Rips: A Novel of the St. Lawrence River in the 1750s

Peter Owens reads an excerpt from Rips (7:17)

Peter Owens and his wife, Mary, at their Cedar Island summer camp on the St. Lawrence. Owens owns the last of several islands held by his family over four generations.

Rips is a harrowing adventure novel about the traumas, adventures, and frustrated romances of a St. Lawrence River man and his adopted family as they fight for survival during the French and Indian War. Caught in the cross-fire between French, English, American and Indian combatants, the people of Rips embody the strife, conflict, and bitter ancestry of a nearly forgotten era in North American history still smoldering in today's world.

More about Rips. More about St. Lawrence River History.

Below: Peter Owens in a small portable boat on
Lake St. Francis. He's spent summers on the
St. Lawrence for the last 50 years.

Below: Owens returns to Cedar Island after dropping visitors off at a larger boat on a particularly choppy afternoon.

Peter Owens’ literary essay "Rumblings," appears in the book Living North Country: Essays on Life and Landscapes in Northern New York, edited by Neal Burdick and Natalia Singer at St. Lawrence University.