Canoeing the Great Plains – A Missouri River Summer, by Patrick Dobson
Channel: kcdigitalvideo
Date: 2015-08-11

Big Muddy Speakers Series (Kansas City) hosted by 
Healthy Rivers Partnership (http://www.healthyriverspartnership.com/) in cooperation with
Missouri River Relief and Friends of Lakeside Nature Center
at the Westport Coffeehouse Theater (http://www.westportcoffeehouse.com)
- Tuesday, May 26, 2015.

Tired of an unfulfilled life in Kansas City, Missouri, Patrick
Dobson left his job and set off on foot across the Great Plains.
After two and a half months, 1,450 miles, and numerous encounters
with the people of the heartland, Patrick arrived in Helena,
Montana. He then set a canoe on the Missouri and asked the river
to carry him safely back to Kansas City, hoping this enigmatic
watercourse would help reconnect him with his life.

Patrick will discuss his new book Canoeing the Great Plains: A
Missouri River Summer and a journey undertaken nearly 20 years
ago that proved to be transformative. Dobson, a novice canoeist
when he begins his trip, faces the Missouri at a time of
dangerous flooding and must learn to trust himself to the
powerful flows of the river and its stark and serenely beautiful
countryside. He meets a cast of characters along the river who
assist him both with the mundane tasks of canoeing—portaging
around dams and reservoirs and finding campsites—and with his own
personal transformation. Mishaps, mistakes, and misadventures
plague his trip, but over time the river shifts from being a
frightening adversary to a welcome companion.dobson

Patrick Dobson, PhD, is a writer, historian, and ironworker. When
not teaching at Johnson County Community College, where he is an
adjunct associate professor, he works as a bridge builder doing
structural, reinforcing, and ornamental ironwork.


Videography by Kansas City Digital Video.

Index of the Big Muddy Speakers Series:
http://www.kcdv.tv/big-muddy-speakers-series

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