West along the River 3 is a five-year compilation of essays and musings on the nature and history of the middle Connecticut River Valley.
These essays draw on the lore and oral histories of local characters in the many surrounding villages, including tales from the wild days of river log drives, several infamous and lingering memories of local witchery, a hometown hero from the early days of Red Sox baseball, whimsical observations of the earliest days on the New England frontier of the 1700's.
The author recounts poignant adventures of summers in France and Brittany, wanderings through the countryside of Ireland and Spain, his return to his ancestral home on the banks of the Millers River in western Massachusetts.
Several chapters record the renewal of Native American presence in this region, and serve as a source of record, describing the ground-breaking work undertaken by local communities and tribes to uncover the multiple perspectives on events that occurred in this region during King Philip's War.
This eclectic anthology of nature writings, dwelling somewhere on the boundaries of poetry and prose, provides a calm and zen-like sanctuary for the reader. Some have chosen to read the essays aloud, and others, to escape the intrusive nature of the daily news cycle, choose to set aside time to read these stories during moments of quiet reflection.