Country Never Trod: William Lewis Manly's 1849 Voyage down Utah's Green River

by Michael Kane

William Lewis Manly was a forty-niner, explorer, and humanitarian whose story most people have never heard. Born in Vermont, William Lewis Manly was drawn out west by the lure of gold. Previous scholarship claims that the Yankee frontiersman floated only 290 miles down the Green River to the Uinta Basin, but author Michael D. Kane’s research of primary source materials led him to the conclusion that Manly actually traveled 415 miles, all the way to what is now Green River, Utah. This would make Manly the first to explore much of the Green River by boat—twenty years before John Wesley Powell’s famous expedition. Determined to prove his theory and establish Manly’s legacy as a trailblazer, Kane conducted research and then built his own wooden canoes and made the trip, tracing Manly’s footsteps and comparing notes with the earlier traveler. Country Never Trod follows Manly’s little-known expedition down the Green River and his overland trek through some of the most desolate stretches of Utah, interspersed with Kane’s journal entries and photographs documenting his own trip.

280 pages, Hardcover

Published September 1, 2022

Reviews

[Jan Deelstra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dr. Michael Kane does a magnificent job of taking us on the journey as he has set out to define "William Lewis Manly's 1849 Voyage down Utah's Green River."
Forget what you've learned about William Manly, and open yourself to the possibilities of the actual experience as hypothesied by Kane. He presents fascinating data to back up his theory that what we once thought to be true about Manly's voyage is actually factually incorrect. Without spoilers, I will say that if you are interested in frontiersmen and history, you will enjoy this fresh perspective.
Usually an extremely fast reader, in this case, I slowly savored the trip, imagining the scenery and trying to put myself into Manly's shoes, all the while wondering what it would have been to live during such an era of struggle and exploration. Five stars from me.