Glen Canyon is such a
compelling intellectual topic because it is full of contradictions:
It has been destroyed, and yet a movement is afoot to bring it back
… it was a place perhaps equal in grandeur to Grand Canyon,
and yet it was dammed and inundated with only the faintest puff of
dissent; it is despised by many in its present form, and yet
fiercely loved in this form by many more.
— Mathew
Barrett Gross,
The Glen Canyon Reader
Glen Canyon, which now lies mostly under Lake Powell, is often
called “the place no one knew.” In truth, many writers,
miners, adventurers and Boy Scouts knew this lost treasure
intimately, and The Glen Canyon Reader, edited
by river runner Mathew Barrett Gross, is a collection of their
musings.
The chronological collection includes excerpts
from The Domínguez-Escalante Journal (1776) and John Wesley
Powell’s Exploration of the Colorado River and its Canyons
(1875), as well as essays by such Western notables as Zane Grey, Ed
Abbey, Wallace Stegner, Barry Goldwater, David Brower and John
McPhee. There is even an article by Floyd Dominy, the man
responsible for damming the canyon. Essays by lesser-known writers
provide poignant reading fodder for those already well-versed in
Glen Canyon lore.
Although many of the canyon’s
natural wonders lie hidden beneath water and rising sediment, Gross
suggests that the places that do remain visible should remind us
that it is possible to reclaim what once was.
The Glen Canyon Reader
By Mathew
Barrett Gross 210 pages, softcover: $17.95. University of
Arizona Press, 2003.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Glen Canyon Voices.
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