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National Parks Traveler says:

Renny Russell is waiting with baited breath for his new book, Rebel of the Colorado, to be delivered to his New Mexico hideaway homestead. Russel spent the last dozen years, and worked with a half-dozen editors, to create his homage to a unique character who rambled throughout the Colorado Plateau for decades: Harry Aleson.

But why is this biography important? "Harry was an adventurous Norwegian who wantered through the Colorado Plateau," explains Russell. "It's a tribute to him, and a hope that the country he explored will be forever protected. This is about celebrating the country I love dearly."  Read the full review here

Endorsements

Harry Aleson ran the Colorado River — with or without a raft — with reckless abandon. And Harry loved the river with equal abandon. Renny Russell tells Harry’s one-of-a-kind story through Harry’s own meticulous diaries and black and white photographs, and Renny’s careful narrative and whimsical art. If you love the Colorado, or any river, you should read about Harry's adventures. —Senator Tom Udall

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Colorado River boatmen know the names of their heroes—Georgie White, Norm Nevills, Dock Marston, Bert Loper, Ken Sleight—the star-studded cast of characters in the Grand Canyon and Glen Canyon who created the river-running culture in the 1940s and 1950s. But far fewer know about the incredible adventures of Harry Aleson. Renny Russell fixes that oversight. With enthusiasm, respect, and love, he brings Harry to life, delving deep into the archives of river history. Harry swam eighty miles of the Grand Canyon in a life jacket. Aleson set early records for running his powerboat upstream through Grand Canyon rapids. He pioneered neoprene rafts for river travel and explored Glen Canyon before it was drowned by Powell Reservoir—even getting married in a side canyon of Glen. Paramount Pictures officially dubbed him the “Unconquered Spirit” of America in 1947, and in Rebel of the Colorado, Russell reclaims that spirit for us all. —Stephen Trimble, author of Lasting Light: 125 Years of Grand Canyon Photography and editor of The Capitol Reef Reader

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In the century-and-a-half history of navigating the Colorado River through Grand Canyon, the sport has attracted all manner of adventurers, wanderers, oddballs, and misfits. Hands down, the most eccentric of all was Harry Leroy Aleson. Unlike others, he found the Canyon from the downstream end and spent a decade vainly attempting to motor up it in underpowered motorboats. When he finally traveled downstream through the Canyon by raft in 1949, scarcely one hundred people had yet made the journey.

In vivid detail, Renny writes of Aleson’s epic adventures: hiking unfeasible routes with insufficient water or supplies, nearly dying on multiple occasions, often with someone else’s wife in tow. His most lasting mark on Grand Canyon history came from one such woman, Georgie White, who joined Aleson on swims and hikes in the western canyon. Georgie later introduced affordable mass river tourism on bridge pontoons, birthing an industry that has now taken more than a million people down the Colorado.

Aleson moved upstream to the calmer waters of Glen Canyon, offering commercial tours of the soon-to-be-flooded paradise. From there he went to Alaska, Canada, and the Arctic. He had big plans. He wanted to be the first to parachute onto Everest, offer the first “dude” flights over the North Pole, and explore the endless rivers of the Arctic by jet boat. He rarely found customers for his expeditions, but he went anyway. He was driven, perverse, stubborn, and unrealistic, but the tale of his adventures is truly astonishing.

Renny Russell, who knew Aleson well, is the perfect person to tell the tale. Nearly as eccentric as Aleson himself, Renny has spent his life wandering the deserts and rivers of the West. He has spent the last decade assembling this saga, piecing together journals and accounts along with his own reminiscences and artwork. Herein, finally, lies the tale of one of Grand Canyon’s most unrecognized explorers. —Brad Dimock, author of Sunk without a Sound

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This is a must read for wilderness aficionados Renny, like the consummate literary oarsman that he is, launches us smoothly on the current of Aleson’s adventurous life. He doesn’t disappoint us. Russell’s first two remarkable classics—On the Loose and Rock Me on the Water—now join Rebel of the Colorado to complete a moving and distinctive Colorado Plateau trilogy. Russell poignantly and generously shares the currents of his life’s emotional journey—his grief, joy, and love of wilderness. His genius is that he brings us back to an essential truth: that under the open skies of the Southwest each of us can find solace, gratitude, perspective, and contentment. And with that truth Renny Russell once again inspires us to be on the loose. — Mark Udall, statesman and explorer

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Renny Russell, author, artist, craftsman, and philosopher, has written a sensitive, intimate portrait in beautiful prose that explores Harry’s life not only as someone who knew the man and knew his friends, but as someone who has lived the same kind of life, known the same places, breathed the same air, and drunk in the same views. In short, no one else could have, and no one else should have, written this biography. And it was well worth waiting for; the river community, historians, and lovers of freedom and wild places everywhere once again owe Renny Russell a word of thanks, this time for bringing Harry Aleson, the last rebel, back to life. —Roy Webb, retired archivist, J. Willard Marriott Library