The Last Voyageur: Amos Burg and the Rivers of the West

For river lovers, paddling enthusiasts, history buffs, and everyone who likes stories of courage, strength, and adventure

• Amos Burg ran all the major rivers of the West when they still flowed freely and potential danger was just around the next bend
• Part early 20th-century history, part adventure, part biography of the West's first commerical outdoor guide

Amos Burg (1901—1986), a native of Portland, Oregon, was the first to complete transits of the free-flowing, undammed Snake and Columbia Rivers by canoe, and in 1938 he became the first to navigate the length of the Colorado River in a rubber raft. In his daring explorations of waterways from the Southwest up through Canada and into Alaska, Burg is considered to be the only person known to have run all major Western rivers from source to mouth.

In The Last Voyageur: Amos Burg and the Rivers of the West author Vince Welch, himself a river guide, weaves a passionate and well-researched narrative using extensive material from Burg's own rich archives. History buffs, paddlers, and adventure readers alike will delight in this remarkable regional history of the larger-than-life Burg, a quintessential man of the American West and one of the last "voyageurs" of North America's great waterways.

Vince Welch was a boatman on Northwest rivers for several years before heading to the Colorado River, where he guided for Grand Canyon Dories and first encountered the legend of Amos Burg. He has since lived and guided all over the West and has written for River magazine, The Utne Reader, Boatman's Quarterly Review, and Mountain Gazette, for which he is a senior correspondent. Welch lives in Portland, Oregon.