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Winner of the National Outdoor Book Award for History/Biography
Winner of the Reading the West Book Award in Memoir/Biography
Rachel Carson Environment Book Award for Reporting on the Environment, Honorable Mention
A Booklist Top of the List Winner for Nonfiction in 2023
A New Yorker Best Book of 2023
“Thrilling, expertly paced, warmhearted.” ―Peter Fish, San Francisco Chronicle
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.
19 illustrations; 1 map
From the Publisher
Q: How did you first come across Lois Jotter and Elzada Clover’s story, and what compelled you to keep digging?
Melissa L. Sevigny: I stumbled across Lois Jotter’s papers at Northern Arizona University in my hometown, Flagstaff, quite by chance. There were boxes and boxes of letters, newspaper clippings, and notes she collected during her 1938 river adventure. At first, it was her voice that compelled me to keep digging—warm, funny, a bit mischievous. I was also drawn to the story because I had never heard of Lois Jotter or Elzada Clover before, yet they accomplished something incredible—surviving a dangerous journey by boat down more than 600 miles of the Colorado River and making an extensive survey of the plant life along the way. It’s the kind of story I would have liked to have read when I was younger, about a couple of determined women heading off on a big adventure in a jaw-droppingly beautiful place.
Q: How do Clover and Jotter’s struggles as women in science still reverberate today?
Melissa L. Sevigny: When I first started writing this book, I thought perhaps the sexism that Clover and Jotter faced would feel old-fashioned. But the deeper I dug, the more I saw connections between their experiences and what women in the sciences still contend with today. Clover and Jotter had to face down a lot of criticism about their plans to run the Colorado River, which at that time was widely considered a dangerous place and not suitable for women. Journalists described them as daredevils and oddities, rather than serious scientists. The barriers that they faced in 1938 really aren’t so different from what female scientists experience now: things like prejudiced hiring policies and unequal pay. I do think today there is a wider awareness of these problems, and a greater interest in highlighting the stories of scientists, past and present, who don’t check the stereotypical boxes. I take a lot of hope from that.
Q: If one were to embark on the same expedition down the Colorado River as Clover and Jotter did in 1938 today, how would it be different?
Melissa L. Sevigny: Almost everything! Today, river guides have detailed maps about every bend in the river and intimate knowledge of how to tackle each rapid. They usually go in big rubber rafts, not handcrafted wooden boats, and they have all kinds of equipment that wasn’t available to Clover and Jotter in 1938—sleeping bags, tents, water-resistant clothing, emergency radios, ammo tins to store the gear, not to mention decent water filtration and lots of hearty food. The scenery has changed, too. Glen Canyon is now buried beneath a reservoir, and the Grand Canyon has fewer beaches to camp on, because the dam traps the sand and floodwaters which are needed to build sandbars. There are more nonnative plants like tamarisk and tumbleweed. But some things are the same. The incredible geology of the Grand Canyon is still there, and so are the beautiful starry skies, ravens, bighorn sheep, and fantastic flowering cacti. And a river trip in the Canyon is still otherworldly. For many, myself included, a river trip down the Colorado is a profound experience. Clover and Jotter found it to be lifechanging, and I think that’s still true today.
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company (May 14, 2024)
Language : English
Paperback : 304 pages
ISBN-10 : 1324076119
ISBN-13 : 978-1324076117
Item Weight : 8.8 ounces
Dimensions : 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.3 inches
Customers say
Customers find the book excellent, informative, and enjoyable. They describe the adventure story as fascinating, exciting, and gripping. Readers praise the writing quality as well-written, seamless, and easy to read. They also appreciate the pacing, saying it’s wise and well-researched.
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