This Month's Books

Florida From the Swamp to the Keys: A Paddle through Florida History

by Johnny Molloyn

University Press of Florida,

2003 ISBN 0-8130-2622-9 192 pp, b/w photos, maps, $19.95 US

This latest in nearly twenty outdoor adventure and guide books written by Johnny Molloy is the result of a deliberate attempt to create adventure and journalistic material by paddling the Suwannee River from Georgia through central Florida, and then down the Florida coast to the Keys. Why this particular adventure? “To go where I have never been, to see something I’ve never seen. To see Florida from a watery point of view.”

In the research for this book, Molloy continued his life plan of satisfying his soul by accumulating and spending not money, but time—“the most valuable commodity on earth”—in the outdoors. And as he paddled, he compiled a fascinating collection of cultural and historical information about Florida and the people who have spent their lives along the rivers, swamps, salt marshes and open waters of the Sunshine State.

Johnny Molloy is the author of numerous books, including Beach and Coastal Camping in Florida, A Paddler’s Guide to Everglades National Park, and Hiking Trails of Florida’s National Forests, Parks and Preserves.

Naturally Salty: Coastal Characters of the Pacific Northwest

by Marianne Scott

Touchwood Editions,

2003 ISBN 1-894898-03-6 224 pp $18.95 Cdn, $14.95 US

In Naturally Salty, Marianne Scott, herself a pretty salty character, has profiled thirty adventurers, eccentrics, innovators, stoics and other interesting individuals who all, at some point in their lives, washed up on the shores of the Pacific Northwest, and who are bound together by a love of boats and things nautical. The combined adventures and accomplishments of these coastal characters will fascinate anyone who shares that love, and may even inspire some to follow dreams of adventure.

Scott uses her considerable journalistic skill to tell these in-progress life stories (young and old, these individuals are still actively engaged in continuing their adventures). Her style is engaging and she obviously has become acquainted with the central core of each person she interviews, finding a way to let us get to know them too.

Playboating with Ken Whiting

DVD / VHS Heliconia Press,

2003 ISBN 1-896980-08-2 $39.95 Cdn sales@helipress.com Web: www.playboat.com

This latest instructional video from Ken Whiting is the ultimate step-by-step guide to playboating moves. It covers fundamental skills and drills and flatwater, wave, hole and river running moves from the basic to the most advanced, like the helix and aerial loop. Whether you are an experienced or novice playboater, this video will definitely help to improve your paddling. Some of the best paddlers in the world strut their stuff in the Ottawa Valley and Chile, demonstrating the latest freestyle moves: surfing, spinning, squirting, double pumps, stalls, flatwater cartwheels, clean cartwheels, splitwheels, aerial loops, flatwater loops, trickywhus, blunts, air screws, pan ams, helixes. This is a great opportunity to learn from the world’s extreme paddling experts.

Lost in Mongolia: Rafting the World’s Last Unchallenged River

by Colin Angus

Anchor Canada,

2003 ISBN 0-385-66014-6 288 pp, b/w photos, maps $19.95 Cdn, $12.95 US

It would be an understatement to say that Colin Angus is an adventurer. No sooner had he survived a life-threatening rafting expedition down the Amazon River, he and his partner-in-adventure started planning a run down the Yenisey River (the world’s fifth longest). With its headwaters in the heart of central Asia, and its mouth 5,500 kilometers to the north on the Arctic Ocean, the Yenisey was a challenge that beckoned with an irresistible appeal. What hooked Angus was the promise of firsthand experience of one of the world’s great rivers, offering the chance for a voyage through unknown cultures and geography and one of the few opportunities for true exploration left in the modern world.

Five months after leaving home, Angus and his buddies made history by paddling the entire length of the Yenisey with two kayaks and a whitewater raft, completing a thrilling adventure that can hardly be imagined. This account of their voyage through Mongolia and Siberia is riveting reading for those of us more inclined to take our adventure in smaller doses.

Full Moon Flood Tide: Bill Proctor’s Raincoast

by Bill Proctor and Yvonne Maximchuk

Harbour Publishing,

2003 ISBN 1-55017-291-3 288 pp, b/w illus, maps, photos, $24.95 Cdn

Most anyone who has spent time up the coast of BC has heard of ‘Billy’s museum’ at Echo Bay or Bill’s work to restore the Pacific salmon. Bill Proctor has spent all his sixty some years in and around the Broughton Archipelago, and has lent his hand to almost every occupation possible. Over time he has witnessed changes that made him re-evaluate his values and beliefs, and caused him to become a passionate defender of the life-sustaining environment that has always been his home.

Full Moon Flood Tide is a collaboration between Bill and his friend and neighbour, Yvonne Maximchuk. In it, Bill provides stories about some of the old-timers; profiles of the wildlife that inhabit the area; and information about inlets, bays and waterways to help us explore and appreciate its beauty. Yvonne has organized and illustrated Bill’s words, resulting in a uniquely useful and highly entertaining combination of natural and human history.