A River Flows Through Us - Eugene A. Brown

The true stories of young lives shaped by summers floating the Snake River-and the men they became.

From 1964 to 1972, Eugene A. Brown spent his summers as a Snake River guide in Grand Teton National Park, leading thousands of visitors on 28-mile float trips through one of America’s most spectacular landscapes. Nearly sixty years later, he looks back on the remarkable group of young boatmen who shared those summers, and the profound ways the river shaped their lives.

A River Flows Through Us blends memoir, oral history, and regional history to tell the story of these young men as they learned to navigate not only the Snake River, but also the Vietnam War and the social upheaval of the 1960s. Among them were veterans and future surgeons, professors, authors, public servants, entrepreneurs, and lifelong river guides whose paths would take them far beyond Wyoming.

This is a story about friendship, adventure, and coming of age in an extraordinary place. It’s also a story about the experiences that stay with us long after the current has carried us downstream.