The Paddling the Wild Neches River Book chronicles the river's natural and cultural history. From its origins on a sandy hillside in Van Zandt County, the Neches River flows through the heart of East Texas. In its watershed lies some of the wildest country in Texas, tucked amid the remains of one of the finest hardwood forests in the world. With the goal of keeping the Neches flowing free, East Texas native and riverman Richard M. Donovan takes readers canoeing down a two-hundred-mile stretch of the upper Neches. In the paddling the Wild Neches River Book, Donovan convincingly promotes the idea of turning the Neches into a National Wild and Scenic River, preserving forever the river's natural flow and what remains of the verdant bottomlands of this historic watercourse.