The Captain's Dog

The Captain's Dog is a classic canine adventure by veteran dog writer Robert Scott McKinnon. As a student at the University of Montana on a swim scholarship, McKinnon borrowed a raft from the Alameda Sheriff's Posse and rafted from North Fork, Idaho, to Jack London Square in Oakland, via the Salmon, Snake, Columbia, Willamette, and Sacramento rivers, some 1100 river miles, the summer of 1958. The following summer McKinnon boated from Great Falls to Savannah, Georgia, via the Missouri, Mississippi, Ohio, TVA, and Savannah rivers, some 3200 river miles, with two coon hounds, Lead and Loud. The third summer Johnson Motors, Alcoa Aluminum, and Crestliner Boats made a movie, The River Busters. McKinnon was the first to go up the Salmon River, the "River of No Return," in a small power boat. McKinnon (and his dogs) know what it's like down in a windblown, cold, wet river trench where even with maps you don't know one creek from the other, and you have no idea where you are ... until you get there. Here is the entire Lewis and Clark journey, from Washington and President Jefferson, to the Pacific and back, a unique perspective of how it might actually have been, the laughs, the cries, the love of a dog for his Captain, and the love of the expedition for the dog. Part 2 shoves off at St. Charles and up the Missouri eventually to Lolo Pass, which is now the border of Montana and Idaho, where, in the wilderness, Seaman finds himself alone, at the top of the world, everywhere and nowhere, all at once, befriended by a family of wolves. "Our dog, Captain. Our dog."