Hi all, got this review from Dr. Tom Myers on the book Big Water Little Boats: Moulty Fulmer and the First Grand Canyon Dory on the Last of the Wild Colorado. FYI, yours, tom

"Had I been asked only yesterday, I would have confidently proclaimed that both the bulk and the best of the history of river running in Grand Canyon had long been written. But I would not have been more wrong. Somehow despite the many histories written, the wonderful story of Moulty Fulmer and his boat the Gem-Grand Canyon's first dory-had silently slipped downstream unnoticed or perhaps ignored by the hundreds of previous chroniclers of the Colorado's rich historical legacy. Fortunately for us, Fulmer did not escape Tom Martin. His book Big Water, Little Boats not only tells Fulmer's story, it also fills in the important gap of never-been-told river history from the bold and bygone era of the 1940s and 1950s when the Colorado still ran free.

Boaters back then came only in small handfuls. Big commercial river businesses barely loomed on the horizon. Martin's book reads nostalgic and sentimental yet it also hauls us aboard an enlightening journey through an evolutionary "end-of-innocence" era in Colorado River running. Reading it, one cannot help but root for the humble YMCA manager from Indiana who finally earns his undeniable place in Canyon history. The Big Water's unassuming protagonist, do-it-yourself Fulmer, was pursuing a simple agenda:

to experience the wild and scenic rivers and canyons of the West, mostly in boats he built. This latter category included the ultimate construction of his classic whitewater boat, the Gem, the forerunner of modern-day Canyon dories.

Floating along with Fulmer and friends during the twilight years of the wild and muddy Colorado proves a delight. Especially fascinating are his journeys on the last great flood flows of 1957 and 1958 before Glen Canyon Dam would rein in the river and alter its character dramatically to its current flows as political plumbing.

Exceptionally researched and well written, Big Water is also filled with many rare, never before published, and superb color photographs of the pre-dam river, including several of the now, near-mythical high flows of over 100,000 cfs. These photos alone prove worth the price of the book both for boaters who lament never being able to see such flows and for the lucky few who ran it in July of 1983. In its own way, Big Water compares as a vicarious witnessing of the last of America's great buffalo herds. All in all, Big Water, Little Boats is a timeless classic, and with all due respect to Fulmer's dory-the real gem.

Dr. Tom Myers is co-author of Death in Grand Canyon, Grand Obsession, and Fateful Journey.