Voyage of a Summer Sun: Canoeing the Columbia River [Paperback]

Robin Cody (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1996

At the center of Robin Cody's book is the great river -rich with history, myth, riverfolk, salmon and the effects of progress. Winner of the Oregon Book Award and a PNBA Book award, Voyage of a Summer Sun is the account of a fascinating, personal odyssey: a modern-day expedition down the length of the Columbia River.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The beautiful Columbia River can be wild and unpredictable, which means it's perfect for an epic North American canoe adventure. From Columbia Lake (its source in the Canadian Rockies) all 1,200 miles to the Pacific Ocean, Robin Cody finally takes the 82-day trip that started with an idle but persistent thought: "a guy could probably canoe it." And Cody has all that's required (love of river, canoeing know-how, writing ease, and self-effacing humor) to take the trip and tell the tale.

From Publishers Weekly

On June 17, 1991, Cody launched his 16-foot, 47-pound Kevlar canoe on Columbia Lake, high in the Canadian Rockies. Eighty-two days later, he beached the canoe at Astoria, Ore., completing his voyage on the Columbia River. Cody (Ricochet River) gives a sparkling account of his adventure, interweaving historical detail and natural history with childhood memories of the river. Despite its 14 dams, the Columbia has formidable rapids; its huge reservoirs, buffeted by strong winds, present a hazard to small craft. Day 39 found Cody at Grand Coulee Dam, his halfway point. There he visited an elderly couple who had observed the construction of the dam. As he passed the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, he was startled to see abundant wildlife on the nation's most hazardous nuclear waste dump. Cody notes that in two generations, the Columbia has been shackled and turned to human use; his journey was, in part, to observe both the natural and man-made systems. Readers interested in nature will find this irresistible. Illustrations. Author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Sasquatch Books (October 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1570610835
• ISBN-13: 978-1570610837
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #839,523 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #63 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Nature Travel > Adventure > Canoeing

More About the Author

Robin Cody was born at St. Helens in 1943 and grew up in Estacada, Oregon. A graduate of Yale, he taught at the American School of Paris for a decade and was Dean of Admissions at Reed College in Portland. While writing, he has been a baseball umpire, a basketball referee, and a special ed shool bus driver.

His "Ricochet River," a novel, and "Voyage of a Summer Sun," nonfiction, were first published by Alfred A. Knopf. Both are in the Oregon State Library's "150 Books for the Oregon Sesquicentennial," 2009.

"Another Way the River Has," 2010, is a collection of short true stories published by Oregon State University Press.

Cody lives with his wife, Donna, in Portland

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Classic adventuring, voyaging, sense of place, traveler, May 17, 2003

By 

abibliophile "pnwest" (Maryland, WV, & Wash State) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Voyage of a Summer Sun: Canoeing the Columbia River (Paperback)

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.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful and non-biased observations, August 25, 2000

By 

Joan Pasco (Gresham, OR USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Voyage of a Summer Sun: Canoeing the Columbia River (Paperback)

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.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Voyage through the issues surrounding the Columbia, January 4, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Voyage of a Summer Sun: Canoeing the Columbia River (Paperback)

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