Summer 2017 Edition
In Chicago today we've had the kind of weather that belies the conviction that we have no Spring, and that we bypass that favorite of seasons, moving from too cold to too hot, with no in-between. Today it was in-between, and even if that's all we get, it sure was a pleasure while it lasted.D
Botkin uses the Lewis and Clark expedition as the basis from which to illustrate his lessons on evolution of landforms, flora, fauna, and above all, river ecology and riparian environments. His frame ranges from the earliest geologic eras to the present, using the wonderfully detailed Meriwether Lewis and William Clark diaries as the starting point for comparisons both back and forward through time. The spread of the Anglo-European population along the route of the Corps of Discovery, and the resultant economic pressures, are among the largest of the forces he describes. It’s a very bright device, especially because the author quotes liberally from the diaries; the imagery and accuracy of their descriptions cannot be duplicated, and their notoriously inventive grammar and spelling are irresistible.
More suggestions for improvement:
Clear line-drawn maps would have added greatly to the utility of this book, as would a bibliography or further readings list. Finally, there are places in which interpretations of antiquated usages and extreme misspellings of Lewis and Clark quotes would have been in order For instance, on p. 185, Clark’s description of river fauna refers to a “bottle nose.” It’s clear only that it’s unlikely he was speaking of a dolphin
The good news:
Having nailed this book for its distracting weaknesses, I want to emphasize that it nonetheless contains important messages delivered in a useful ways. The concepts are magnified by Botkin’s deep appreciation of his objects of study: the geological, biological, and specifically human ecology of two of North America’s great watersheds, those of the Missouri and the Columbia. It is also evident, in spite of his failure to demand quality editing (even on his own home page: http://www.danielbbotkin.com/about/) that Botkin is a competent scholar with a history of academic accomplishment. He served on the faculty at University of California, Santa Barbara, and brings the authority of a doctorate in biology/plant ecology from Rutgers to this work intended for the non-scholarly audience.
Besides retelling the ever-wonderful story of Lewis’ and Clark’s journey, highlighting their observational powers and dedication to accurately recording what they saw, Botkin’s agenda includes enlightening the reader with regard to two popular misconceptions about how nature works.
The author discusses how the first major North American urban areas grew up around rivers, and how their inner cities have survived the test of time as long as the “connection” with the waterways was maintained in social, humanistic, and aesthetic senses. St. Louis, while still economically and industrially attached to the Mississippi, erected effective barriers – such as the unfortunate placement of Interstate highways - to individual relationships with that water. He claims that in spite of expensive public efforts to restore St. Louis’ inner city, none have truly succeeded, and it is because of the disconnect with the river.
Elsewhere, Botkin provides a fair discussion of the context in which past ruinations, such as damming the Missouri and Columbia Rivers, were in fact, economically beneficial, allowing riverside agriculture to flourish, at least in years of normal flows. But Botkin’s surprising conclusion is that the salvation of the natural environment is in urbanization, positing that the more humans confine their living to the metropolitan, the more we will treasure the wild, and the less we will intrude upon it for living space. I find this to fall more in the “wishful-thinking” column than in the “useful-solutions” column, but it is nonetheless food for thought.
