Author: Richard M. Donovan Publisher: Texas A&M University Press ISBN: 1603445552 Category : Nature Languages : en Pages : 271
Book Description
From its origins on a sandy hillside in Van Zandt County, the Neches River flows through the heart of East Texas. In its watershed lies some of the wildest country in Texas, tucked amid the remains of one of the finest hardwood forests in the world. With the goal of keeping the Neches flowing free, East Texas native and riverman Richard M. Donovan takes readers canoeing down a two-hundred-mile stretch of the upper Neches. Through two national forests and mile after mile of remote river woodlands, he chronicles the river's natural and cultural history, describes its animal inhabitants, recounts stories of early settlers and East Texas hunting traditions, and calls attention to the recreational potential of the river for paddlers and others, whether residents or visitors. Donovan also makes a case against damming the river. He convincingly promotes the idea of turning the Neches into a National Wild and Scenic River, preserving forever the river's natural flow and what remains of the verdant bottomlands of this historic watercourse. To learn more about The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, sponsors of this book's series, please click here.
Author: Richard M. Donovan Publisher: Texas A&M University Press ISBN: 1585444960 Category : Nature Languages : en Pages : 270
Book Description
From its origins on a sandy hillside in Van Zandt County, the Neches River flows through the heart of East Texas. In its watershed lies some of the wildest country in Texas, tucked amid the remains of one of the finest hardwood forests in the world. With the goal of keeping the Neches flowing free, East Texas native and riverman Richard M. Donovan takes readers canoeing down a two-hundred-mile stretch of the upper Neches. Through two national forests and mile after mile of remote river woodlands, he chronicles the river’s natural and cultural history, describes its animal inhabitants, recounts stories of early settlers and East Texas hunting traditions, and calls attention to the recreational potential of the river for paddlers and others, whether residents or visitors. Donovan also makes a case against damming the river. He convincingly promotes the idea of turning the Neches into a National Wild and Scenic River, preserving forever the river’s natural flow and what remains of the verdant bottomlands of this historic watercourse. To learn more about The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, sponsors of this book's series, please click here.
Author: Margie Crisp Publisher: Texas A&M University Press ISBN: 1603444661 Category : Nature Languages : en Pages : 250
Book Description
Writer and artist Margie Crisp has traveled the length of Texas’ Colorado River, which rises in Dawson County, south of Lubbock, and flows 860 miles southeast across the state to its mouth on the Gulf of Mexico at Matagorda Bay. Echoing the truth of Heraclitus’s ancient dictum, the river’s character changes dramatically from its dusty headwaters on the High Plains to its meandering presence on the coastal prairie. The Colorado is the longest river with both its source and its mouth in Texas, and its water, from beginning to end, provides for the state’s agricultural, municipal, and recreational needs. As Crisp notes, the Colorado River is perhaps most frequently associated with its middle reaches in the Hill Country, where it has been dammed to create the six reservoirs known as the Highland Lakes. Following Crisp as she explores the river, sometimes with her fisherman husband, readers meet the river’s denizens—animal, plant, and human—and learn something about the natural history, the politics, and those who influence the fate of the river and the water it carries. Those who live intimately with the natural landscape inevitably formulate emotional responses to their surroundings, and the people living on or near the Colorado River are no exception. Crisp’s own loving tribute to the river and its inhabitants is enhanced by the exquisite art she has created for this book. Her photographs and maps round out the useful and beautiful accompaniments to this thoughtful portrait of one of Texas’ most beloved rivers. Former first lady Laura Bush unveils this year's Texas Book Festival poster designed by artist Margie Crisp, author of River of Contrasts: The Texas Colorado. The poster features cliff swallows flying over the Colorado River. Photo by Grant Miller To learn more about The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, sponsors of this book's series, please click here.
Author: Wayne H. McAlister Publisher: Texas A&M University Press ISBN: 9781603440219 Category : Nature Languages : en Pages : 384
Book Description
For more than forty years, Wayne H. McAlister has canoed the Guadalupe River, sometimes called the “top recreational river in Texas.” In Paddling the Guadalupe, he guides readers down this 400-mile river whose waters spring from the limestone of the Hill Country in Kerr County, meander across the broad Coastal Plain, and finally empty into the Gulf of Mexico at San Antonio Bay. With the expertise of a life and career immersed in nature, he introduces readers to the places, people, plants, and animals—large and small, aquatic and terrestrial—that depend on the Guadalupe for either their livelihoods or their existence. With affection and humor (and sometimes aggravation), he wryly comments on the development and human activity along the river’s course, from the headwaters west of Kerrville to its mouth near Tivoli, just east of Refugio. For the traveler, either on the river or along its course, McAlister’s knowledge of the grists, sawmills, dams, bridges, swimming holes, and reservoirs bring the history of familiar towns—Comfort, Canyon Lake, New Braunfels, Seguin, Gonzales, Cuero, and Victoria among them—to life. His love of the natural world, which shares the river’s bounty, will inspire and enhance anyone’s experience of the Guadalupe, from the serious canoer to the family vacationer. Photographs taken over many years provide an intimate perspective, and sixteen maps help orient those interested in getting to know the river on a more personal basis. To learn more about The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, sponsors of this book's series, please click here.
Author: Ken Kramer Publisher: Texas A&M University Press ISBN: 1603442014 Category : Nature Languages : en Pages : 165
Book Description
In ten impassioned essays, veteran Texas environmental advocates and conservation professionals step outside their roles as lawyers, lobbyists, administrators, consultants, and researchers to write about water. Their personal stories of what the springs, rivers, bottomlands, bayous, marshes, estuaries, bays, lakes, and reservoirs mean to them and to our state come alive in the landscape photography of Charles Kruvand. Allied with the Texas Living Waters Project (a joint education and policy initiative of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club, the National Wildlife Federation, and the Environmental Defense Fund, among others), editor Ken Kramer joins his fellow activists in a call to keep rivers flowing, to protect wildlife habitat, and to save tax dollars by using water efficiently and sustainability. INSIDE THIS BOOK:Introduction: the Living Waters of Texas—Ken KramerWhere the First Raindrop Falls—David K. LangfordSpringing to Life: Keeping the Waters Flowing—Dianne WassenichHooked on Rivers—Myron J. HessFalling in Love with Bottomlands: Waters and Forests of East Texas—Janice BezansonOn the Banks of the Bayous: Preserving Nature in an Urban Environment—Mary Ellen WhitworthA Taste of the Marsh—Susan Raleigh KaderkaBays and Estuaries of Texas: An Ephemeral Treasure?—Ben F. Vaughan IIIRio Grande: Fragile Lifeline in the Desert—Mary E. KellyLeaving a Water Legacy for Texas—Ann Thomas HamiltonTexas Water Politics: Forty Years of Going with the Flow—Ken Kramer
Author: Martin Stewart Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 1101998318 Category : Juvenile Fiction Languages : en Pages : 418
Book Description
"When 15-year-old Wulliam's father is possessed by a dark spirit, Wull must care for him and take on his family's mantle of Riverkeep, tending the Danek"--
Author: Shane Townsend Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield ISBN: 1493016350 Category : Sports & Recreation Languages : en Pages : 243
Book Description
From the canyons of Big Bend to the cypress swamps of Pine Island Bayou, the waters of Texas have something for most every type of paddler and every paddling mood. One might float the diminutive Comal River, argued to be the shortest river in the world. Another might dig deep and follow the four-day, 260-mile route of the Texas Water Safari, which Canoe & Kayak Magazine referred to as “The World’s Toughest Canoe Race.” Whitewater is here too. Lakes are as well. And, the Texas Gulf Coast is home to sandy beaches, knobby mangroves, and sea grass flats. Meanwhile, Texas is home to some of the fastest growing cities in America. And, paddling is the fastest growing outdoor sport in the country. “Paddling Texas” is a guide for those who are new to either and all those who love both. Featured trips offer easy access, secure environments, good facilities, great fishing, superb wildlife viewing, and beautiful scenery. “Paddling Texas” gives recreational paddlers and anglers all the information they’ll need to paddle many of the best trips in Texas.
Author: David A. Todd Publisher: Texas A&M University Press ISBN: 1623493722 Category : Nature Languages : en Pages : 516
Book Description
The Texas Landscape Project explores conservation and ecology in Texas by presenting a highly visual and deeply researched view of the widespread changes that have affected the state as its population and economy have boomed and as Texans have worked ever harder to safeguard its bountiful but limited natural resources. Covering the entire state, from Pineywoods bottomlands and Panhandle playas to Hill Country springs and Big Bend canyons, the project examines a host of familiar and not so familiar environmental issues. A companion volume to The Texas Legacy Project, this book tracks specific environmental changes that have occurred in Texas using more than 300 color maps, expertly crafted by cartographer Jonathan Ogren, and over 100 photographs that coalesce to fashion a broad portrait of the modern Texas landscape. The rich data, compiled by author David Todd, are presented in clearly written yet marvelously detailed text that gives historical context and contemporary statistics for environmental trends connected to the land, water, air, energy, and built world of the second-largest and second-most populated state in the nation. An engaging read for any environmentalist or conscientious citizen, The Texas Landscape Project provides a true sense of the grand scope of the Lone Star State and the high stakes of protecting it. To learn more about The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, sponsors of this book's series, please click here.
Author: Steven L. Davis Publisher: Texas A&M University Press ISBN: 162349981X Category : Nature Languages : en Pages : 490
Book Description
More than the lifeblood of our natural world, Texas rivers have nourished the human spirit for as long as people have gathered on their banks. A living bond has flowed between Texas writers and rivers ever since the 1960 publication of John Graves’s classic journey along the Brazos, Goodbye to a River. Many of Texas’ leading writers have had their hearts captured by a river, and they have created sparkling accounts of the waterways they love. Now, editors Steven L. Davis and Sam L. Pfiester have assembled the best of those works into a revelatory collection of diverse literary voices. Ranging from the desert canyonlands of the Rio Grande to the swampy Big Thicket, from crystal clear Hill Country streams to the Red River’s treacherous quicksand, Viva Texas Rivers! showcases many classic writings along with brand new essays written for this volume. The literary nonfiction is complemented by flashes of poetry that brilliantly reflect these curving ribbons of light. Authoritative and expertly edited, Viva Texas Rivers! offers shimmering accounts of hidden paradises, as well as searing exposés of abuse and despoliation. Yet even in the bleakest times, as these writers have found, Texas rivers can bestow a sacred grace —and unexpected redemption. Viva Texas Rivers! brings you as close to the living nirvana of a Texas River as you can get without launching yourself into a canoe and following a great blue heron as it glides just above the breaking rapids, leading you around the bend as the river flows onward toward the best places in our hearts.
Author: Richard M. Donovan
Author: Gina Donovan
Author: Richard M. Donovan
Author: Margie Crisp
Author: Wayne H. McAlister
Author: Ken Kramer
Author: Martin Stewart
Author: Shane Townsend
Author: David A. Todd
Author: Steven L. Davis