It is unusual when a young person of 25 has enough experience and wherewithal to pen his or her own memoir, but Sarahlee Lawrence manages both – and well.

River House is a memoir disguised as first-rate nature writing. Crafted from essays about her experiences running rivers around the world, building her own log home and working her family’s farm, she plumbs from her journals an emotional account of her transformation from a free spirited girl bent on traveling the globe to a mature but young woman putting down roots back where her own story began.

The only child of a dry-docked, stoner, surfer father, David, and a hardy, strong-willed, horse riding, ranching mother, Christine, Lawrence longed to travel far away from the high desert 80-acre ranch where she was born near Terrebonne, Ore. Having inherited her father’s love of water, Lawrence became an accomplished river guide by the age of 21. When she graduated from college, she was awarded a Watson Fellowship. In search of rivers to conserve and restore to health, she began a yearlong journey to Peru, East Africa, Costa Rica, Columbia and Chile.

Alone during her trip, Lawrence has an unexpected epiphany about the course her life should take. Although the rivers charge her need for adventure, she feels drawn to the hardscrabble land of home. After learning about the death of Geraldine, a longtime family friend, and the fact that she is to get Geraldine’s cozy soapstone woodstove, Lawrence begins drawing plans for the perfect log cabin to house the stove that will become the heart of her home.

It is the building of this dream home with her father that transforms Lawrence and her relationship with her family. Constructing the log home by hand during the grueling winter, scraping the logs, then scribing them and setting them in place is draining, physically and emotionally. Lawrence almost waxes poetic about Forest Husband, a mighty and well-used chain saw that her mother finds used. This huge, heavy and awkward machine helps Lawrence complete the tedious work of scribing the logs. This welcome addition lightens the load because Lawrence is driven to finish before she must leave for graduate school.

Lawrence writes evocatively about herself, her family, the land and her community of neighbors and their shared history. She writes with uncommon insight about the state of the New West versus the Old West. Her longtime neighbors, especially Glen, 70 years young, have close ties to the land and respect the importance of conserving water for the future. When a new pipeline must be built, the community comes together and constructs it. Meanwhile, new people move onto the land, building huge structures that crowd and encroach on the land, only to provide part-time houses for city dwellers who put little back into the rural community.

Lawrence’s debut book forecasts the beginning of a new career – that of a talented writer. Her descriptive prose paints a vivid and respectful portrait of the natural world, which she clearly treasures. Her honest emotion and care for her family and friends and their sometimes complicated and tempestuous relationships, evoke empathic feelings from readers.

River House is a rare accomplishment with a narrative that flows and ebbs like the mighty current of life.

Lawrence has a master’s degree in writing and environmental science from the University of Montana and still runs the wild rivers of the world. She also operates an organic farm on her family’s land.

Reach Leslie Doran at sierrapoco@yahoo.com.