"After the death of his paddling companion, a German shepherd-labrador retriever mix named Jasper, Kim Trevathan began a series of solitary upstream kayaking quests in search of what he calls "liminal zones, " transitional areas where dammed reservoirs give way to the current of the rivers that feed them. For four years he scoured the rivers and lakes of America, where environmentally damaging, and now decaying, man-made structures have transformed...

"Written twenty years after his first expedition down the Tennessee River that was chronicled in Paddling the Tennessee River, this new book finds Kim Trevathan paddling upriver, providing him with different perspectives of the river, its surroundings, and an older and perhaps wiser author. Trevathan's range as a writer is on full display here, with the everyday struggles of operating a kayak constantly, poetic musings on events and physical beauty,...