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View Full Version : Looking for a book that chronicles someone voyage down the Mississippi River



Brian Ashton
01-22-2012, 8:15 AM
It's on my bucket list but I can't find any where that someone has written about it in recent times. Does anyone know of a title or author that has floated the river from its headwaters to the gulf?

Mac McQuinn
01-22-2012, 9:40 AM
Check for Shanty boat books, seems like I saw something a while back on Amazon to this effect.
*Try out "Shantyboat: A River Way of Life" by Harlan Hubbard

Good luck,
Mac

steven c newman
01-22-2012, 1:25 PM
Mark Twain (Sam C.) had a couple: One about Huckleberry Finn, and another about Tom Sawyer.

Zach England
01-22-2012, 1:42 PM
Mark Twain (Sam C.) had a couple: One about Huckleberry Finn, and another about Tom Sawyer.

Crap. You beat me.

charlie knighton
01-22-2012, 6:51 PM
+3 on mark twain

John Fabre
01-22-2012, 6:58 PM
+4 on Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens), he wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.

Larry Edgerton
01-23-2012, 6:55 AM
I bought a Nimble Nomad 28' trawler a few years ago with the intention of making that very trip. I have to admit that over the years I have read and reread Mark Twain's books several times.

Anyway, the crunch hit, I was invested in an industrial park here in Michigan and got stuck on a large construction project at the same time. The industrail park is still empty. Had to sell the boat to pay my subs and suppliers. I don't see me being able to afford another boat, and the rest of my life will be spent recouperating from that crash.

So..... If you decide on such a journey I would certianly love to live vicariously through you. Lifes adventures and family are what you remember, so I hope you do it.

Larry

Sean Troy
01-23-2012, 7:43 AM
There is a great book about traveling the Mississippi but it's about going up the river. Canoeing with the Cree. True story also.

Brian Ashton
01-23-2012, 4:58 PM
Thx for the replies I did think of Huck Finn and such but I'm looking for more recent accounts

Brian Ashton
01-23-2012, 5:07 PM
I bought a Nimble Nomad 28' trawler a few years ago with the intention of making that very trip. I have to admit that over the years I have read and reread Mark Twain's books several times.

Anyway, the crunch hit, I was invested in an industrial park here in Michigan and got stuck on a large construction project at the same time. The industrail park is still empty. Had to sell the boat to pay my subs and suppliers. I don't see me being able to afford another boat, and the rest of my life will be spent recouperating from that crash.

So..... If you decide on such a journey I would certianly love to live vicariously through you. Lifes adventures and family are what you remember, so I hope you do it.

Larry

Sorry to hear about your financial woes.

I graduate from a university here in Australia late this year. If I still have my job at that point I'll start saving and try to be on Ol Miss by my 50th which is in 3 years. At this point my wife is still in negotiations about coming (translation: she's thinking that's nice dear but I'll give this one a miss).

Larry Edgerton
01-23-2012, 7:32 PM
Sorry to hear about your financial woes.

I graduate from a university here in Australia late this year. If I still have my job at that point I'll start saving and try to be on Ol Miss by my 50th which is in 3 years. At this point my wife is still in negotiations about coming (translation: she's thinking that's nice dear but I'll give this one a miss).

I guess it did sound like I was whining.... I'm not. I totally restructured my life and the things that are important, and am much better off now. And who knows, I may still figure out a way to make the journey.

The Amazon has always intrigued me as well, but I would be too intimidated to do that alone, and would not want a guide with me, so I'll just read books.

You know..... An Aussie bumming on the Ole Miss for a year, touching on some of the local flavor may be a good book in itself. A modern Huckleberry.
Larry

Bill ThompsonNM
01-23-2012, 11:00 PM
Actually I have a number of such books, but my all time favorite is "Mississippi Solo", by Eddie L Harris. A canoe trip down the mississipi in recent times. Recently reprinted. When I gave a copy to my BIL for Xmas, I got flak because he spent Xmas day reading it!

Van Huskey
01-24-2012, 12:15 PM
You may try http://www.bigrivermagazine.com/rivertrips.html it has links to several blogs about the trip and should be a source to branch out to lots of current information on making the journey.

Rick Potter
01-24-2012, 12:25 PM
Larry,

Sorry about your loss of the boat. How high up did you plan to start? Those headwaters are pretty shallow.

We were fortunate to have taken the old Delta Queen paddleboat on several sections of the Mississippi before Congress shut her down (overnight guests on a wood boat), and dreamed of making the trip on our 19' Bayliner. Never happened.

Rick Potter

Larry Edgerton
01-25-2012, 5:14 AM
Larry,

Sorry about your loss of the boat. How high up did you plan to start? Those headwaters are pretty shallow.

We were fortunate to have taken the old Delta Queen paddleboat on several sections of the Mississippi before Congress shut her down (overnight guests on a wood boat), and dreamed of making the trip on our 19' Bayliner. Never happened.

Rick Potter

My plan was to tow the Trawler to a point that it would be safe and then head North and kayak the headwaters to the trawler.

The Nimble was the perfect boat, only drew 16", had a 45hp Honda for power and used almost no fuel, great layout, good stearing and comfortable. Cruised all over the Straits area of the Great Lakes with it, up the St Marys into Superior and back over to St. Georges bay. It was tough! Bottom was 1 1/4" thick up about a foot on the sides and the rest was 1/2" thick. Of all the stuff that is gone now, that is the only thing I really miss.

Larry

Rick Potter
01-25-2012, 11:08 AM
Yeah,

We always thought it would be a fine way to explore. It's on our 'never happen shelf' now, just like the summer long trip in our trailer to Alaska, and the drive to the tip of South America.

Last time we were on the river, the TV news had a story on someone doing the entire river in a small boat. Perhaps there is a blog about it out there somewhere. Brian....have you checked you tube for stories?

Rick P

Dick Phillip
01-25-2012, 7:24 PM
Rick there were some people from Riverton, WY that took canoes and went from either here or the headwaters 10 or so years ago. I don't think there was a book, but I wll check into it for you. The guy that got the whole thing going last name was Maybee.

Dick

Dick Phillip
01-25-2012, 7:25 PM
Sorry this should have been addressed to Brian.


Rick there were some people from Riverton, WY that took canoes and went from either here or the headwaters 10 or so years ago. I don't think there was a book, but I wll check into it for you. The guy that got the whole thing going last name was Maybee.

Dick

Ken Cutler
01-28-2012, 11:30 AM
"One Good Stroy", A Mississippi Kayak Journey by Ron Severs. ISBN 0-931714-89-3 printed by Printing Enterprises and by Nodin Press in Minneapolis. I found this an excellent and very interesting read about a small craft on a BIG river.

ROBERT ELLIS
01-29-2012, 10:58 PM
Brian, Mac McQuinn mentioned Shantyboat by Harlan Hubbard. I've read the book several times (the same author has a few more books). I highly recommend it, especially with what you want to do. Harlan Hubbard was a very interesting person, in many ways I admired his life. He has been called, or many considered him a modern day Thoreaux. To be brief, he married late in life (mid forty's) married a Librarian from Cincinnatti Ohio (he lived across the river in Kentucky), convinced (or should I say romanced) her to help him build a Shantyboat and float down the Ohio river ultimately to the ocean. Shantyboat covers the complete story. As a sidenote he was an accomplished painter (I believe many of his paintings he sold to sustain their way of life) and she was a cello player. Later in life a book called: Payne Hollow, Life on the Fringe of Society chronicles their lives as they spent their remaining days living on a plot of land overlooking the Ohio river. The house they lived in they built by hand (still standing today) and they lived completly off the land with no modern conveniences. Anyone reading his books will be struck with his gentle, kind approach to life and other people. He's enjoyable to read, hence the numerous times I've read his books. Public television KET.ORG has some footage of him and his wife filmed in their latter days living on the plot of ground overlooking the Ohio river thats well worth watching. Lastly I believe his trip down the Mississippi took place in the 1940's or 1950's...

Brian Ashton
01-30-2012, 3:09 AM
Thx guys. I'll jump on those leads