Down the Great Unknown (2001)

On May 24, 1869, John Wesley Powell http://www.canyon-country.com/lakepowell/jwpowell.htm and a small band of frontiersmen set out from Green River Station, Wyoming Territory, in four wooden boats. The one-armed Union veteran and geology professor, Illinois State University, planned to explore the uncharted Green and Colorado rivers and pass through the mysterious Grand Canyon. Ill equipped and inexperienced in navigating wild rivers, the main party - - long given up for dead - - reached their destination. This is a great story of early exploration in the American West. Learn more at NPR's The Vision of John Wesley Powell http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2003/aug/water/part1.html (lj) ( )

This was and enjoyable book about the challeges of the Powell expedition down the Green and Colorado river. It was a straight dry account of the events, personalities and challenges of the group. Anyone with an interest in the Grand Canyon or running rapids will find it entertaining. I don't know that Powell rises to the level of Livingston, Shakelton , Admedsen or other great explorers. ( )

Down the Great Unknown is a re-telling of the 1869 John Wesley Powell expedition by boat through the Colorado River and Grand Canyon, the first ever descent. The advantage of Dolnick's modern archival-based history over Powell's 1875 primary source memoir is that Dolnick has the perspective of time. Drawing on diaries of Powell and other crew members, and more recent historical and archaeological research, he is able to flesh out a more complete and objective re-telling. Unlike some other past biographers, Dolnick emphasizes how dangerous the trip was, that its safe conclusion was far from a sure thing. Today when rafters run the river daily as a matter of course, Powell is often seen as the lucky one who got there first - but Dolnick successfully projects for the reader how dangerous it was for first-time boatmen to take on the Superbowl of rafting in fragile wooden boats - and not knowing what danger was behind the next bend in the river, for all they knew there could be another Niagra Falls with no place to portage around, a death trap. A little slow at times as the repetition of running rapids, portaging, camping and climbing the canyons wears on, but it is the nature of the trip, and Dolnick does a pretty good job with keeping the narrative suspense flowing by using historical backgrounders and building up to a sort of climatic scene with the splitting of the party. It's not novelistic, but it is highly accurate, Dolnick doesn't embellish, it's well sourced, and easy and enjoyable to read. If your looking for a 1-book on Powell, this is a good one.

--Review by Stephen Balbach, via CoolReading (c) 2008 cc-by-nd ( )

I'm not sure how one would better detail the men's 111 day journey without being somewhat repetitive (another day, another series of deadly rapids), but Dolnick does so pretty well by providing significant historical context to break the "monotony."

I enjoy really enjoy these nonfiction/biographical accounts of frontier-pushing adventure... Throw in the utterly captivating setting of the Grand Canyon and I'm hooked.

A great read that will leave you with great respect for the hardships and courage of those that came before us. ( )