Amazon.com:
Rivers are the other "blue highways" across America. What was the
seed of your River-Horse
journey?
William Least Heat-Moon:
It's really hard to pin the seed down because there were so many
of them, beginning when I was about 9 or 10. I was messing about in a little
creek near my house, and it finally dawned on me that that creek actually went
somewhere. It had an end to it that was well beyond anything I'd ever known.
And with that realization and going home and looking at maps, I saw that all
the waters of the world were one.
Later, when I started seeing that I was running out of
drastically new country to visit in the United States, I began wondering, "how
do you change perspective," and, of course, waterways came to my mind. That was
about 20 years ago. And I began looking at maps to see if there was a water
route across the country.
Amazon.com:
Does America still look to its rivers, or are they merely
artifacts?
Least Heat-Moon:
Well, there are certainly places where they're artifacts--but in
other areas we're beginning to see rivers clearly again, as a necessary part of
a healthy America. They are our arteries. They, in so many ways, supply us with
the most basic needs, such as drinkable water. Beyond that, I think we're
seeing rivers now as adding something almost indefinable to the quality of life
in towns and cities. In New York there was a plan to put another sewage plant
on the Hudson, and that got defeated. If you can get New Yorkers fighting for
rivers, then things are changing.
Amazon.com:
An environmental ethos is
woven through
River-Horse
. Is that feeling stronger for you now
than when you took the
Blue
Highways journey?
Least Heat-Moon:
Well, it isn't stronger in my heart or my passions than it was
then. I've had that ever since I was a boy--the belief in the primacy of
natural things. But I did want this book to be, not a textbook on environmental
issues, but a book that would lure people who might not otherwise think of
these issues into looking at them. And that's why those pages at the back of
the book are called "If You Want to Help." This will tell readers that if any
of these issues concern you, call these people, get in touch with them by
e-mail. I hope the response is huge.
Amazon.com:
As in Blue Highways
and PrairyErth
,
you bring a wealth of history to your journeys. Did you have favorite
historical traveling companions in River-Horse
?
Least Heat-Moon:
Well, you can't ignore Lewis and Clark. But two others who were
extremely important to us were Prince Maximilian, whose three-volume work about
crossing the country is not only unknown, but it's not even in print, and the
artist who went with him, Karl Bodmer, who painted magnificent watercolors.
Those things were continual inspirations. Together, they were key figures, in
part because of their excellence, but also because they covered most of the
Missouri River, and that river alone was about a fifth of the trip.
Amazon.com:
Did you confront a mythology about America's rivers that was as
powerful as, say, the mythology of the American West?
Least Heat-Moon:
Certainly not to that degree in my experience, other than
steamboats. I would say that the public myth about rivers, to use myth in a
different context, is the widespread ignorance of what we're doing with them
and what they are, what they mean historically, and, perhaps even more so, what
they can mean if we use them properly.
Amazon.com:
What was the most unexpected aspect of the rivers you
encountered?
Least Heat-Moon:
How good they look. You don't see PCBs, and you don't see toxins,
of course. But I was expecting to see most of the country look like some of the
worst places along the Ohio River, and it just wasn't that way.
Amazon.com:
Do you have a favorite river?
Least Heat-Moon:
I loved all of them. The Ohio was a little harder because it is so
trashed, and even it was pretty easy to like. The special one for us was the
Missouri because it seemed to have the most distinct personality of all. It has
so many different moods. It really seemed to be an animate force in nature that
toyed with us, and teased us, and played with us, and tried us, and tired us.
But I never felt it was bent on killing us--unlike Lake Erie.
Amazon.com:
You write of the river having a command over you.
Least Heat-Moon:
Without the river possessing me, obsessing me the way it did, I
don't think I would have made it. I think that in some ways that probably is
also what hit Meriwether Lewis. And I have a feeling that's one reason why he
was a suicide not long after he got off that river. It's just very hard to
adjust again.
Amazon.com:
How did this journey change you?
Least Heat-Moon:
I have far more optimism about this country in terms of
environmental issues. To travel coast to coast on waters is to see that when we
really set our minds to trying to correct some of these abuses we've inflicted
on rivers and surrounding lands, we can do so much to ameliorate those things.
We may not eliminate them. We are certainly not returning this to its natural
state, but, god, things are so much better than they were. It deepened my love
affair with my country.
For
four months, celebrated writer William Least Heat-Moon, author of
