Bookpath: High Line Canal, Denver area, Colorado
The Thunder Tree: Lessons from an Urban Wildland, by Robert Michael Pyle (Out of print, but available; hardback published by Houghton Mifflin in 1993; paperback published by The Lyons Press, New York)
At age six, Robert Michael Pyle discovered the High Line Canal near his home in Aurora, Colorado. In The Thunder Tree: Lessons from an Urban Wildland, Pyle shares how the canal touched and influenced his life as “sanctuary, playground, and sulking walk,” as an “imaginary wilderness, escape hatch, birthplace as a naturalist,” lover’s lane, research site, and holy ground of solace.” Pyle’s memoir is both place-specific as he guides readers into the life and history of the High Line Canal and broader in its desire to “awaken interest in places like the High Line in every community.”
“My own point of intimate contact with the land was a ditch. Growing up on the wrong side of Denver to reach the mountains easily or often, I resorted to the tattered edges of the Great Plains on the back side of town. There I encountered a century-old irrigation channel known as the High Line Canal. Without a doubt, most of the elements of my life flowed from that canal.” -- from The Thunder Tree: Lessons from an Urban Wildland, by Robert Michael Pyle
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