River Notes - by Wade Davis (Paperback)

About the Book

"The Colorado River and Grand Canyon are a chronicle of time, revealing the origins of the planet in rock and stone, but also the whirlwind of fortunes that can transform our destiny in a single generation. Having traveled the river as both a scholar and white-water guide, Wade Davis tells a sweeping tale that leaves little doubt that the Colorado is the story of the American West. What becomes of the river today will determine the fate of no fewer than 40 million Americans."--

Book Synopsis

At a time when the Colorado River and all those who depend on it are in peril, this urgent book offers "both a love song and a paean of regret to America's most spectacular river" (Denver Post) and "a plea to save [it] before it's too late" (The Wall Street Journal).

From bestselling author, long-time former National Geographic Explorer, and anthropologist Wade Davis comes the story of America's Nile: how it once flowed freely and how human intervention has left it near exhaustion, altering the water temperature, volume, local species, and shoreline of the river Theodore Roosevelt once urged us to "leave it as it is."

Plugged by no fewer than twenty-five dams, the Colorado is the world's most regulated river drainage, providing most of the water supply of Las Vegas, Tucson, and San Diego, and much of the power and water of Los Angeles and Phoenix, cities that are home to more than 25 million people. If it ceased flowing, the water held in its reservoirs might hold out for three to four years, but after that it would be necessary to abandon most of southern California and Arizona, and much of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. For the entire American Southwest, the Colorado is indeed the river of life, which makes it all the more tragic and ironic that by the time it approaches its final destination, it has been reduced to a shadow upon the sand, its delta dry and deserted, its flow a toxic trickle seeping into the sea.

Yet despite more than a century of human interference, Davis writes, the splendor of the Colorado lives on in the river's remaining wild rapids, quiet pools, and sweeping canyons. The story of the Colorado River is the human quest for progress and its inevitable effects--and an opportunity to learn from past mistakes and foster the rebirth of America's most iconic waterway. A beautifully told story of historical adventure and natural beauty, River Notes is a fascinating journey down the river and through mankind's complicated and destructive relationship with one of its greatest natural resources.

Published in Partnership with the David Suzuki Institute.

Review Quotes

"Often lyrically, Davis bemoans the state of a river that has been hemmed in so that cities including Las Vegas, San Diego, Los Angeles, Tucson and Phoenix can switch on their lights and have their taps flow.... He does a good job of showing how we are all connected to this river, whether we recognize it or not."
--Washington Post

"Above all, the book--by turns lyrical, elegiac and combative--is a plea to save the Colorado River before it is too late."
--Wall Street Journal

"River Notes is both a love song and a paean of regret to America's most spectacular river. Wade Davis weaves his own story of running the river with history, geology and quotations from those who knew it in its free days. This is also a warning about how easy it is to lose America's precious landscape."
--Denver Post

"River Notes: A Natural and Human History of the Colorado is both a requiem for a river lost and a tale of a river rebounding. Wade Davis floods our imagination not just with facts but stories, the kind of stories that enter our bloodstream with the memory of red water and the force of erosion. River Notes is a literary and historical testament to change, one that believes in the sustaining power of reciprocity over greed, while giving us an adventure story through time. The first six pages of this book will break your heart. The remaining pages will repair what has been broken."
--Terry Tempest Williams, author of Refuge and When Women Were Birds

"Many have followed the lead of pioneering river boatman John Wesley Powell in writing about their journeys on the Colorado River. But globe-circling ethnographer and best-selling writer Davis (One River, 1996; Into the Silence, 2011) brings unique expertise and a penetrating perspective to his enlightening expedition chronicle. A former river guide, Davis experiences the river's raw power when he pilots a raft through daunting rapids. A passionate scholar, he is equally dramatic in recounting his travels through the records of the region's volatile geologic past and rich history of diverse societies and cultural collisions. Native American tribes share the belief that 'rivers are sacred lifelines.' Mormons were the first, 'in defiance of all logic, ' to attempt to tame the river. The Colorado, now harnessed with 25 dams, precariously supports 30 million people, from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. With hard facts and river adventures rendered in gorgeous prose, Davis exposes the vulnerability of the Colorado in our time of drought and global warming in the hope that his findings will inspire the restoration and protection of this crucial river."
--Donna Seaman, Booklist

About the Author

Wade Davis is currently Professor of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia and was Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society from 2000 to 2013. His 23 books, published in 22 languages, include One River, The Wayfinders and Into the Silence, winner of the 2012 Samuel Johnson prize, the top nonfiction prize in the English language. He lives on Bowen Island, B.C.