Wayne State University Press has released Up the Rouge! Paddling Detroit’s Hidden River for sale. Soon you will be able to order it from this site.
“If you want a sugar-coated, pretty picture book, Up the Rouge! might not be for you. But if you want to know the truth about a natural resource close to home, then this is a story not to be missed. This book should be read as a challenge for the people of southeast Michigan to finish the cleanup and realize the promise of a great urban river.”
Former state Senator Lana Pollack, recently retired director of the Michigan Environmental Council
Lana Pollack wrote that jacket copy after seeing proofs of Up the Rouge! Paddling Detroit’s Hidden River, a book to be published in April by Wayne State University Press.
Text by Joel Thurtell.
Photographs by Patricia Beck.
The book will retail for $34.95 and will be available to order on this website as well as in bookstores and at the Wayne State University Press website, http://wsupress.wayne.edu/index.php
About Up the Rouge!, Dave Dempsey, former environmental aide to Michigan Governor James Blanchard and award-winning author of On the Brink: The Great Lakes in the 21st Century, wrote, “Up the Rouge! is a gritty, unflinchingly truthful tale of a quest to paddle one of the Great Lakes’ most abused tributaries. It’s a story that says a lot about our neglect of precious urban water resources, but it also holds out realistic hope of a better future.”
The book, with 152 pages and 54 illustrations, chronicles in words and pictures a five-day trip made by two Detroit Free Press journalists up the abused Rouge River in metro Detroit.
In addition to the printed book, there will be an audio book with Thurtell reading the text of Up the Rouge! The audio book also may be ordered from this site in April, when the book will be released for publication.
“We wanted to draw attention to the Rouge River’s plight in a way that would not be easily forgotten,” said Thurtell. “Taking readers on a trip up the Rouge seemed like the best means of doing that.”
Henry Ford borrowed the river’s monicker for his huge auto manufacturing plant on the Rouge River in Dearborn. The river is home to two steel mills, cement, gypsum, salt operations and the largest single-unit wastewater treatment plant in the country.
The Rouge is too polluted for public recreation. It’s also too jammed with logs or too shallow in most places for a motorboat. Yet the only way to know the river is to travel its waters. So reporter Thurtell and photographer Beck decided to go up the Rouge by canoe to explore the river’s industrial side and discover its beautiful and hidden urban wilderness. Up the Rouge! is the surprising and educational account of their journey, narrated by Thurtell and heavily illustrated with Beck’s evocative and eclectic photographs.
Thurtell and Beck logged more than sixty hours during the first week of June 2005 as they paddled their canoe up more than 27 miles of the Rouge from Zug Island at the Detroit River to Nine Mile and Beech roads in Southfield. Though the Rouge is heavily polluted by sewage, and large sections of the 127-mile-long river have been purposefully made inaccessible to the public, government agencies have spent $1.6 billion trying to clean it up.
Thurtell and Beck show that despite its environmental contamination, the Rouge is home to wildlife and that its veery seclusion makes it a sanctuary. During their trek, the authors saw animals such as green and blue herons, snapping turtles, musk turtles, mallards, feral dogs, and the first adult female common mergansers ever recorded in summertime in Wayne County.
Maps are included to help readers track their journey.
Up the Rouge! is a story about discovery, a tale of adventure, and an informative study of the environment. the series of articles in the Detroit Free Press which were the first report on this unique journalistic project won the 2006 Harry E. Schlenz Medal for Public Education of the Water Environment Federation. Anyone interested in environmental issues or conservation of Michigan’s waterways will appreciate this unusual and attractive volume.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
… purposely made inaccessable to public ……
Strange statement, since I access Rouge River all the time.
I know of no one that has purposely made river inaccessable, other than private property owners, which is their right.
I canoe the Rouge. It it has problems. It is not something I would recommend for a family fun activity.
Many thoughtful, hard-working people are working to make it better.
Join the effort.
In response to Bill Craig’s comment, above:
First of all, I wholeheartedly agree with Bill’s implied sentiment that the Rouge needs to improve. I must disagree, however, with his belief that the Rouge is easy to access.
As an urban planner, I have seen that some rivers are celebrated as waterways by design, and some are an afterthought.
The Rouge is certainly an afterthought.
Take, for instance, Hines Park, which is a flood plain for the Rouge.
Growing up in the ’80s, I spent many a day playing soccer in various leagues on the smattering of Hines Park fields. Later I ran cross-country races at high school meets in Hines. The park is a vast place, but it doesn’t have access to the river, which is interesting, since the HINES PARK RUNS FOR MILES ALONG THE ROUGE RIVER.
And Hines Park is not an anomaly as far as Rouge River access goes. Rather, it is indicative of a pattern along the river. Not all rivers are like this, and there are movements around the country to redesign access to waterfronts in order to celebrate rivers. There are examples of this in the midwest and in places like Oregon and Washington state. Portland, OR has a river district.
Just because you, Bill, can ‘access Rouge River all the time,’ doesn’t mean it’s designed for access. And yes, I agree with you, there is work to do.
Thank’s Bill, and here’s your soapbox back.
I’ve spent hours and hours and hours riding a bike in Hines Park, along the Rouge, and I’ve never seen a boat of any kind on it. Pretty amazing considering hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people live fairly close by. I don’t think that indicates “good access.”
I also have read a proof copy of the book. I was shocked at the sheer disregard that industrial and community leaders have shown. The river Joel describes is still best described as “UGH”.
On the other hand, the many feeder streams that I have “seen” are impressive and intriguing. I would love to explore some of the hidden gems, a couple hours at a time.
I think we will never see a “perfect” recovery, but we need to demand an accounting and correction of the direction of our leaders.
Of course we need to get on the river often, and bring others.