Riverine Dreams
Away to the Glorious and Forgotten Grassland Rivers of America
In his excellent travel memoir Riverine Dreams, George Frazier visits eight grassland rivers “where fifty million people go about their lives in the ruins of North America’s once vast interior grassland.”
Before European settlement, the book notes, the middle of the United States was covered in grasslands and the rivers that fed them. To honor these spaces, Frazier began traveling the extant waterways, beginning with the Missouri River, which flows through Montana, and wrapping up with the lower Missouri. He covers thousands of miles across several states in the process, capturing the vastness of grassland waters. He describes the scenery and wildlife along the way, demonstrating that these natural spaces are still vibrant and showing the variety of habitats and landscapes fed by grassland rivers.
The book includes a wealth of historical and modern context, as with legislative battles in several states over protecting the American wilderness along the rivers; stories of violent attacks on Mormon settlements in Missouri; and tales of underground catfish poaching. All shaped the lives of people living near the rivers. These bits of cultural history are involving, telling an evolving story about the US and its relationships to its physical land.
Throughout his travels, Frazier interviews a range of people: those with ancestral ties to the rivers, the rare folks who travel the waterways, those working to save and rebuild the wilderness, and even some opponents of conservation efforts. These voices provide hope for a true revival of the grassland rivers and show some of the ways that rewilding is underway.
Riverine Dreams is an engaging travelogue packed with a wealth of history and reverence for the US’s unique ecosystems.
Reviewed by
Jeff Fleischer
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
