The Columbia and its tributaries are rivers of conflict. Amid pitched battles over the economy, the environment, and breaching dams on the lower Snake River, the salmon that have always quickened these rivers are disappearing. On a warm day in late May, Mike Barenti entered the heart of this conflict when he slid a whitewater kayak into the headwaters of central Idaho’s Salmon River and started paddling toward the Pacific Ocean. This account of his two-month, nine-hundred-mile solo journey into the world of the Columbia Basin plunges us into the adventure of navigating these troubled waterways.

 

Kayaking Alone is a narrative of man and nature, one-on-one, but also of man and nature writ large. In the stories of the river guides and rangers, biologists and ranchers, American Indians and dam workers he meets along the way, the rich and complicated life of the river emerges in a striking, often painfully clear panorama. Through his journey, the ecology, history, and politics of Pacific salmon unfold in fascinating detail, and with this firsthand knowledge and experience the reader gains a new and personal sense of the nature that unites and divides us.

Mike Barenti is a writer and journalist who has worked as a reporter for the Yakima Herald-Republic and the Idaho Falls Post Register and has taught English and creative writing at various colleges. He has published work in such journals as River Teeth and Ascent.

“Mike Barenti’s heartfelt chronicle of the culture and politics of salmon rivers is both a splendid adventure yarn and a provocative inquiry into the American conscience.”—Paul Schullery, author of Searching for Yellowstone

“Mike Barenti’s book is a good addition to Columbia River literature. Kayaking Alone is a travelogue, a wilderness adventure, an environmental history, and the story of the hopes and fears of the people whose lives are anchored in the river’s changing currents. But most of all it’s a personal quest to understand this wonderful gift we call the Columbia River.”—Jim Lichatowich, fisheries biologist and author of Salmon Without Rivers

“Mike Barenti’s Kayaking Alone carried me like a river, but this is no passive traveler’s tale. Barenti’s knowledge of the Northwest makes this journey as intellectually engaging and rewarding as it is physically adventurous. In taking you down the river, this beautiful book takes you deep into narratives of humanity and nature—and reminds you that they flow as one story.”—Jonathan Johnson, author of Hannah and the Mountain