Voyage of a Summer Sun: Canoeing the Columbia River

by Robin Cody

Book Overview

"The story is the Columbia River, not the canoe and me, but I've learned that friends can't hear me tell about the river until they know why I was out there. This is not an adventure story, though... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679417680
• ISBN13: 9780679417682
• Release Date: March 1995
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
• Length: 301 Pages
• Weight: 1.21 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.0" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

Classic adventuring, voyaging, sense of place, traveler

Of the hundreds of books I have on the Pacific Northwest, this is easily one of my favorites. Aside from Robin Cody simply being an excellent writer, enjoyable to read, easy to follow, this book specifically invokes a true sense of place of the Columbia. It has a flavor of the classic Farthest Frontier, adventure, outdoors, wide open Northwest in the spirit of David Thompson, Theodore Winthrop, James Swan and the like (not to mention Lewis & Clark). Robin Cody evokes a sense of place right up there with the best like Stewart Holbrook, Murray Morgan, Ivan Doig, etc. The books touches on places here and there along the Columbia giving the reader a good feel for not only the Columbia of today, but in the past, before the Damns! Man thinks he's "tamed" the Columbia, but the majesty & power is still there and Cody conveys some of it. The main problem with the book is that it is much too short, I wanted more - I'd like to see the full journal of his travels. You couch potatoes (ok me too) dont really understand what it really means to spend nearly 3 months and 1200 miles in a itsy bitsy canoe on one of the world's biggest river. Clearly the mighty Columbia spoke during his journey, Cody listened well, and did a good job telling us about what the River said. A must read, along with the similar flavored The Good Rain by Timothy Egan.

Wonderful and non-biased observations

I thoroughly enjoyed this read. Cody's observations on the impact of technical advancement on an ecosystem were candid and not overly political or strident. This would be an excellent book for students of atmospheric and earth sciences. Robin Cody is a gifted story teller and narrator.

Great book for anyone interested in the Columbia River.

Voyage of a Summer Sun is more than a book for canoeing the Columbia River. It is for everyone who wants to know and understand each stretch of the Columbia River better. History, landmarks, points of interest, characteristics, and nature of the river are thoughtfully and colorfully experienced from the author's excellent documentation of his 82 day canoe trip down the mighty Columbia

Voyage through the issues surrounding the Columbia

From Canadian wilderness to Longview smelters, the book introduces all the issues that embroil the Columbia: from hydropower to nuclear waste to logging to salmon to treaties. Unable to dwell too long on any particular issue, Cody doesn't try to draw specific conclusions from his journey. His focus on the geologic timescale of the river leaves the impression that time will smooth the ripples of human folly. The down-to-earth stories of the people he meets argues that although the collective results might have been foolish, the participants were/are hard-working, well-meaning, humans. Beyond politics then, Voyage does a wonderful job of stirring the restless energy to explore and experience that wells up from the constraints of two weeks of vacation a year