Shantyboat on the Bayous

by Harlan Hubbard

Since the publication of Shantyboat: A River Way of Life in 1953, Harlan Hubbard has achieved a wide reputation as a modern-day Thoreau. Not content simply to advocate a life of simplicity and self-sufficiency, Hubbard and his wife Anna in 1944 built with their own hands a houseboat on the banks of the Ohio near Cincinnati and in 1946 set out on a leisurely, five-year journey down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Shantyboat, Hubbard's recounting of...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0813117178
• ISBN13: 9780813117171
• Release Date: June 1990
• Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 7.3" x 10.3"

Customer Reviews

Thoreau's Ideal, Lived

You will be amazed at the beauty, simplicity and artistry of this little book. You will also feel compelled to read his first book which describes his wondrous shantyboat voyage from Brent, Kentucky to the Bayous of Louisianna. Both are successful stories of love of life fulfilled by bringing it into harmony with the ancient rhythms of nature. All this is recorded in a poetic narrative which expresses the beauty of everyday life of a couple attuned to ebb and flow of great waters and changing seasons. His descriptions of his everyday routine and observations will change your view of nature and life, revealing an intimacy seldom attained. All this comes from an unknown man from the same town on the Ohio River where I was born and lived during these events. I wish I had known of then then. He was at home as much in the Bayous as he was building his shantyboat and wintering through a flood on the Ohio. He is an artist and a musician and paints a picture you feel you are there. You can feel it and hear it and, by golly, you see yourself doing it too. You will enjoy it, even learn how to get your own soft-shell crabs in the bayous and make your own flour. If you have a love of mature, it is a book you should read.