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

In November of 1937, Buzz Holmstrom, an unknown service station attendant from the tiny logging town of Coquille, Oregon, made headlines across the country. Alone, in a boat he designed and built himself, he navigated over a thousand miles of the rapid-strewn Green and Colorado Rivers. Without saying much, he went back to work at the service station, where the press tracked him down. How he came to have the boatbuilding or river running skills, or even the desire to do such a thing, was unclear. Nine years and thousands of river miles later, Holmstrom's body was found beside the Grande Ronde River in Oregon. At 37, his story had ended in even greater mystery than it began. Now, fifty years later, three boatmen have brought to light a story about rivers and wooden boats, about heroes, humility, unbearable beauty, solitude, and death. Holmstrom's is the tale of a man's lone struggle in a difficult and changing world.