BOOKPATHS

United States -- The West

Cadillac Desert: the American West and Its Disappearing Water, by Marc Reisner (New York: Penguin, 1993; first published in 1986)

Marc Reisner offers the history of water use in the American west, along with its environmental consequences.  Published in 1986, after ten years of research, Cadillac Desert remains an important resource and warning for all of us who call the west home.

If you begin at the Pacific rim and move inland, you will find large cities, many towns, and prosperous-looking farms until you cross the Sierra Nevada and the Cascades, which block the seasonal weather fronts moving in from the Pacific and wring out their moisture in snows and drenching rains.  On the east side of the Sierra-Cascade crest, moisture drops immediately – from as much as 150 inches of precipitation on the western slope to as little as four inches on the eastern – and it doesn’t increase much, except at higher elevations, until you have crossed the hundredth meridian, which bisects the Dakotas and Nebraska and Kansas down to Abilene, Texas, and divides the country into its two most significant halves – the one receiving at least twenty inches of precipitation a year, the other generally receiving less.  Any place with less than twenty inches of rainfall is hostile terrain to a farmer depending solely on the sky, and a place that receives seven inches or less – as Phoenix, El Paso, and Reno do – is arguably no place to inhabit at all.  Everything depends on the manipulation of water – on capturing it behind dams, storing it, and rerouting it in concrete rivers over distances of hundreds of miles.  Were it not for a century and a half of messianic effort toward this end, the West as we know it would not exist. – from Cadillac Desert, by Marc Reisner

Publisher’s Website

Clive Sinclair, author of True Tales of the Wild West, chooses his “top 10 westerns.”

United States -- The West

Wallace Stegner and the American West, by Philip L. Fradkin (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008)

Wallace Stegner was not entirely of the west. Iowa claimed him briefly; as did Wisconsin; also Cambridge, Massachusetts; and for much longer, summers at first, then longer and longer stays, his beloved Vermont. But it’s the West that formed Wallace Stegner and in countless ways he helped form the West. While Philip Fradkin’s Wallace Stegner and the American West doesn’t slight any of the places associated with the celebrated author and conservationist, Fradkin makes it clear in his title and introduction that it is Stegner’s ties to the west -- its landscape, history, and environmental successes and defeats -- that are at the core of his biography. Fradkin explains this beautifully in the book’s introduction: “Synecdoche, meaning a specific example used to illustrate a generality, was one of Stegner’s favorite words and writing techniques. In a similar fashion, I use the life of Wallace Stegner as the vista from which to gaze upon the panorama of the American West in the twentieth century, for his time spanned the transition from prairie frontier to Silicon Valley.” Fradkin has given readers a gift that goes beyond what we learn in its pages about Wallace Stegner’s life and work, to include the West itself, a unique geography that Stegner once called “the geography of hope,” a geography whose future is now in our hands.

In the 1950s, Stegner saw what was coming. Citing growth figures thought to be rampant in those days but minuscule in comparison to what was to come, he said in the year that Glen Canyon was lost: ‘The enormously swollen future haunts my dreams.’ Speaking at an open-space conference sponsored by the local chapter of the Sierra Club in 1956, Stegner said that conservation began with very small things, like a single lot. He had seen a sign in India a few years before that asked, ‘Who Planted the Trees?’ then answered, ‘A Friend of God.’ We should all be such a friend was his message. We need open space, the urban equivalent of wilderness. How would we get it? This was his advice: ‘Organize, talk it up, and get into groups.’ – from Wallace Stegner and the American West, by Philip L. Fradkin

Related Websites

Publisher’s Website

Philip L. Fradkin Website

Free Audiocasts -- Geography of Hope Conference, March 7-9, 2008

Read why Scott Timberg believes Wallace Stegner “was a man before his time.”

“With the publication for the first time this month of Stegner's letters, edited by his son Page and published by Shoemaker & Hoard, his considerable ability to inspire, exhort and engage those around him -- on issues central to the West as well as many others -- is being given a new stage. Perhaps most striking to read today are his many letters that take up now-trendy environmental issues, including an eloquent and much-quoted 1960 missive that asserts, ‘Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed; if we permit the last virgin forests to be turned into comic books and plastic cigarette cases.’" – from “The Western Sage,” by Scott Timberg, Los Angeles Times

Pacific Coast

“A federal agency announced on Wednesday [March 8, 2006] three scenarios for the 2006 Pacific salmon fishing season that range from a greatly reduced catch to banning ocean fishing entirely along the California coast to protect chinook runs on the Klamath River.” – from “California : Feds Float 3 Options on Salmon. Most Generous Plan Would be Same as 2005 Season, Which Fishermen Say Was a Disaster,” by Glen Martin, San Francisco Chronicle

Salmon Nation : People and Fish at the Edge, Edward C. Wolf and Seth Zuckerman, editors (Portland, Oregon : Ecotrust, 1999, 80 p.)

“We offer this book as a guide to becoming better informed citizens of Salmon Nation.” – "Introduction," Salmon Nation : People and Fish at the Edge

Salmon Nation : People and Fish at the Edge should be required reading, especially for those of us who live along the western edge of the United States and Canada. “Salmon Nation takes you behind the headlines in the company of six knowledgeable guides to a deeper understanding of the most celebrated fish of Western America.” Elizabeth Woody recall[s] Celilo,” “one of the most significant fisheries of the Columbia River system,” until it was “inundated by The Dallas Dam in 1957.” Jim Lichatowich, Seth Zuckerman and Richard Manning share some of the reasons for salmon’s decline. Dorie Brownell introduces the six species of salmon and their watersheds in an essay complemented by stunning original maps. Freeman House writes about his own experiences, first as a commercial fisherman and then as an activist in Salmon Nation, and Seth Zuckerman concludes by looking at “a new kind of relationship between humans and salmons,” a relationship that is “being tested in communities across the Northwest.” Salmon Nation : People and Fish at the Edge imparts a wealth of knowledge and wisdom in its eighty pages and encourages us to become pro-active for the health of salmon and the watersheds we share.

“As a culture, we may be slow learners, somewhat clumsy and unpolished in our studies. But with the salmon’s guidance, we can figure out how to reshape our relations with the landscape to which we, no less than the fish, belong.” – from “Toward a New Salmon Economy,” by Seth Zuckerman, in Salmon Nation : People and Fish at the Edge

Related Links

Ecotrust website
“Ecotrust’s mission is to build Salmon Nation, a Place Where People and Wild Salmon thrive.”

Ecotrust’s information on Salmon Nation : People and Fish at the Edge

It “is hard even today, for many people to appreciate fully: though waterborne, salmon don’t just live in streams, they live in watersheds. Everything that happens to flowing water, from ridgetop to rivulet to river itself, affects the health of salmon. For decades, many of these connections were unknown; land managers treated elements of the forest-and-fish system as isolated parts. Now we know better, but we battle inertia of more than a century of treating the Pacific Northwest as a warehouse of provisions instead of a living system of which we are but one member.” – from “Muddied Waters, Muddled Thinking,” by Jim Lichatowich and Seth Zuckerman, in Salmon Nation : People and Fish at the Edge

British Columbia to Mexico -- Monarch Butterfly Migration

“I am thunderstruck by the thought that this one butterfly holds the power to contradict a major myth of American natural history: that all the monarchs west of the Rockies crest migrate to California, only those east of the Rockies go to Mexico, and the two don’t mix.” – from Chasing Monarchs : Migrating with the Butterflies of Passage, by Robert Michael Pyle

Chasing Monarchs : Migrating with the Butterflies of Passage, by Robert Michael Pyle (Boston, MA : Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999)

“’I’ll find a monarch. I will watch it. If it flies, I’ll follow it as far as I can. When I lose it, I’ll take its vanishing bearing – the direction in which it disappears. Then I will quarter the countryside, by foot and by road, until I find the next suitable habitat along that bearing, and do it again. Monarch by monarch, shouldn’t I be able to follow their trend.’” -- from Chasing Monarchs : Migrating with the Butterflies of Passage, by Robert Michael Pyle

Wherever you go to watch migrating monarchs, Chasing Monarchs : Migrating with the Butterflies of Passage, by Robert Michael Pyle, should travel with you. While Pyle’s initial route takes into British Columbia and through parts of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona, the information he shares along the way is for all who marvel at monarchs. His quest is to prove that not all migrating monarchs west of the Rockies migrate to California, that some choose an alternate route, down through the Great Basin and on to Mexico, following watercourses when available. As Pyle follows “monarch by monarch” on his way south, readers learn about these “wanderers.”

Pyle shares information about their life cycles; what they eat, particularly the importance of milkweed; what is known about monarch migration routes; predators and other threats to their existence; their beauty; strength; and much more. One of the gratifying aspects of Pyle’s book is that we not only increase our knowledge about monarchs, but about the plants, animals, birds, and other butterfly species that Pyle sees and studies along the way as well. We also move with him into different habitats as we follow his descriptions of the changing landscape from British Columbia to southern Arizona and on a subsequent journey from Arizona, into Mexico, and back through California and Oregon. Robert Michael Pyle is the best of guides. He leads with humor, expertise, and curiosity.

Chasing Monarchs : Migrating with the Butterflies of Passage, by Robert Michael Pyle, inspires readers to learn more monarchs. He helps with this by providing “further reading and resources” at the book’s end.

Where rivers, creeks, canals, or roadsides go generally their way, the wanderers (as monarchs are also called) follow them. Here is water, here is nectar, here the likelihood of the sought-after herbs. Watercourses deliver them to milkweed grounds: fields, pastures, meadows, banks and bars; roads lead to parks and gardens and vacant lots, where few milkweed plants are likely to go undiscovered by Danus in a good year. – from Chasing Monarchs : Migrating with the Butterflies of Passage, by Robert Michael Pyle

Related Websites

These are some of the organizations mentioned in Chasing Monarchs.

Journey North : a Global Study of Wildlife Migration and Seasonal Change
http://www.learner.org/jnorth/

The Lepidopterists’ Society
http://www.lepsoc.org/

Monarch Monitoring Project
http://archive.concord.org/people/dick/mon.html

Monarch Program
http://www.monarchprogram.org/

Monarch Watch
http://monarchwatch.org/

North American Butterfly Association
http://www.naba.org

Texas Monarch Watch
http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/learning/texas_nature_trackers/monarch/

The Xerces Society
http://www.xerces.org/

…if you wish to help the monarchs take care of themselves, you can visit the Mexican monarchs and contribute liberally to the local economy. You can refuse to take part in transfers and releases, allowing monarchs to fly free where they will under their own power. You can participate in butterfly counts and monarch tagging and monitoring programs. You can join the organizations listed on pages 285-86. and, most important, you can help to nurture and protect the places where monarchs breed, travel, nectar, and roost. Only if enough of us care enough will North American countryside remain replete with native monarchs and milkweeds. -- from Chasing Monarchs : Migrating with the Butterflies of Passage, by Robert Michael Pyle

BOOKPATH: The Pacific Flyway

Tracks in the Sky : Wildlife and Wetlands of the Pacific Flyway, photographs by Tupper Ansel Blake, text by Peter Steinhart (San Francisco, CA : Chronicle Books, 1987). Out of print, but available used.

"The Pacific flyway is a reflection of the water below the sky. It is a chain of wetlands stretching from the Arctic to the tropics." -- from Tracks in the Sky : Wildlife and Wetlands of the Pacific Flyway

Although a bit dated, Tracks in the Sky : Wildlife and Wetlands of the Pacific Flyway is worth returning to each year. As we look to the skies and wetlands for migrating birds, it is a reminder of both the spectacle of migration and its fragility. The book ranges the Pacific Flyway, from the Arctic to Central America, stopping along the way to inform readers about wetlands and the wildlife that depends on them.

The photographs of Tupper Ansel Blake and the words of Peter Steinhart convey the beauty and mystery of the flyway -- "the river of birds."

Each Fall," Steinhart writes, "[the river of birds] moves like a falling veil over the north, as if some God had turned a basketful of creatures and watched them tumble over the horizon. Each spring, birds move in wedges and ribbons, pairs and clusters, from lake to lake, skulking over the upland forests, leapfrogging along the coasts. They are as much a part of the sky above us as the clouds and stars. And when they bump into our conscious minds, they startle us with the idea that there is life and will moving outside us.

Steinhart believes that seeing the beauty of migration encourages us to look for ways to save our diminishing wetlands.

Steinhart writes about the beauty of migration and wetlands, but he is also clear about what is being lost. He is unyielding in writing about what we are doing wrong. For instance, Steinhart spends an entire chapter explaining "the kindness of mud.." Mud, unpopular with humans, is what gives life to wetlands. "It is what makes the flyways work," Steinhart explains. "At least 75 percent of our bird species depend at some time on wetlands for breeding, staging, feeding, or loafing. Without mud, the great river of birds that passes back and forth across our skies in fall and spring would dry up." Mud is needed for flood control, groundwater recharge, and maintaining water quality. It affects the weather and global warming. "It is what keeps rivers and lakes and estuaries lively. It breathes oxygen, birds, and insects into the sky." Steinhart hopes that people will learn to let it be, to allow mud to "ooze and desiccate and slump and mumble at its own pace." If we learn to leave mud alone, Steinhart concludes, "there is hope for us as a species." If we don't, our wetlands and bird populations will continue to decrease.

There is cause for hope and discouragement in the history that unfolds in Tracks in the Sky. In March, 1903, Theodore Roosevelt began the National Wildlife System by "reserving and setting apart...Pelican Island as a preserve and breeding ground for native birds." By the end of his presidency, he had "created a total of fifty-three units of the National Wildlife Refuge System in seventeen states and territories." This sounds encouraging, but from the very beginning a lack of funding thwarted proper care of our wetlands. While attempts to protect migratory birds and wetlands has been ongoing, with some successes, Steinhart believes that we continue to "strangle the flyway." This is particularly true in California, "where 60 percent of the migratory birds of the Pacific flyway winter and where water "is funneled...into ditches and canals, and husbanded...narrowly to human purposes." "We are slowly strangling the flyway, Steinhart warns. "One day, we may look out over an endless plain of concrete and asphalt and glass and find that we have drained the skies."

Perhaps, some headway has been made since the 1987 publishing date of Tracks in the Sky. There seems to be a better understanding of the importance of wetlands. Some of the projects waiting for funding at the time Tracks in the Sky was published are now operating. Local groups come together to save local watersheds. Here, in California's Central Valley, there seems to be an attempt to increase our wetland areas, but at the same time more and more valley land is being urbanized. Steinhart's warnings seem current. "We talk," he writes, "of the value of lost wetlands in economic terms. We must also talk of values to our heart and minds." Tracks in the Sky : Wildlife and Wetlands of the Pacific Flyway is a book to return to each winter, as the migrating birds move along the Pacific and other flyways. It is a book to remember when you visit a wetland or watch a "v" of geese fly overhead.

"The arrival and departure of geese and sandpiper, swallow and eagle, open for us seams in the cosmos, pose for us the possibility of a dimension beyond our own reality, a destination we, our boots nailed to our floors, are powerless to leap into." -- from Tracks in the Sky : Wildlife and Wetlands of the Pacific Flyway

"...looking is one of life's great pleasures. To be aware of the light and line and color around you, to look long and thoughtfully at something, to read in a shorebird's plumage the marks of wind and water and time, is one of humankind's gifts. Simply being in a wetland offers us vast opportunities to see." -- from Tracks in the Sky : Wildlife and Wetlands of the Pacific Flyway