Glen Canyon Dam

"Focusing on the saddening, maddening example of Glen Canyon, Jared Farmer traces the history of exploration and development in the Four Corners region, discusses the role of tourism in changing the face of the West, and shows how the "invention" of Lake Powell has served multiple needs. He also seeks to identify the point at which change becomes loss: How do people deal with losing places they love? How are we to remember or restore lost places?"--BOOK JACKET.

Stretching for 170 miles across northern Arizona and southern Utah, Lake Powell is both a vacationer's paradise and the second-largest reservoir in the Western Hemisphere. Yet few visitors to the lake today are aware of the lost world that lies beneath its crystal waters. Once an enchanted landscape of sandstone cliffs and secret crevices, Glen Canyon has been but a memory since the damming of the Colorado River near Page, Arizona, in 1963. Often called "the place no one knew," Glen Canyon was in fact explored by thousands of visitors—including dozens of writers—before the dam's completion. River runner Mathew Gross has combed the literature of Glen Canyon to assemble this wide-ranging look at the history of this now-submerged natural treasure, the first book to bring together these voices of remembrance. Beginning with the first known written report of Glen Canyon in an eighteenth-century missionary journal, Gross has selected accounts of the canyon from both before and after the dam. Included are some of the West's best-known writers—Zane Grey and Katie Lee, Edward Abbey and Ellen Meloy—as well as Pulitzer Prize winners John McPhee and Wallace Stegner. Other authors range from David Brower, director of the Sierra Club when the dam was built, to Floyd Dominy, the federal bureaucrat responsible for the dam. The Glen Canyon Reader is a book that may be read straight through as entertaining and informative history. But as Gross suggests, "Perhaps more pleasurable is to flip through these pages, to poke around and explore, as one would have done in Glen Canyon . . . to visit and revisit the places contained in this book, these cool glens and embracing alcoves and hidden grottos, these canyons and dreams and ghosts that will always, always be with us."

River trips through Glen Canyon from 1872-1964 were combined beginning at North Wash & ending at Lees Ferry, to present Glen Canyon before the lake. Landscape photographs & quotations from the explorers complete the journal. Fifty photographers & authors are represented. Photographs are identified by photographer, photo date & location. Quotations are identified by author & source. A map of Lake Powell is provided as a guide for today's visitor. The reader can take this book on the lake & go to the buoy indicated to compare Lake Powell today with the Glen Canyon of yesterday. Glen Canyon Natural History Association is co-publishing this book in support of the educational objectives of the National Park Service at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. A Special Limited (1,500 copies) First Edition is available. Silk-bound Limited Edition, $150, Paper-bound Edition, $25. Trade discounts available. Order from Inskip Ink, 366 East 100 North, Moab, UT 84532. Tel. & FAX 801-259-8452 or your local distributor.

Constructed between 1956 and 1966 by the United States Bureau of Reclamation, Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River was a project of immense proportions. Even before the non-stop pouring of 5 million yards of concrete began, much work had to be accomplished. The town of Page, Arizona was established on a windswept mesa to house workers and their families, and the 1,028-foot Glen Canyon Bridge was built to carry men, materials, and equipment to the dam site. Though the dam has proven a controversial structure throughout its history, the massive undertaking of its construction was an undeniable triumph of ingenuity and determination.

Constructed between 1956 and 1966 by the United States Bureau of Reclamation, Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River was a project of immense proportions. Even before the non-stop pouring of 5 million yards of concrete began, much work had to be accomplished. The town of Page, Arizona was established on a windswept mesa to house workers and their families, and the 1,028-foot Glen Canyon Bridge was built to carry men, materials, and equipment to the dam site. Though the dam has proven a controversial structure throughout its history, the massive undertaking of its construction was an undeniable triumph of ingenuity and determination.

Photographs by Mark Klett and Byron Wolfe; text by Rebecca Solnit.