How the Canyon Became Grand by Stephen Pyne, Viking, $24.95, ISBN
0670881104
FAME can be a dirty game: sometimes the thing that makes you famous may
outlast you, ousting you from the public imagination. One of the big themes of
Stephen Pyne鈥檚 How the Canyon Became Grand is that Arizona鈥檚 great rift
valley made the careers of extraordinary men. They, in turn, put the Grand
Canyon on the scientific and cultural map. Today, the Grand Canyon dwarfs them
all.
Although ancient in geological time, the Grand Canyon is young, culturally
speaking. The first Europeans to see the canyon were the Spanish, who noted its
enormity and went on their way to complete the business of colonisation. And
until John Wesley Powell floated down the Colorado River into the 鈥淕reat
Unknown鈥� in the 1870s, no one had grasped the extent of the canyon. His trip
heralded in the golden age of canyon discovery. Its grandeur matched the mood of
the times: the Manifest Destiny of the USA pushed against impenetrable canyon
walls and out tumbled new theories of structural geology and fluvial
erosion.
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The three greats of this second age of discovery were Powell, G. K. Gilbert
and Clarence Dutton, whose contributions to both scientific and cultural debate
make them heroes for Pyne. Aided by artists such as Thomas Moran, who fed an
eager public with images of towering cliffs and misty perspectives, the Grand
Canyon grew to be an indispensable part of American culture.
Sadly, less than a hundred years later, the flow of the mighty Colorado had
been tamed to supply tap water. In this, Pyne鈥檚 third age, scientific interest
turned from the canyon鈥檚 buttes to the atom roughly when the railway reached the
south rim early this century. The canyon fell under threat from enormous postwar
engineering projects to abstract water for cities, farms and golf courses.
Environmentalists challenged this: they 鈥渞ebranded鈥� the canyon as wilderness.
And it was their success that enables Pyne to end on an optimistic note.
Pyne鈥檚 book is a thoughtful account of the major players in this
extraordinary transformation from water source to World Heritage Site. But
because he covers so much ground, those who want more on canyon men and ideas
will benefit from his extensive bibliography.