Melissa L. Sevigny
Auteur de Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon
A propos de l'auteur
Melissa L. Sevigny grew up on a four-acre plot of Sonoran desert on the outskirts of Tucson, Arizona. She currently writes science stories for KNAU (Arizona Public Radio) and lives in Flagstaff, Arizona.
Œuvres de Melissa L. Sevigny
Étiqueté
Partage des connaissances
- Sexe
- female
- Nationalité
- USA
- Lieu de naissance
- Arizona, USA
Membres
Critiques
Prix et récompenses
Statistiques
- Œuvres
- 3
- Membres
- 137
- Popularité
- #149,084
- Évaluation
- 4.2
- Critiques
- 5
- ISBN
- 10
Sevigny uses descriptions that come alive. Describing Ocotillo, "green leaves erupted", "a spray of red flowers exploded", "lose precious water every time the pores open...sucking in carbon dioxide to transform into sugars" (p 191). "Every algae-slicked pool hummed with an uncanny chorus...chorus which rose, claiming sand, water, and stone. Nothing here belonged to humans, not now." (p.112). "Inside the rock, pressed thin as paper, tiny fish were forever frozen midswim" (p.135)
The botanists left journals and diaries which gave a personal perspective to their experience, and the author wrote vividly, filling in descriptions of what they were seeing and the interactions among the crew members. As women, it was 'naturally' assumed that they would do all the cooking. As women, they were often frustrated by not being allowed to run the wilder rapids, as they were assigned to walk the river edge (when there was one!).
Sevigny gives us a perspective which these botanists did not have in her inclusion of native people's use of the area; e.g. the Hualapai planted & tended a particularly large sweet species of Agave (p.144); when they were barred from their traditional wintering grounds they began planting Cottonwoods in order to have firewood (p.194). People called the Grand Canyon "pristine...ignoring centuries of stewardship by Native Americans" (p.172-3). She also comments on use of the canyon and river by other people of color; the park was segregated (p.157) and there is no record of Black people living in Boulder City despite it having been constructed to house the dam workers (some of whom were Black) (p.210).
Yes, there is some description of the plants (and their latin names), but Sevigny researched widely and brings in related items from previous trips down the river (by whites), American politics, geology, management of the National Park, and an introduction to the development of botany as a science. I never knew that Linnaeus classified plants by counting their stamens & pistils (now science is using evolutionary relationships based on DNA to reclassify them). It was up to Asa Gray, a confidant of Darwin in the 1850s, to develop a taxonomy based on the whole plant structure, even tho that required more specialized training.
The book contains a lengthy list of sources, including oral interviews and archived films.… (plus d'informations)