BBC Outlook – Building my own ‘shanty boat’ [AUDIO] – A Secret History of American River People

This is the second of several BBC features about the project this week. This one on the BBC’s World Service program Outlook.

Building my own ‘shanty boat’

Wes Modes has spent the last few summers sailing along the great rivers of north America, collecting stories from the people who live on their banks. Wes travels in his homemade houseboat – or shanty boat – called Dotty. He tells Outlook’s Mariana Des Forges why he first wanted to go out onto the water.

Image: Shanty boat at dusk on the Tennessee River
Credit: Wes Modes

Corrections: My first punk rafting river was the Missouri, not the Mississippi, though that is where we first launched the shantyboat. The shantyboat is a wooden-hulled boat, not a raft.