The River

Acknowledgments

Many people lent their energy and wisdom to the making of this book. To my first readers, Kim Yan, Lisa Jones, Helen Thorpe, Donna Gershten, Jay Heinrichs, and Mark Lough, I am deeply grateful. Your passion and ready insights were essential, as always. These books would not live without you.

Thanks to Jad Davenport for deep knowledge of the country and for sharing with me a crucial history. And to Jason Hicks, Steve Schon, Bobby Reedy, Mike Reedy, Billy Nutt, Cedar Farwell, Jay Mead, Silas Farwell, Sascha Steinway, Lyn Bixby, Mark Young, John French, Geordie Heller, and Becky Arnold, for their expertise. And to Kate Whalen for fuel. Lamar Simms provided invaluable help in understanding the law. And for all things medical, doctors Melissa Brannon and Mitchell Gershten were indispensable. Thanks to firefighter Jim Mason for relating in great detail the characteristics and awesome power of fire and to Marilee Rippy for introducing us. To Shawn Manzanares and Angela Lewark I am always grateful.

Thanks to my old friend Creigh Moffatt for telling me about her father’s expedition up on the Dubawnt River and to Skip Pessl for sharing more of the story. Many years ago Peggy Keith and her daughter, Margaret Keith-Sagal, hosted a dinner in New Hampshire that provided the germ of this novel. Thanks for that evening and for so many others.

Thank you to the people of Peawanuk for your hospitality after a long river trip, to Kim for paddling with me, and to Lynn Cox, and Matt, and Jerry.

And thank you to the ones who ran the rivers, my paddling partners over the years, who shared with me the wildest and most beautiful country and who always had my back. This book is especially for you. Landis Arnold, Sascha Steinway, Andy Arnold, Roy Bailey, Newton Logan, Rafael Gallo, Adam Duerk, Peter Weingarten, Paul Bozuwa, Harold Schoeffler, Willy Kistler, John Mattson, John Jaycox, Dan Johnson, Chuck Behrensmeyer, Jay Mead, Billy Nutt—you are my brothers, always.

This book would not have been written without the encouragement and guidance of my extraordinary agent, David Halpern, and my brilliant editor, Jenny Jackson. You were both there from the first sentence, and to you both I raise a glass.

It is an honor and a privilege to know you all.