Journey on the James

by Swift, Earl

• ISBN13: 9780813921198
• ISBN10: 0813921198
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-05-01
• Publisher: Univ of Virginia Pr

Summary

A journalist recounts his journey down James River, rediscovering four centuries of history as he paddles downriver through the heart of the Old South. Reprint. (Travel)

Author Biography

A staff writer for the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, Earl Swift has been a Fulbright fellow and twice nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He has backpacked the entire Appalachian Trail and completed a circumnavigation of the Chesapeake Bay by sea kayak. He lives in Norfolk with his daughter, Saylor

Table of Contents

On which the journey's protagonists wander hypothermic and disoriented on Lantz Mountain, birthplace of the James	1	(8)
On which the expedition follows the infant Jackson through the Alleghenies, and a gantlet of vicious pets	9	(10)
About which the less is said, the better	19	(8)
On which we reach navigable water, traverse Lake Moomaw, and reflect on the high cost of recreation	27	(11)
Of whitewater and wolf spiders, and the Jackson's first brush with industry	38	(13)
On which the expedition battles its way past all manner of obstacles to reach the James	51	(5)
On which we paddle through a furnace, and among boomtowns gone bust	56	(8)
Of oxbows, old stone, and the ghosts of a frontier past	64	(10)
On which the expedition braces for big excitment and the prospect of crippling injury	74	(11)
On which we risk soaking and arrest in the foam of Balcony Falls, then behold a river robbed	85	(10)
Fleeing Lynchburg	95	(10)
Thirty years after the river's worst night	105	(16)
An old carving, an old ferry, and an old town at the horseshoe bend	121	(7)
On which puny-brained geese outsmart us, and the fist of an angry God swings oh so close	128	(6)
On which the expedition escapes State Farm in a hell-for-leather dash	134	(12)
On which our faith in all things Swedish is tested	146	(5)
Risky business in Richmond	151	(10)
In the wake of the first European settlers--- and against the tide	161	(13)
What's that smell?	174	(14)
On which we find Jamestown not at all like that Disney movie	188	(11)
On which the expedition suffers one last blow	199	(12)
At the James River's mouth	211	(10)
Notes	221	(20)
Acknowledgments	241