Mike Freeman (5) (1968–)

Freeman’s account of his two-week canoe trip from the headwaters of the Hudson high in the Adirondack Mountains to the sludgy, sulfur-scented, concrete-lined shores where it pours into the New York Bay is aptly-named: Drifting: Two Weeks on the Hudson. As river-trip stories go his is idiosyncratic and eccentric, lacking either the focus of the explorer or the drive of the conqueror. “I didn’t plan the trip,” Freeman announces at the start of his journey, “at least, not thoroughly.” Instead, he seems to have determined on his trip down the Hudson for several reasons, the most prevalent of which was that he had spent the last five months as a stay-at-home-dad to his newborn daughter, and was finding the transition from assistant for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (sighting down, if not shooting, bears in his rifle) to house-husband in a New York suburb a bit drastic. He was unemployed. He was at loose ends—or as loose as a parent with a newborn can be. His girlfriend-not-wife had a good job. He had . . . restlessness. read full review… (mer)