River of Forgotten Days
A Journey Down the Mississippi in Search of La Salle
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A poignant voyage of discovery down the great Mississippi.
Praised by such authors as John Barth, and George V. Higgins, Dan Spurr's gently powerful memoir, Steered by the Falling Stars, captured the hearts of readers with its story of death, rebirth, and redemption and its evocative description of life under sail. Now, Spurr takes us on another adventure, a voyage into not only the heartland of contemporary America but also back into the rough and ready days of exploration and discovery 250 years ago.
Following the trail of the enigmatic French explorer Rene de La Salle, Spurr takes his seven-year-old son Steve and his grown daughter Adriana down the Mississippi from Chicago to New Orleans in the rundown, underpowered Belle. Throughout the journey, the juxtaposition of modern America on the river's banks and the untamed wilds of La Salle's day, as revealed through journals and historical documents, illuminates the changes in the land and its people over the intervening centuries.
The inexorable flow of Spurr's clean and honest prose mirrors that of this greatest of American rivers. The voices of the river's denizens and the keen observations of the author's young and wide-eyed shipmates take us deep into the heart of an ever-changing American landscape.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A little over 300 years after the French explorer Ren de La Salle became the first known European to travel from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, Spurr, editor of Practical Sailor magazine, followed his route, starting in Chicago and sailing down the Illinois and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans in Belle, a 20-foot fishing boat. He was accompanied by his seven-year-old son, Steve, and later joined by his 24-year-old daughter, Adria, on this 16-day trip. Spurr devotes a fair amount of time to the technical problems of sailing and repair but also includes historical reconstructions of La Salle's explorations--including speculation that he, not Jolliet, was the white discoverer of the upper Mississippi. There is also a good deal of Spurr family history (especially memories of a dead father and a dead son), descriptions of local sights and affectionate and humorous anecdotes of a father and a young son traveling together. Unlike Jonathan Raban (Old Glory), who delighted in the eccentricities he encountered during his sail down the Mississippi, Spurr is usually sunny and amused, more interested in the journey itself--and the story of La Salle--than in what he sees en route. Included, too, are pleasant asides on underwater explorations for La Salle shipwrecks in the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico. This is a thoroughly enjoyable recreation. Photos.
