Downstream Toward Home: A Book of Rivers

American rivers are among the most diverse and challenging in the world, and for many the excitement and escape they offer develops into a lifelong pursuit. In Downstream Toward Home, Oliver A. Houck recounts his six decades exploring America's waterways, from unnamed creeks and Louisiana swamps to the rivers of western canyons and the Alaskan tundra.

This engaging travelogue leads readers down over thirty-two rivers found across the country. Along the way Houck provides quiet observations as he finds footprints of red wolves on a sandbank or paddles through an aqueous forest of cypress trees. Collectively, these moments of adventure and introspection reveal his distinct and extraordinary vision of the national landscape.

From the thrill of approaching rapids to the peace of resting on a shoal, Houck's narrative draws from history and personal experience subtly to remind us how each body of water plays an outsized role in its surrounding environment.

At once a journal, a primer, and a guide, Downstream Toward Home is an invitation to create our own experiences on America's rivers.

A professor at Tulane University Law School, Oliver A. Houck served as general counsel and vice president of the National Wildlife Federation and on the boards of directors of the Defenders of Wildlife and the Environmental Law Institute, the Litigation Review Board of the Environmental Defense Fund, and two committees of the National Science Foundation. Named Louisiana’s Conservationist of the Year and Tulane Law School’s Felix Frankfurter Distinguished Teacher, Houck has also been honored with the Distinguished Achievement Award from the Environmental Section of the American Bar Association.