Rivers Run Through Us: A Natural and Human History of Great Rivers of North America

Rivers Run Through Us: A Natural and Human History of Great Rivers of North America

An engaging, informative, and personal exploration of some of the great rivers of North America. The physical nature of rivers has influenced the course of human history and development, whether it be in the prosecution of major conflicts (US Civil War), patterns of development and social change (dams on the Columbia River), the economy (gold rushes, agricultural development), or international relations (US and Mexico and the Colorado River). The centrality of human–river interactions has had great impacts on the biodiversity of rivers (salmon and other threatened species) that have been the focus of historical and current intense conflicts of values (e.g., water in the Sacramento–San Joaquin system and California “water wars” in general). Of the thousands of rivers in North America, 10 are profiled in Rivers Run Through Us : Mackenzie River Yukon River Fraser River Columbia River Sacramento–San Joaquin River Colorado River Rio Grande/Rio Bravo River Mississippi River Hudson River St. Lawrence River In this engaging new work, Eric Taylor takes readers on a grand tour of 10 of North America’s more important river systems, exploring one fundamental issue for each that illustrates the critical role each particular stream has had — and will have — in the human development of North America. Praise for Rivers Run Through Us : “An inspired and thoughtfully informed guided raft ride down the great rivers of North America.” — Robert W. Sandford, EPCOR Chair for Water and Climate Security at the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health and author of The Columbia Icefield , Our Vanishing Glaciers , The Anthropocene Disruption , Rain Comin’ Down: Water, Memory and Identity in a Changed World and numerous other titles “Blending expert science, cultural history, and no small measure of valuable insights, Eric Taylor’s Rivers Run Through Us layers the geological history of watersheds with an account of short-sighted industrial development and its ecological consequences. His survey of a pattern of use and abuse common since the 19th century provides an intelligent and necessary foundation. This book should be required reading for anyone interested in how we have bent rivers to our will and transported ourselves to an era of water shortages, habitat loss, and species extinctions.” — Eileen Delehanty Pearkes, author of A River Captured: The Columbia River Treaty and Catastrophic Change “My new favorite book about rivers. Eric Taylor’s grand tour of major North American basins is socially and geographically perceptive.” —Laurence C. Smith, author of Rivers of Power and The World in 2050 Eric B. Taylor is a professor of zoology and director of the fish collection at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum. He studies the patterns and processes promoting the origins and persistence of biodiversity and the application of such knowledge to conservation, especially in fishes. He graduated with a Ph.D. in zoology from UBC in 1989, spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow at Dalhousie University, then 18 months as a visiting research fellow at the Pacific Biological Station before returning to UBC in 1993. Between 2000 and 2018 he was involved with COSEWIC (the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada) and was its chair between 2014 and 2018. In 2016 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. Mark Angelo is a river conservationist, writer, speaker, teacher, and paddler. He is the founder and chair of both B.C. and World Rivers Day and is rivers chair of the Outdoor Recreation Council of BC, as well as a Fellow of the New York-based Explorers Club and a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. He lives in Burnaby, British Columbia. "...rivers are of inherent importance to many people - beautiful and powerful systems of tremendous and unquantifiable aesthetic value, part of the well documented connection between environmental quality and human well-being. There is something about that essential quality of rivers – their “flow” – that reaches deeply into the human consciousness. It may be the energy involved in the flow of rivers or that the flow itself is suggestive of a living entity, something that moves, with a “metabolism”. In fact, four rivers of the world (one in New Zealand, one in Colombia, and two in India) were recently recognized legally as “persons” meaning that, under the law, they can be ascribed certain rights that can be enforced. These rivers under suitable representation, possess the right to sue (and be sued) as they now can have legal standing. Human fascination with rivers may also stem from the parallels between the network-like structure of rivers and that of the human circulatory or nervous systems. Indeed, in his book Seven Rivers of Canada , Hugh MacLennan cited Heraclitus, a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, who considered “reality” as the state of being where Everythin