River Notes

Barry Lopez is the author of several collections of stories in addition to River Notes. Among them are a companion volume, Desert Notes (1976), Winter Count (1981), and, more recently, Field Notes (1994) and Light Action in the Caribbean (2000). Recordings of the latter two are available, as is a recording of his novella-length fable, Crow and Weasel (1990). Barry is also the author of Of Wolves and Men (1978) and Arctic Dreams (1986), and a recipient of the National Book Award, the John Burroughs Medal, and other honors. In 1970 he moved to the McKenzie River in western Oregon, where he still lives.

In these few stories about a rural river community, the threads that tie human life to the subtleties of a landscape - the prolonged arrival of dawn, the otherness of wild animals, the austere movement of a river - become clear. The stories are taken from the book, River Notes: The Dance of Herons , by Barry Lopez. The collaboration of its author with the cellist, David Darling, was arranged by Mickey Houlihan and the recordings were made in April, 1981, outside Boulder, Colorado.