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.…