$44.95 PAPERBACK
Order these two Grand Canyon river history books and save $$.
Combination of From Powell to Power (paperback) and Dock Marston: Grand Canyon's River Running Historian Volume 1
available for $60
Or order these two Grand Canyon river history books and save $$.
Combination of Big Water, Little Boats (paperback) and Dock Marston: Grand Canyon's River Running Historian Volume 1
available for $55
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Otis Marston went on his first river trip in the Grand Canyon in 1942. His life was never the same again. Within a few years, Otis, nicknamed Dock, rowed with fellow boatman Norm Nevills through Glen, Cataract, Lodore, and the Grand Canyon, as well as the Snake and Salmon rivers in the Pacific Northwest. Dock became fascinated with the stories of the river people. In 1947 he started writing a history of those adventurous souls, not realizing he would still be working on it at the end of his life in 1979.
This book tells Dock’s story and how river running changed between 1942 and 1979. Dock saw the National Park Service transform from trying to prevent most river trips from even launching to regulating river recreation with permit systems. Meanwhile, dams altered the rivers. He participated in the change in watercraft from unwieldy wooden designs to inflatable rafts, with and without motors. He participated in the one and only jetboat trip that ran upstream in the Grand Canyon powering up the rapids.
In the middle of it all, Dock was friends with NPS superintendents, rivermen and riverwomen. In addition to his son Garth, he took his twin daughters and other women on the river, enabling Norm Nevills and other expedition leaders to advertise their trips as safe and fun for the whole family.
This volume covers Dock’s life and the parallel lives of all those who ran the river until 1960, the year of the jet boat uprun. A second volume will cover the rest of his life to 1979.
About the author: Tom Martin has been hiking in and rafting through the Grand Canyon since 1971.
With Duwain Whitis, he co-authored the Guide to the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.
He also wrote Day Hikes from the River and Big Water, Little Boats. All three books are available from this site.
Isbn 978-1-73222192-5-0, perfectbound trade paperback, 560 pages, July 2024, $44.95.
Praise for DOCK MARSTON:
Dock Marston drilled deep into the human interaction with one of the world’s great wild rivers. In this meticulously detailed history of the early years of Grand Canyon boating, Tom Martin skillfully takes us through Marston’s massive archive giving life to long forgotten river runners and managers, some good, some bad.”
-Professor Roderick Nash, author of Wilderness and the American Mind
“As any river runner knows, it’s impossible to separate the joys and dangers of running the Colorado River from an understanding of its history and its people. Martin celebrates this to great effect by telling the story of the river and Dock Marston together.”
-Professor Anne Coleman, author of River Rats in the Archive (in Rendering Nature)
“Dock Marston’s love of running rivers and devotion to chronicling river runner history is exhaustively researched in this superbly written biography by Tom Martin.”
-Dr. Tom Myers, author of The Grandest Trek.
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