Customer Reviews

The Doing of the Thing: The Brief Brilliant Whitewater Career of Buzz Holmstrom

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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.

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.

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.

Holmstrom's an example of Calling, or the Daimon in Hillman's sense. The authors provide the details of his life, limned on the canvas of the lost West, but there's a mystery in the strength of the hold the River had on him, as it has on some of the rest of us. Watching Holmstrom shape himself, even as he learned to shape wood for his boats, to make his voyages, gives a sense of destiny, which I think is one of the book's gifts. We live the era of gray, massed human lives; the book is a portrait of an actual human life: humble, shy, self-sculpted. doubt-racked, humorous, and finally dauntless. Reading of his early life, reading of his active life on the rivers, there is still the mystery of why this one from that town and those parents went to a peculiar and noble destiny. Welch, Dimock, Conley: boatmen, historians. They have the historical imagination and the river knowledge to vivify place and time, to judge in context, with expertise. Experts writing with precision and certainty (and where exacted by Holmstrom's death, with puzzlement and sorrow) about one of their Ancestors, one of their spiritual Fathers. Using Holmstrom's voice too; nobody could reveal him as he did himself. As with some greater and few lesser writers, these imbue their book at once with a picture of an odd, engaging spirit; a more spacious time; a lost West. Holmstrom lived in paradise; he lived in Neverland; he never left it. An achronic life, in a good book.

Years ago (1970) on my first trip to the inner canyons of the Colorado River I heard stories of Bert Loper, Norm Nevills, the Kolb Brothers and "Buzz" Holmstrom, all early pioneers running the whitewater of the Colorado river. A one line entry in the "Powell Centennial, Grand Canyon River Guide," mentioned Holmstrom as,"... the first to run the canyon alone, built boat and rowed from Green River, Wyoming, to Hoover Dam in 1937."

Welch, Conley, and Dimock have done a beautiful job of bringing to light a story that should have been told long ago.

If you like outdoor adventure then, "The Doing of The Thing," should be a perfect read.

Well-written and researched. But the thing that shines through is Buzz and his strong spirit - the writers were careful to be sure this was HIS book, not theirs, which is how it should be. A true boatman's boatman, Buzz was maybe born too soon - it seems the world wasn't quite ready for his singular love of the rivers and nature. This book won't disappoint you - what will disappoint you after reading it is that Buzz is gone.

Even today, with rescue not so far away, few of us would have the nerve to go down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon alone, so imagine the nerve it took when Buzz was totally alone, with no chance of help if he made a mistake. But the most amazing thing about Buzz was that in the midst of an adventure that would leave most people totally preoccupied with survival, Buzz had the soul power to look for and see the poetry in the river and the canyon. Merely knowing how to survive can be much easier than knowing how to live.

The legendary Buzz Holmstrom was a more complex figure than I knew. His journal entries express the feeling of all who really love rivers and the famous entry that includes "the doing of the thing" should be read on every river trip.
This is the second Brad Dimock book I've read (the other on Bert Loper) and I am impressed with not only his skill as a writer, but his careful research. His handling of the tragic end to Buzz Holmstrom's life was that of a journalist with a sense of humanity.
I've already loaned this book to friends.

Anyone remotely interested in white water rafting will thoroughly love this book. Buz Holstrom was a true Maverick in the sport. The authors bring him to life through their wonderful narrative and easy writing style. He is truly an individual that was remarkably talented in his boat building and navigational skills. This book left me wanting more of Buzz Holstrom and wishing he were still around to tell us more about his short remarkable life.

An absolute classic story of early river running and the life of a singular man, Buzz Holmstrom, whose soul seemed imbued with both the innocent purity of simplicity and the dark trauma of complexity. (An apt description of true river rats, who are helplessly enchanted, delighted, and haunted by rivers...)

Beautiful writing, fascinating detail, a compelling tale. It will speak to all--but especially river runners--who have ever experienced what the authors described as follows:

"Holmstrom had the classic symptoms of a malady boatmen have suffered ever since: withdrawal from the incredible elation of the River. The River, where everything is natural, scenic, and simple, where problems can be solved, the phone never rings, and goals are within immediate reach. To have discovered that world, lived in it, understood it, and savored it--then be compelled to leave it--with no certainty of ever returning--can inflict a peculiar strain of depression." (p. 169)

Who--having spent wild days of youth, and the tamer days beyond, running the wild rivers of the West--has not felt the same pangs that Buzz felt?

If any of this resonates with you, by all means read this book...