Riverhorse Nakadate: Love Is All That Matters (M&P Reads episode!)

Riverhorse Nakadate is a writer, Patagonia ambassador, conservationist, and canoe-paddling, fly-fishing, bird-loving, self-described tree hugger. He’s also the author of the book Water Lines: A Life on Marshes, Rivers, Seas and in the Rain. Riverhorse and I have been trading emails for years, so it was a real treat to finally meet in person when he came through Boulder on his book tour. He’s one of the warmest people I’ve met in a long time; and I felt like I was chatting with an old friend. This conversation also marks the launch of something new: M&P Reads, the Mountain & Prairie book club. The idea is simple: I sit down with the author of a book I love, we have our normal podcast conversation, and then I ask them a few questions sent in by readers like you. I couldn’t think of a better guest to kick things off.

Riverhorse was born in Texas to a teenage mom who went on to practice medicine, become a mountain climber, and live as an off-the-grid wild woman. At age five he was adopted by his father, a Stanford literature PhD who took classes from Wallace Stegner. Summers at the family’s fishing cabin on the Oregon coast turned him into a surfer, and his writing eventually took him to the University of Iowa, then to a decade as a staff writer for Surfing magazine, and later to the pages of The Flyfish Journal. His films Love and Water and Northern Light, which documents his 200-mile paddle to fight a proposed copper mine in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters and later aired on PBS, brought his voice to a much wider audience. Water Lines gathers stories from a lifetime spent on Texas salt marshes, rivers, oceans, and wilderness lakes, illustrated with 24 beautiful paintings based on Riverhorse’s own photos. Fly fishing runs through the book, but as Riverhorse says, it’s just the vehicle. Water Lines is really about love, community, family, and standing up for the wild places and people you care about.

Riverhorse and I talked about how the book came together, from his stacks of journals to the art to the long and winding editing process with Patagonia. We talked about his time at the University of Iowa playing water polo, how he stays calm when a flood is barreling down the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, and how being a lifelong pacifist fits together with being willing to fight for what you love. We discussed his mom, his take on news and social media, his work to protect the Boundary Waters, the dangerous shark-finning story he reported along the Rio Grande, and his friendships with Andrew Luck, JT Van Zandt, and Alvin Dedeaux. We also talked a lot about books, including John Muir’s lesser-known A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf. Then we turned to your questions, covering which river Riverhorse would paddle to recreate Goodbye to a River, whether he wrote the book with the fly fishing crowd in mind, and how everyday people can treat wilderness as a necessity rather than a luxury.

This was such a fun one, and be sure to click through to the episode notes to grab a copy of Water Lines. Enjoy!