$52 includes shipping in the USA.
Dock Marston: Grand Canyon's Colorado River Running Historian Volume 1 seamlessly chronicles the life of Colorado River Historian Otis Reed “Dock” Marston from his birth in 1894 through 1960, the year he upran the Grand Canyon by jetboat.
Dock went on his first river trip in the Grand Canyon in 1942. Within a few years he rowed with fellow boatman Norm Nevills through Glen, Cataract, Lodore, and the Grand Canyon, as well as the Snake and Salmon rivers in the Pacific Northwest.
Dock became fascinated with the stories of the river people. In 1947 he started writing a history of those adventurous souls. For the next three decades he collected all he could about river running on the Colorado River.
Dock Marston Volume 1 covers his birth in 1896 through 1960. It includes many stories about the river people he met and the National Park Service as the agency transformed from trying to prevent most river trips from even launching to regulating river recreation with permit systems beginning in the 1940s.
Meanwhile, dams altered the rivers. Dock joined others in the successful attempt to stop the Echo Park Dam and mourned the loss of Glen Canyon behind Glen Canyon Dam.
Praise for DOCK MARSTON:
“Dock Marston drilled deep into the human interaction with one of the world’s great wild rivers. In this meticulously detailed history of the early years of Grand Canyon boating, Tom Martin skillfully takes us through Marston’s massive archive giving life to long forgotten river runners and managers, some good, some bad.”
-Professor Roderick Nash, author of Wilderness and the American Mind
“As any river runner knows, it’s impossible to separate the joys and dangers of running the Colorado River from an understanding of its history and its people. Martin celebrates this to great effect by telling the story of the river and Dock Marston together.”
-Professor Anne Coleman, author of River Rats in the Archive (in Rendering Nature)
“Dock Marston’s love of running rivers and devotion to chronicling river runner history is exhaustively researched in this superbly written biography by Tom Martin.”
-Dr. Tom Myers, author of The Grandest Trek.
This 8” x 10” 560-page soft cover book includes 410 historic photos. Anticipated shipping the week of August 19. $52 includes shipping in the USA. A second volume is being written and will cover the rest of his life to 1979.