A Liver Runs Through It

About the Book

“A Liver Runs Through It” tells the legendary, four-decade-long, story of the annual 4Day canoe and kayak trip taking place each year on the rivers of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The reader can hear the pfsst of beers opening and smell the cigar smoke swirling about the bourbon-soaked history of the 4Day, as it comes to life in stories told among paddlers on the river, ‘round the evening campfire, and bellied up to northern bars, the timeless yin… It is with awe that we stand, two paddling hours upstream from the Fox River Campground, at the top of the well-named Fox River Overlook, this year’s launch site, with its spectacular view 150’ above the winding river valley below. We talk of how, almost 2,000 years ago, this view must have affected the Native American Ojibwa, les Ojibwes, when they first walked to the edge of this cliff. Silence falls over the boys, a rare respite from jokes ‘n stories, as they absorb the scene… the pines across the valley and tag alders crowding the Fox below, the river’s gorgeous dark reddish-brown color the result of tannins, the decaying leaves and other vegetation along the riverside. & yang... Some get there by canoe, some get there by car, they’re all lookin’ for Andy’s, Andy’s Seney Bar.

About the Author

River Dick Doc was born 1954 in Detroit, Michigan near the Main Branch of the Rouge River. He is a 1976 graduate of Eastern Michigan University, the school where he met and fell in love with his future bride, Maggie. Doc took his first canoe trip in 1978 on the Pere Marquette River and ever since then gets back into a canoe or kayak whenever possible. This is Doc’s 9th book about the joy of canoeing & kayaking. 7 of the books feature Michigan’s rivers specifically. His website is www.canoeingmichiganrivers.com. River Dick Doc has never missed a day of paddling during the entire 40 years of the 4Day. A photo from his first 4Day…