A review of Running the River: Secrets of the Sabine appearing in the spring 2015 edition of Southwestern American Literature

1. Texas Books in Review | 9
Rolling on the River
Running the River: Secrets of
the Sabine
by Wes Ferguson
College Station: Texas A & M University Press,
2014. 160 pp. $20 paper.
Reviewed by
William Huggins
R
unning the River comes across
as an excellent addition to the
emerging literature of biore-
gionalism. Knowing and loving a place
on a native level may be the best way
to make the most difference in our
emergingecologicalcrisis,onelocality
atatime.Traditionalriverrunningnar-
ratives trend mostly to the experience
of the sublime. From the first page,
however, Ferguson lets us know that
the Sabine will not give you that kind
of excursion. Ferguson does not want
a safe journey. Indeed, in the book’s
openingsection,someoneshootsatthe
authorandphotographershortlyafter
they get into the water. Growing up on
the river, Ferguson knew no one who
had ever fully explored the Sabine, in
partbecauseofitsbadreputation—for
drownings, crystal meth production,
and its use as a murder repository. In
spite of the dangers, he observes one
ofbioregionalism’scentraltenets:“It’s
our river, and we should celebrate it.
We should know it.”
Under Ferguson’s wry humor and
superb eye for detail the Sabine comes
alive and takes on a personality all its
own.Sourcescomefromaneclecticac-
cumulationofpeoplewithfirsthandex-
perience of the river: law enforcement
personnel, locals, wildlife biologists,
river experts and historians, kayakers,
trappersstilllivingontheriverandgen-
eralriverrats—notalloftheselasttwo
groups living entirely legal existences.
Botter’s photographs bring the people
and the river to life. The chapter on
Danny Tidwell, a true character from
a bygone era who lived on and off the
river since he was fourteen, contains
passages that are laugh-out-loud
funny,especiallytheoneregardingthe
rattlesnakeandthegamewardens.Yet
Tidwell and others like him witnessed
cataclysmic changes in the river over
the course of their time there, such as
forests of giant cypresses reduced to
shreds of their original scope, as well
as some of the wildlife that used to live
among them.
Just as varied and detailed as the hu-
man inhabitants are the wildlife men-
tioned:feralpigs,gar,whitebass,otters
anddeer(bothspeciesrecoveringafter
nearlygoingextinct),catfish,squirrels,
perch,herons,pelicans,andporpoises.
The list shifts as Ferguson and Botter
move through the river’s ecological
zones. The health of the river’s species
swings between the boom and bust
cycles of the logging and oil industries.
Attimes,theriverhasbeensopolluted
that denizens were advised not to eat
the fish, leading to a trophic cascade of
jeopardyforeverythingthatlivedalong
the Sabine’s banks.
Perhapsthemostusefulsegmentsof
the book cover the specific ecological
nichesoftheriver,tracingtheenviron-
mental history through its windings.
The Sabine’s past is interesting, espe-
cially in light of the indigenous Clovis
and Caddo peoples, who left their own
marks on the river. Ferguson notes
that the future of the river may be in
jeopardy as Dallas looks to expand its
waterresources;theSabinecouldbeits
nextvictim.Fergusondoesanexcellent
job of listing the history of the river’s
quality through the early, dirtier years
of the oil industry. The creation of the
two reservoirs along the Sabine, Lake
Tawakoni and Toledo Bend, altered
the river’s natural cycles and aided in
contamination.YettheSabinerecently
noted“qualityexcellent”duetotheaid
of the Clean Water Act and the Texas
Commission on Environmental Qual-
ity. Because of the TCEQ’s continued
monitoring,norestrictionsexistonfish
consumptionorswimming,something
that simply isn’t true for many rivers
across the USA. As with many of Bot-
ter’sphotographsthroughoutthebook,
they aid to enlighten the reader with
examplesofthishistoryofdevelopment
and destruction. Equally important,
usedasaguide,thephotosdemonstrate
the changes in the river as the pair de-
scendfromshallowsandybottomsinto
the vastness of the Gulf of Mexico. The
photos complement the text.
The Sabine may not be a river most
people will want to run. Author and
photographer face several portages,
wrong turns, contrary advice from
locals that needs to be worked out
from on-the-water experience, and
one forced extraction. But they run
the Sabine with a good sense of hu-
mor, openness to experience, and an
awareness that they are in unusual
territory. More majestic and pleasant
waterways and accounts exist: Henry
David Thoreau, John Wesley Powell,
John Graves’ Texas classic Goodbye to
a River (to which Ferguson generously
pays homage), and Edward Abbey, to
name a handful. If you choose to run
the Sabine, however, you could hardly
havebettercompanionsthanFerguson
and Botter.O
William Huggins is a writer and ecocritic who
lives, writes, and works in LasVegas. His fiction
and criticism have appeared in multiple venues.