Henry David Thoreau’s River Years
Robert M. Thorson
As a backyard naturalist and river enthusiast, Henry David Thoreau was keenly aware of the way humans had altered the waterways and meadows of his beloved Concord River Valley. And he recognized that he himself―a land surveyor by trade―was complicit in these transformations.
In The Boatman: Henry David Thoreau’s River Years, Robert Thorson narrates Thoreau’s progress from anger, to lament, to acceptance of the way humans had changed the river that he cherished more than Walden Pond. By the mid-1850s Thoreau had come to realize that humans and an “imperfect” nature were inseparable.
His beliefs and scientific understanding of the river would be challenged again when he was hired in 1859 as a technical consultant for the River Meadow Association, in America’s first statewide case for dam removal―a veritable class-action suit of more than five hundred petitioners that pitted local farmers against industrialists.
In the years after the publication of Walden in 1854, the river boatman’s joy in the natural world was undiminished by the prospect of environmental change. Increasingly, he sought out those river sites most dramatically altered by human invention and intervention for solace and pleasure ―for better and worse.
Published by Harvard University Press
Praise for The Boatman
A scrupulous account of the environment Thoreau loved most and, important for our day, the ways in which he expressed this passion in the face of ecological degradation…Thorson argues convincingly―sometimes beautifully―that Thoreau’s thinking and writing were integrally connected to paddling and sailing…With the meticulous care of a modern geologist, he excavates Thoreau’s journals, notebooks and correspondence, concentrating on the last years of the naturalist’s life and exposing the way he became what today we would call a fluvial geomorphologist, an environmental scientist devoted to understanding the form and function of rivers.
— John Kaag, The Wall Street Journal
Thorson’s book offers the reader an in-depth account of Thoreau’s lifelong love of boats, his skill as a navigator, his intimate knowledge of the waterways around Concord, and his extensive survey of the Concord River.
— Robert Pogue Harrison, The New York Review of Books
"Henry David Thoreau, ""Mto Years"" Robert M. Thorson, alikuwa mtafiti wa asili wa nyuma na mpenzi wa mto, Henry David Thoreau alikuwa na ufahamu mkubwa wa jinsi wanadamu walivyobadilisha njia za maji na nyasi za bonde lake la mto Concord." Na alitambua kwamba yeye mwenyewe - aliyekuwa mchunguzi wa ardhi kwa biashara - alikuwa mshirika katika mabadiliko hayo. Katika kitabu chake The Boatman: Henry David Thoreau's River Years, Robert Thoreau anaelezea maendeleo ya Thoreau kutoka hasira, kuomboleza, hadi kukubali jinsi wanadamu walivyobadilisha mto ambao aliupenda zaidi kuliko Walden Pond. Katika miaka ya 1850 Thoreau alijua kwamba wanadamu na asili yao ya "kutokamilika" hazingeweza kutenganishwa. Maoni yake na uelewa wake wa kisayansi wa mto huo ulipingwa tena alipowekwa kazi mwaka 1859 kama mshauri wa kiufundi wa Shirika la Mto Meadow, katika kesi ya kwanza ya Marekani ya kuondoa bwawa, kesi ya kisheria ya zaidi ya waombaji mia tano ambayo iliwapinga wakulima wa eneo hilo dhidi ya wafanya viwanda. Katika miaka ya baada ya kuchapishwa kwa Walden, furaha ya boti ya mto katika ulimwengu wa asili haikupunguzwa na matarajio ya mabadiliko ya mazingira. Kwa kuongezeka, alitafuta maeneo ya mto yaliyotabiriwa sana na uvumbuzi wa kibinadamu na uingiliaji kwa faraja na raha - kwa bora na mbaya. "Kutoka kwa kitabu chake cha The Boatman, Thoreau anaelezea kwa makini mazingira ambayo Thoreau alipenda zaidi na, muhimu kwa siku zetu, njia ambazo alionyesha shauku hii katika uso wa uharibifu wa ikolojia. ""Kutoka kwa utafiti wa Thoreau, yeye huchimba majarida, vitabu vya kumbukumbu na mawasiliano, akizingatia miaka ya mwisho ya maisha ya mtaalamu wa asili na kuelezea jinsi alivyo kuwa kile ambacho leo tunaweza kuita geomorphologist ya mto, mwanasayansi wa mazingira aliyejitolea kuelewa fomu na kazi ya mito." Kitabu cha John Kaag, The Wall Street Journal, kinatoa kwa msomaji maelezo ya kina ya upendo wa Thoreau wa maisha ya mashua, ustadi wake kama baharia, maarifa yake ya kina ya njia za maji karibu na Concord, na uchunguzi wake mkubwa wa Mto Concord.  Robert Pogue Harrison, The New York Review of Books