Eugene Buchanan, a former reporter for the Denver Business Journal and 14-year publisher and editor-in-chief of Paddler magazine, has written about the outdoors for more than 25 years, from covering the X Games for ESPN.com to working for NBC at the Beijing Olympics to authoring six books and countless freelance articles. IBuchanan is a former ski patrol and raft and kayak guide whose passion for traveling and writing has taken him to more than 30 countries on six continents. A lifelong resident of Colorado raised in Boulder, he lives in Steamboat Springs, where he and his wife, Denise, raised their two daughters along the Yampa River.
SunLit: Tell us this book’s backstory – what’s it about and what inspired you to write it?
Eugene Buchanan: It’s an ode to northwest Colorado’s Yampa River, the last remaining free-flowing tributary to the entire Colorado River Basin that still retains its natural hydrograph. As with David James Duncan’s “My Story as Told by Water,” I hope it increases awareness for both the Yampa as well as readers’ own backyard rivers through my 30-year relationship with my hometown waterway here in Steamboat Springs.
UNDERWRITTEN BY
Each week, The Colorado Sun and Colorado Humanities & Center For The Book feature an excerpt from a Colorado book and an interview with the author. Explore the SunLit archives at coloradosun.com/sunlit.
I first met the Yampa in the summer of 1973 as a 10-year-old on a five-day rafting trip through Dinosaur National Monument with my family. I still remember kissing Tiger Wall, picking a bouquet of Indian paintbrush for my mom, and hearing the resounding echoes in Echo Park. What I didn’t know was how that experience would shape my life.
Fast forward over 50 years and I’ve now spent more than half my life living along its banks in Steamboat, where I’ve raised my two daughters just a fly cast away from it. It prompted a career writing about water — publishing Paddler magazine for 16 years a block from its banks, founding the website Paddling Life, and serving on the board of Friends of the Yampa for 20 years, helping preserve the waterway as it negotiates today’s tangled web of water rights, recreation, climate change, reduced flows, habitat hurdles and more.
With the Yampa so instrumental in my life, I’m motivated to make a difference — using it as a way for others to appreciate the waterways in their own backyards. More than anything, it’s been a labor of love. As Duncan wrote, “The rivers that move me are those I’ve fished, canoed, slept by, lived on, nearly drowned in, dreamed about, taught my kids to swim in, fought and fought to defend.”
“Yampa Yearnings”
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For me, that river is the Yampa. From its headwaters in the birthplace of the country’s wilderness movement to its confluence with the Green 250 miles later in Dinosaur National Monument—where Sierra Club executive director David Brower helped defeat the Echo Park Dam—the river supports agriculture, municipalities, a world-class ski resort, industry, endangered fish, unique riparian zones, water rights, recreation and more. I guess I just hope it helps instill a sense of waterway preservation in people.
SunLit: Place the excerpt you selected in context. How does it fit into the book as a whole and why did you select it?
Buchanan: I chose this one, which is the book’s introduction, because I feel it encapsulates most of what the book is about, from its many uses such as agriculture and recreation to the problems it’s facing. But it also touches upon the types of lifelong memories it helps create — like the one we had rodeoing cattle across the river from our kayaks.
SunLit: What influences and/or experiences informed the project before you sat down to write?
Buchanan: I’d have to say my 30 years living alongside the Yampa, from floating the many sections of its main stem and its tributaries come spring and summer, to fishing the same stretches come late summer and into fall. I also toured ranches and power plants that rely on it and even joined in a City 101 course through the city, touring everything from Steamboat’s waste water to drinking water plants. The river supports all these uses and more, so I wanted to get a feel for how they all work.
SunLit: What did the process of writing this book add to your knowledge and understanding of your craft and/or the subject matter?
Buchanan: I approached it as a sort of half memoir/half environmental piece, with the end goal being an overall ode to the Yampa. So, I tried to weave in my first-person experiences with it along with information on the river in hopes of making it interesting for readers. Especially to those interested in its plight and/or that of other waterways facing today’s challenges from climate change and over use.
So, I tried to blend the two. I also learned a lot about the river itself, from the importance of agriculture in the valley to its diminishing flows of late. A lot of people seem to view it with either just an ag eye or recreational eye up here, but it’s so much more.
SunLit: What were the biggest challenges you faced in writing this book?
Buchanan: It was a big undertaking. I’ve had several books published by publishers and have also gone the self-pub route. For this one, knowing it was relatively localized, I opted to self-pub instead of spending time and margin trying to find a publisher. But I also wanted some up-front support beforehand.
So, at first I spent a fair amount of time soliciting sponsors for it. Once I garnered some support, however, I realized, whoa, I better start writing this thing. Then I switched gears for a few years and buckled down on writing it. Once it was maybe 80% complete and I knew I had something, then I went back to the sponsorship game. Which was pretty successful, as was a Kickstarter campaign we launched this fall.
As for the actual writing, it was hard to narrow down its scope but it kind of morphed organically into its current various chapters, from my experiences with it to those on agriculture, municipal use, preservation, water rights, access issues, riparian zones, wildlife, flood and drought years, Dinosaur National Monument, and more.
Above all, I wanted to make it readable and not overly techy and water wonky, which is hard to do. I wanted people to be entertained reading it, so they could learn about it along the way. When you’re talking about water rights, things can get pretty, well, dry…
SunLit: What do you want readers to take from this book?
Buchanan: Just to appreciate rivers like the Yampa more, no matter how large or small, and especially the ones that might be in their own back yard. I also hope it instills a sense of waterway preservation in folks. And in the Yampa’s case, I hope those familiar with it appreciate how important it is in today’s world to still have a river running wild and free with its natural hydrograph and what it means to the overall ecology of the area.
SunLit: In all your paddling adventures around the globe, from Siberia and Tasmania to Africa and South America, how does the Yampa stack up?
Buchanan: There are certainly rivers that are stronger, bigger, longer and even prettier. But the Yampa holds its own with all of them for what it does: ushering water downstream in an era when it’s becoming harder and harder to do so and deliver your cargo safely to your basin’s terminus.
As for its whitewater, while I’ve certainly paddled harder rapids elsewhere, Cross Mountain Canyon at flood stacks up there with the Zambezi in Zimbabwe or the Futaleafu in Chile, as does Fish Creek upstream. And it’s hard to script a better section to learn on than the town run through downtown Steamboat Springs.
The same thing could be said for its fishing as well…it might not match the rivers around Bozeman, but it holds its own. I guess it holds its own in about every category — especially in still being able to run wild and free.
SunLit: Tell us about your next project.
Buchanan: Haven’t thought about it much yet. This one was a lot of work. But if I had to, perhaps a rundown of some of my international adventures, or even a compilation of essays about Alaska, where I used to guide and still love visiting. I’d love to take a page from the Peter Heller book and give fiction a try as well.
A few more quick items
Currently on your nightstand for recreational reading: “The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler’s Atomic Bomb” by Neal Bascomb and “Is a River Alive?” by Robert Macfarlane
First book you remember really making an impression on you as a kid: “The Boy Who Invented the Bubble Gun” by Paul Gallico, and Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings”
Best writing advice you’ve ever received: Show, don’t tell
Favorite fictional literary character: Jason Bourne or Dirk Pitt
Literary guilty pleasure (title or genre): Epic Arctic exploration adventures
Digital, print or audio – favorite medium to consume literature: Print
One book you’ve read multiple times: “The Monkey Wrench Gang”
Other than writing utensils, one thing you must have within reach when you write: A window
Best antidote for writer’s block: Go mountain biking, kayaking, or skiing — or some other way to just get outside.
Most valuable beta reader: My peers from the magazine publishing world