Threading the Currents: A Paddler's Passion for Water

Kesselheim, a canoeist and a columnist for Big Sky Journal, proves himself an insightful guide to the theme of wilderness and water in this engaging collection of personal essays. Kesselheim finds many subjects within his overarching theme: a meditation on thirst; a hilarious account of losing his clothes after a capsize; a terrifying encounter with hypothermia on a lake in northern Canada. He balances personal musings with thoughts on geology, water dynamics, anthropology, ecological change and human history, and he reveals how experiences with wilderness have shaped his attitudes toward himself and his loved ones. Especially interesting are his thoughts on ""wintering over,"" the nine-month period he spent on Canada's Lake Athabasca in near-hibernation with his wife-to-be as they waited for the ice to clear during their 14-month cross-continent canoe journey. Also fascinating is Kesselheim's essay on flooding on the Yellowstone River: ""A flood only makes blatant what is usually subtle,"" he writes, that a ""river is a dynamic, fussy power, forever shifting, nibbling at banks, moving rock... seeking an elusive equilibrium."" By the book's end, Kesselheim writes wryly of the joys and frustrations of paddling with three preschoolers or of finding wilderness within the confines of civilization. Neither strident nor romanticized, his essays speak honestly about the challenges, exhilarations and acceptance to be found in encounters with the wild. Illustrations. Agent, Jeanne Hanson. (Oct.)