Peter Lourie has written books about his journeys on many rivers, from the Amazon and the Everglades tothe Yukon and the Missouri. His most recent book is Erie Canal: Canoeing America's Great Waterway, describing a 500-mile paddle from Lake Erie to his home in Middlebury, Vermont. He has taught creative writing at Columbia University, the University of Vermont, and Middlebury College, and he is now working on two books, one about the Rio Grande and the other about Incan treasure.