Hi everyone, this is Gail.

Before we get started, I have a pretty big announcement.

I am so proud to share that She Explorers is going to be released as a full-color book in late March

and is available for pre-sale now. The book features first-person profiles

on 40 women. Some who've been featured on this show, like Julie Hotts, Teresa Baker,

Simone Martin Newberry, the Musical Mountaineers, and Karen Wang to name a few.

The book is a celebration of all the different ways we experience the outdoors, and I can't

wait to share it with you.

Learn more and pre-order a copy via she-hyphine explorers.

com slash book, linked in our show notes.

Okay, enough self-promotion on with the show.

I'm really excited to be back in sharing stories in 2019.

I'm Gail Strob, and you're listening to She Explorers.

A river runs through the New Hampshire town I call home, and I often walk down to it when I'm in need of fresh air.

I've always loved how reactive it is to rain and changes in temperature, but if I'm honest, I haven't thought about it too much.

Rivers pass through all the old mill towns in New Hampshire and New England, most mills are no longer in use.

Before I read Heather Hansman's upcoming book, Down River, I hadn't thought about all the

quiet ways of river benefits communities, industries, and wildlife.

And I certainly hadn't thought about how delicately balanced the uses of a river have to be.

In order for all the people and animals using it to be sustained.

Heather Hansman spent her college summers as a rafting guide on a 12-mile stretch of the Kennebeck River in Maine.

She was 18 that first summer and had no idea what to expect.

...