The Last Voyageur: Amos Burg and the Rivers of the West

“What is this thing in me that enables me to leave comforts and a wide variety of entertainments and feel a strange satisfaction wandering down a cheerless and indifferent river, enduring hardships and eating very little and exposed to all sorts of weather . . . tonight even as I sit shivering and listening to the patter of the rain, I see myself in many places all over the world, wandering like a gull on the winds, working with the ideals of Truth and Beauty as part of my vision to bring these things back with me for other people to see.” -- Amos Burg, Yukon River, July 1928

* Amos Burg ran all the major rivers of the West when they still flowed freely and potential danger was just around the next bend

* Part early 20th-century history, part adventure, part biography of the West’s first commercial outdoor guide


Amos Burg (1901--1986), a native of Portland, Oregon, was the first to complete transits of the free-flowing, undammed Snake and Columbia Rivers by canoe, and in 1938 he became the first to navigate the length of the Colorado River in a rubber raft. In his daring explorations of waterways from the Southwest up through Canada and into Alaska, Burg is considered to be the only person known to have run all major Western rivers from source to mouth.


In The Last Voyageur: Amos Burg and the Rivers of the West author Vince Welch, himself a river guide, weaves a passionate and well-researched narrative using extensive material from Burg’s own rich archives. History buffs, paddlers, and adventure readers alike will delight in this remarkable regional history of the larger-than-life Burg, a quintessential man of the American West and one of the last “voyageurs” of North America’s great waterways.



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The Last Voyageur: Amos Burg and the Rivers of the West

“What is this thing in me that enables me to leave comforts and a wide variety of entertainments and feel a strange satisfaction wandering down a cheerless and indifferent river, enduring hardships and eating very little and exposed to all sorts of weather . . . tonight even as I sit shivering and listening to the patter of the rain, I see myself in many places all over the world, wandering like a gull on the winds, working with the ideals of Truth and Beauty as part of my vision to bring these things back with me for other people to see.” -- Amos Burg, Yukon River, July 1928

* Amos Burg ran all the major rivers of the West when they still flowed freely and potential danger was just around the next bend

* Part early 20th-century history, part adventure, part biography of the West’s first commercial outdoor guide


Amos Burg (1901--1986), a native of Portland, Oregon, was the first to complete transits of the free-flowing, undammed Snake and Columbia Rivers by canoe, and in 1938 he became the first to navigate the length of the Colorado River in a rubber raft. In his daring explorations of waterways from the Southwest up through Canada and into Alaska, Burg is considered to be the only person known to have run all major Western rivers from source to mouth.


In The Last Voyageur: Amos Burg and the Rivers of the West author Vince Welch, himself a river guide, weaves a passionate and well-researched narrative using extensive material from Burg’s own rich archives. History buffs, paddlers, and adventure readers alike will delight in this remarkable regional history of the larger-than-life Burg, a quintessential man of the American West and one of the last “voyageurs” of North America’s great waterways.



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The Last Voyageur: Amos Burg and the Rivers of the West

The Last Voyageur: Amos Burg and the Rivers of the West

by Vince Welch
The Last Voyageur: Amos Burg and the Rivers of the West

The Last Voyageur: Amos Burg and the Rivers of the West

by Vince Welch

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Overview

“What is this thing in me that enables me to leave comforts and a wide variety of entertainments and feel a strange satisfaction wandering down a cheerless and indifferent river, enduring hardships and eating very little and exposed to all sorts of weather . . . tonight even as I sit shivering and listening to the patter of the rain, I see myself in many places all over the world, wandering like a gull on the winds, working with the ideals of Truth and Beauty as part of my vision to bring these things back with me for other people to see.” -- Amos Burg, Yukon River, July 1928

* Amos Burg ran all the major rivers of the West when they still flowed freely and potential danger was just around the next bend

* Part early 20th-century history, part adventure, part biography of the West’s first commercial outdoor guide


Amos Burg (1901--1986), a native of Portland, Oregon, was the first to complete transits of the free-flowing, undammed Snake and Columbia Rivers by canoe, and in 1938 he became the first to navigate the length of the Colorado River in a rubber raft. In his daring explorations of waterways from the Southwest up through Canada and into Alaska, Burg is considered to be the only person known to have run all major Western rivers from source to mouth.


In The Last Voyageur: Amos Burg and the Rivers of the West author Vince Welch, himself a river guide, weaves a passionate and well-researched narrative using extensive material from Burg’s own rich archives. History buffs, paddlers, and adventure readers alike will delight in this remarkable regional history of the larger-than-life Burg, a quintessential man of the American West and one of the last “voyageurs” of North America’s great waterways.




Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781594857027
Publisher: Mountaineers Books, The
Publication date: 09/26/2012
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 320
File size: 3 MB

About the Author

Vince Welch was a boatman on Northwest rivers for several years before heading to the Colorado River where he guided for Grand Canyon Dories and first encountered the legend of Amos Burg. He has since lived and guided all over the West and has written for River magazine, The Utne Reader, Boatman's Quarterly Review, and Mountain Gazette, for which he is a senior correspondent. He is still a part-time river guide on the Snake River and is co-author of The Doing of the Thing: The Brief, Brilliant Whitewater Career of Buzz Holmstrom. Welch lives in Portland, Oregon.

Table of Contents

Preface 9

Acknowledgments 13

Part I Voyages of the Imagination (1920-1929)

Chapter 1 Great River of the West: The Columbia 18

Chapter 2 The Mad Snake 46

Chapter 3 Down the Yukon River 72

Chapter 4 Deh Cho: Canada's Mackenzie River 98

Part II Beyond the Horizon (1930-1949)

Chapter 5 Rising Star, Exotic Climes 118

Chapter 6 Land of Fire: The Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia Archipelagos 136

Chapter 7 Yank in a Canoe 166

Chapter 8 Burg's Experiment: The Green and Colorado Rivers 180

Chapter 9 Boatman, Filmmaker, Spy: The Middle Fork and Main Salmon Rivers 218

Part III Coming Ashore (1950-1986)

Chapter 10 Return Voyages: The Bering Sea and the Yukon River 244

Chapter 11 The Same River Twice: The Mackenzie Revisited 257

Chapter 12 A Voyageur's Lament 276

Appendices

1 Chronology 303

2 Amos Burg's Boats 307

3 A Brief History of Western Dams 308

4 Sources 311

5 Selected Bibliography 313

Index 317

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