In 1933, Clarence Jonk, full of youthful na√ovete and an urge for adventure, decided to build a houseboat from scrap materials and float it the length of the Mississippi River. In the tradition of Huckleberry Finn and Henry David Thoreau, Jonk recounts a first-person tale of high adventure complete with wry and lyrical observations on life, love, and nature that capture the beauty and harshness of existence along the Mississippi River.

Hoping to live rent free on a St. Paul lake in hard times, Jonk, a carefree college student and would-be poet, cobbled together his own...