The Emerald Mile is a boat, a 17-foot wooden dory to be precise. You have to row it with big oars. This particular boat lived more than one life, dying in a rapids of the Colorado River, retrieved from the town dump, and rebuilt with some modifications by Kenton Grua. Two times, Grua set the speed record for going down the Grand Canyon with this boat. Although author Kevin Fedarko calls this the story of the fast ride through the canyon, it is so much more. It is about everything related to the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon: it's first discovery by Spanish explorers in the 16th C, Powell's initial traverse of the canyon, the remarkable span of history revealed in the canyon's geology, the river's tumultuous behavior that spurred engineers for the Bureau of Reclamation to try to control it with massive dams, the people who fought to save its wild nature, and the elegant wooden dories brought to the canyon by Martin Litton that all the boatmen (and women) admire. You will learn about the ground breaking engineering that went into building both the Hoover and especially the Glen Canyon Dam, and you will also learn--along with the Bureau of Reclamation--that even these enormous structures could not fully control the wild Colorado. You'll meet some of the people who loved the canyon and river so much that they made it their life's work. As Publishers Weekly succinctly points out, "Grua's wild ride on the Colorado, how it mirrored his mercurial personality, is just one part of Fedarko's story; however, the river, which runs through seven states, and the canyon, rich in both geological and political history, prove to be the real protagonists." This is the very best kind of non-fiction, incredibly well-researched as well as accessibly and beautifully written; many reviewers spoke of the poetic descriptions. I loved this book and often had a hard time putting it down. Whether or not you're an aficionado of rivers and boats, you'll find this book fascinating. Kirkus reviews says it best, "An epic-sized true-life adventure tale that appeals to both the heart and the head."
Text is followed by an interview with the author, pages of photographs, a lengthy Acknowledgement, detailed notes and sources, a bibliography, and finally, an index. The quotes that precede each chapter are absolutely spot on, from Shakespeare to Wallace Stegner to Edward Abbey.
An interview on NPR with author Fedarko is here.
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