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Brave the wild river : the untold story of two women who mapped the botany of the Grand Canyon

2023

Call Number:	578.097913 SEVIGNY
Format:	Book
Author:	Sevigny, Melissa L., 1986-
Title:	Brave the wild river : the untold story of two women who mapped the botany of the Grand Canyon / Melissa L Sevigny.
Edition:	First edition.
Publisher, Date:	New York, NY : W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., [2023]
Description:	290 pages : illustrations, map ; 24 cm illustration
Summary:	"The riveting tale of two pioneering botanists and their historic boat trip down the Colorado River and through the Grand Canyon. In the summer of 1938, botanists Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter set off to run the Colorado River, accompanied by an ambitious and entrepreneurial expedition leader, a zoologist, and two amateur boatmen. With its churning waters and treacherous boulders, the Colorado was famed as the most dangerous river in the world. Journalists and veteran river runners boldly proclaimed that the motley crew would never make it out alive. But for Clover and Jotter, the expedition held a tantalizing appeal: no one had yet surveyed the plant life of the Grand Canyon, and they were determined to be the first. Through the vibrant letters and diaries of the two women, science journalist Melissa L. Sevigny traces their daring forty-three-day journey down the river, during which they meticulously cataloged the thorny plants that thrived in the Grand Canyon's secret nooks and crannies. Along the way, they chased a runaway boat, ran the river's most fearsome rapids, and turned the harshest critic of female river runners into an ally. Clover and Jotter's plant list, including four new cactus species, would one day become vital for efforts to protect and restore the river ecosystem. Brave the Wild River is a spellbinding adventure of two women who risked their lives to make an unprecedented botanical survey of a defining landscape in the American West, at a time when human influences had begun to change it forever"-- Provided by publisher.
Series:	Library Staff Review_History.
Subjects:	Clover, Elzada U., 1897-1980 -- Travel -- Arizona -- Grand Canyon. Jotter Cutter, Lois, 1914-2013 -- Travel -- Arizona -- Grand Canyon. Nevills, Norman D., 1908-1949 -- Travel -- Arizona -- Grand Canyon. Nevills Expedition (1938) Women travelers -- Arizona -- Grand Canyon -- History -- 20th century. Botany -- Arizona -- Grand Canyon -- History -- 20th century. Plant collecting -- Arizona -- Grand Canyon -- History -- 20th century. Scientific expeditions -- Arizona -- Grand Canyon -- History -- 20th century. Botanists -- Arizona -- Grand Canyon -- Biography. Travel writing. Grand Canyon (Ariz.) -- Discovery and exploration. Colorado River (Colo.-Mexico) -- Discovery and exploration. Grand Canyon (Ariz.) -- Description and travel.
Notes:	Jotter and Clover went down the Grand Canyon rapids for science. But they'll be remembered because they did it as women in the 1940s. These botanists from the east coast wanted to catalog changes of plant life, studying and taking samples of how it was in their time, so future botanists could look back and see what changed. To do this, they embarked on a 43-day perilous journey, rafting hundreds of miles of the Colorado river before dams had been constructed that made the rapids safer, and the water more controlled. The information they collected from this journey has been referenced many times in academia to learn how specimen in the area went extinct over the next few decades, and how human actions like dams construction, hunting, the introduction of invasive species, the ignorance of Indigenous knowledge and people, and tourism as a top priority severely impacted the west and everything living there. This author did her due diligence, compiling this narrative from Jotter and Clover's personal journalled accounts of their trip down river, the struggles they faced, and the injustices they experienced. The media didn't care to hear about their scientific efforts; they only wanted to know how women were faring on such a dangerous journey. But despite worried family members, cynical male river runners, the overdramatic media, and a world of external judgement, these women accomplished an incredible feat, paving the way for future botanists to brave the unknown, even if it means taking a wild river-rafting journey to get there. This nonfiction account won the 2023 National Outdoor Book Award for History/Biography, the "Reading the West" book award in Memoir/Biography, was a "Southwest Book of the Year" top pick, was an honorable mention for the Rachel Carson Environment Book Award for Reporting on the Environment, was a Booklist "Top of the List" winner for Nonfiction in 2023, and was the New Yorker Best Book of 2023! I'd highly recommend it for anyone looking to expand their view of American environmental and social history! -- Library Staff Review (Megan K.) Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents:	Prologue: Stranded -- On the Borders of Precipices -- Have You Seen That River? -- A Mighty Poor Place for Women -- There Goes the Mexican Hat! -- A Beautiful Pea-Green Boat -- Delayed -- Hell, Yes! What River? -- Paradise -- A Most Unusual and Hazardous Means -- A Hundred Personalities -- Lonely for the River -- Heaven As I Go Along -- Legendary -- Epilogue: A Woman's Place.
ISBN:	9780393868234
Copies Owned:	3
Copies Available:	3
Current Holds:	0

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Library Journal Review

Science writer Sevigny (Mythical River) documents the 1938 survey of the Colorado River by the first two women botanists seeking distinctive plants growing in the Grand Canyon. Shoving off in June, Elzada Clover, Lois Jotter, and an expedition leader with three boatmen traveled 600 miles down the Colorado, facing danger when running the rapids, hunting for and documenting hundreds of plants, and arriving at Lake Mead 43 days later. Woven into the narrative are mentions of previous river expeditions, starting with John Wesley Powell's in 1869. Elizabeth Wiley adroitly narrates this account, employing a dramatic flair when sharing the women's letters and diaries and creating separate voices for each as they describe stops along the way, problems encountered, and breathtaking sights seen. Wiley's empathy for the painful limits imposed on women scientists in the 1930s is palpable (botany being one of the few sciences open to women at the time). Wiley also infuses a feeling of frustration in passages that speak of other societal limitations based on sex and race. VERDICT An amazing trip down an awe-inspiring river, and a powerful tribute to two pioneering women of science.--Stephanie Bange

Publishers Weekly Review

In this marvelous history, science journalist Sevigny (Mythical River) recounts the 43-day rowboat trip down the Colorado River undertaken by University of Michigan botanist Elzada Clover and her mentee Lois Jotter during the summer of 1938. Sevigny details how the duo successfully catalogued the flora of the Grand Canyon while enduring raging rapids, "stomach-somersaulting drops, and standing waves big enough to swallow a boat whole," but her focus is on how Clover and Jotter refuted sexist assumptions about the role of women in science. Though historically botany had been deemed too feminine for men, Clover and Jotter undertook their expedition at a time when male scientists were becoming increasingly involved in the field and began excluding women (a well-known adventurer remarked, "Women... do not belong in the Canyon of the Colorado"). Sevigny also weaves in stimulating trivia on the natural history of the Grand Canyon, including explanations of the geological forces behind its formation and National Park Service efforts to repopulate native animals in the region. Drawing on Clover and Jotter's journals and letters, Sevigny recreates their expedition in novelistic detail, producing a narrative as propulsive as the current of the Colorado. Readers will be swept away. Photos. (May)

Summary

In the summer of 1938, botanists Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter set off to run the Colorado River, accompanied by an ambitious and entrepreneurial expedition leader, a zoologist, and two amateur boatmen. With its churning waters and treacherous boulders, the Colorado was famed as the most dangerous river in the world. Journalists and veteran river runners boldly proclaimed that the motley crew would never make it out alive. But for Clover and Jotter, the expedition held a tantalizing appeal: no one had yet surveyed the plant life of the Grand Canyon, and they were determined to be the first.

Through the vibrant letters and diaries of the two women, science journalist Melissa L. Sevigny traces their daring forty-three-day journey down the river, during which they meticulously cataloged the thorny plants that thrived in the Grand Canyon's secret nooks and crannies. Along the way, they chased a runaway boat, ran the river's most fearsome rapids, and turned the harshest critic of female river runners into an ally. Clover and Jotter's plant list, including four new cactus species, would one day become vital for efforts to protect and restore the river ecosystem.

Brave the Wild River is a spellbinding adventure of two women who risked their lives to make an unprecedented botanical survey of a defining landscape in the American West, at a time when human influences had begun to change it forever.

Table of Contents

	Prologue Stranded	1
Chapter 1	On the Borders of Precipices	7
Chapter 2	Have You Seen That River?	23
Chapter 3	A Mighty Poor Place for Women	43
Chapter 4	There Goes the Mexican Hat!	61
Chapter 5	A Beautiful Pea-Green Boat	77
Chapter 6	Delayed	97
Chapter 7	Hell, Yes! What River?	117
Chapter 8	Paradise	135
Chapter 9	A Most Unusual and Hazardous Means	157
Chapter 10	A Hundred Personalities	183
Chapter 11	Lonely for the River	203
Chapter 12	Heaven As I Go Along	225
Chapter 13	Legendary	241
	Epilogue A Woman's Place	255
	Acknowledgments	259
	A Note on Sources	263
	Index	281

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