by Howard Zahniser (Author)
Howard Zahniser (1906-1964), primary author of the 1964 federal Wilderness Act, hailed from Tionesta, Pa., along the Allegheny River. In June 1937, Zahniser and his wife of one year, Alice (1918-2014), took a 14-day, 100-mile canoe trip down the Allegheny River from Olean, N.Y., to Tionesta. It was a continuous river trip then, there being no Kinzua Dam. North of Tionesta, the couple camped on Thompson's Island, now part of the 110-million-acre National Wilderness Preservation System that the 1964 Wilderness Act set in motion. Howard and Alice are now laid to rest beside his beloved Allegheny River in Tionesta's Riverside Cemetery. With characteristic wordplay, Howard named their canoe and his journal Alisonoward, linking the couples' first names. Unbeknownst to him, their first child Alison Howard Mathias Zahniser, made the trip in the womb. This journal is published to support designating more wilderness on the Allegheny National Forest.