Biography of America's great river runner, Buzz Holmstrom: the first to run the Green and Colorado Rivers alone in 1937. Born in the coastal logging communities of coastal Oregon, Holmstrom built his own wooden boats and soloed several of the country's great whitewater rivers. He died mysteriously on the Grande Ronde River at age 37.
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Editorial Reviews
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[The authors] are river-runners and they are fine writers. Welch's craft is strong. River runner or not, the reader flips with Buzz at Black Bar Falls, sits shivering at twilight on a boulder, swims the icy river, and tired and cold, goes on.
By the time Holmstrom puts his hand-built boat into Green River, we like the young boatman. By the end of the voyage, we love him. He emerges, through Dimock's storytelling and excerpts of Buzz' journal as a bright, hugely conscious man, expert at carpentry, rowing, survival in hard terrain and, more than anything, steering his journey not against the river, but with it. If writing is, as Dimock's and Welch's skill would bear out, a river, then what "The Doing of the Thing" accomplishes is the restoration of the flow and the bringing to the surface of a fine human being. -- Mary Sojourner, Arizona Daily Sun, October 9, 1998
From the Publisher
This beautifully designed trade paperback is notch bound for years of service both in the library and out on the river.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Answers to an old story....,
By Jon B. Goodman (Stayton, Oregon USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Doing of the Thing (Hardcover)
I remember years ago when I was a kid a story my father told me about an amazing river rafter and boat builder. My Dad grew up in Coquille and went to school with Buzz's younger brother. His story always ended with how Buzz had been on a rafting trip in eastern Oregon and went off and committed suicide. I could never understand how someone who had done the amazing things he did could end his life on that note. I thought about that story many times over the years and always wished I knew more. This book is incredibly well researched and documented. Even though many questions were answered, many more were raised. Such was the enigma that was Buzz Holmstrom.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A "must read" for all Grand Canyon lovers,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Doing of the Thing: The Brief Brilliant Whitewater Career of Buzz Holmstrom (Paperback)
True adventure is not limited to distant lands and times long ago. Here in the good ol' U.S. of A., just a few short years ago, a common man blew his fanfare in the form of beautiful wooden boats made without plans by hand in his basement, and in his solo running of whitewater rivers in those boats. If you have ever slept under the stars, you will understand a bit of Buzz and why he did what he did. You may even want to do it yourself. Buzz would like that.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An in-depth look at the man who became a hero.,
By
This review is from: The Doing of the Thing (Hardcover)
Buzz Holmstrom is, in the mythos of Grand Canyon boatmen, a singular icon. For years, xerox copies of the journal he kept on his 1937 solo run through Grand Canyon have circulated among river runners, avidly read and treasured. Now, with "The Doing of the Thing," we have a thorough and exhaustively researched picture of his life. Buzz is, for many of us, our hero. Now we can know him as a man. The subtlties and nuances of a private life made public by the magnitude of his accomplishments reveal a man of sensitive nature and indominable courage.
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