drama, hilarity, and wisdom, River Horse ranks among the greatest American travelogues. In 1995, Heat-Moon set out on his most ambitious trip yet, from New York harbor to the breakwater of Astoria, Oregon, almost entirely by water. Aboard his little launch Nikawa ("river horse" in Osage), Heat-Moon logged more than five thousand miles, completing a trek no American had ever managed, yet following in the wake of our greatest explorers, from Henry Hudson to Lewis and Clark. En route, he encountered odder adventures, bigger and nastier cities, lonelier spaces, stranger people, and more turbulent waters than even he had expected. He and Nikawa braved record-shattering floods, foundered on hull-crushing sandbars, and overcame innumerable other travails great and small. The often uproarious, often terrifying narrative teems with high adventure and fascinating characters. Heat-Moon, a sage of the heatland, offers a singular arteriogram of our nation and its folk at the century's edge. —from the publisher's website (timspalding)… (more)