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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.
BOOKS:
Rivers Run Through Us: A Natural and Human History of Great Rivers of North America (Rocky Mountain Books, 2021) $38 9781771605113
[BCBW 2022]
-
Review by John Gellard (BCBW 2022)
Rivers do indeed run through us. “One simply cannot understand the history of human civilization, or its future without an appreciation of the role that rivers have played,” states Eric Taylor in Rivers Run Through Us: A Natural and Human History of Great Rivers of North America.
His aim is “not to provide an encyclopedic summary of rivers of North America, but to provide a taste of the diversity of rivers and their geography.”
Actually, he does both supremely well.
There are ten great rivers in North America. Taylor places them within the six “continental divides” defined by mountain ranges.
Namely, these are:
• The Great Divide, which is the crest of the Rocky Mountains. Into the Pacific Ocean flow the Yukon, Fraser, Columbia, Colorado and Sacramento-San Joaquin Rivers.
• The Arctic Divide sends the Mackenzie River into the Arctic Ocean.
• The Laurentian Divide sends the Mississippi basin to the south, and the St. Lawrence to the northeast.
• The St. Lawrence Divide, and fifth, the Eastern Divide along the Appalachians contain the St. Lawrence and send the Hudson south to the Atlantic Ocean.
• The Sixth Divide circles the Great Basin west of the Rockies. Its rivers are “endorheic”: that is they run inwards to the Great Salt Lake. Rivers never cross the Divides… except sometimes.
Most of us live along rivers and our lives are caught up with rivers. Here’s some advice to the reader. Bring the book title to a personal level and relive some vivid river experience. In my case, it was lying alone with a broken leg for six days, having fallen into Cottonwood Creek, drinking the sweet water that tumbled down from alpine Brimful Lake on its way to the Stein River, which joins the Fraser at Lytton, just before the canyon. Yes, the creek ran through me.
The Stein valley is small, only 1070 sq km, but it’s very special. It was about to be crisscrossed with roads and logged in the 1980s but protest prevailed and now the pristine forest is a jewel in B.C.’s crown—the Nlaka’pamux Heritage Park, known for camping and salmon fishing.
Bring your own experiences to the book.
Eric Taylor delves into all aspects of a river’s life: geology, glaciation, ecology, flow variations, First Nation occupancy, colonial settlement and exploration, and possible future development.
Taylor outlines some development issues around major rivers in Canada. East of the Great Divide, the 4,000 km Mackenzie River runs from Lake Athabasca to its delta near Inuvik. The main tributaries are the Athabasca coming north through the oil sands, the Peace, and the Liard. Two issues stand out here. One was the proposed pipeline to bring gas south from Alaska. This was abandoned in 2017 after the Berger Commission found it “too disruptive to the environments.” The second issue is damming.
The W.A.C. Bennett Dam holds back the 1,760 sq km Williston Lake and generates power. It’s followed by the Peace Canyon dam. Then the Peace opens east into rich farmland. A hundred kilometers downstream, the Site C Dam will flood 6,000 valuable hectares and the power it will generate must be sold at a huge loss. So why keep building it? Taylor mentions the North American Water and Power Alliance (NAWAPA) as a possible factor. He also quotes General G.L. McNaughton, who calls NAWAPA “a monstrous concept, a diabolical thesis.”
B.C.’s most prominent river, the Fraser, is a consummate salmon river. Its 1,375 kilometres flow entirely within the province and there are no dams on it. Several tributaries including the Harrison, the Chilcotin, the Thompson and the tiny heroic Stein are spawning grounds for a huge variety of species returning annually from the Pacific.
Once, the river flowed north. Now it starts northwest out of the Rocky Mountain Trench. Then it turns south across the Interior Plateau, then through the Canyon where it is called “the savagest of all the major rivers of North America” (Hugh MacLennan). It abruptly turns west through a fertile alluvial plain and enters the Pacific in a huge estuary beside Vancouver.
Problems have developed with the Fraser’s salmon fishery. Returns have dropped recently from several million to less than a million and then briefly back up again. Causes? Climate change, overfishing, mining spills, fish farm disease and human development generally. Fraser River salmon remain in a “perilous state.”
Taylor goes into detail about the other great North American rivers, including the Yukon River, the Sacramento & San Joaquin Rivers, the Colorado River, the Rio Grande, the Mississippi River, the Hudson River, and the St. Lawrence River. He ends with a plea for better stewardship.
We have treated rivers as hydraulic machines and have neglected them as ecosystems. To avoid disaster, we must change. “The health of rivers is a metaphor for the health of Canadians,” writes Taylor. He urges readers to recognize the “Rights of Nature” and share water with the natural world.
Taylor’s book is a masterpiece of scholarship with exhaustive appendices, an index and notes. Your humble reviewer has merely skimmed the surface. Find your personal river and prepare for a wild ride. 9781771605113
John Gellard was named Canada’s “Best High School Teacher” in a Maclean’s poll in August 2005. His articles have appeared in BC BookWorld, the Globe and Mail and the Watershed Sentinel, as well as online at BCBookLook and The Ormsby Review.
BOOKS:
Rivers Run Through Us: A Natural and Human History of Great Rivers of North America (Rocky Mountain Books, 2021) $38 9781771605113
[BCBW 2022]
-
Review by John Gellard (BCBW 2022)
Rivers do indeed run through us. “One simply cannot understand the history of human civilization, or its future without an appreciation of the role that rivers have played,” states Eric Taylor in Rivers Run Through Us: A Natural and Human History of Great Rivers of North America.
His aim is “not to provide an encyclopedic summary of rivers of North America, but to provide a taste of the diversity of rivers and their geography.”
Actually, he does both supremely well.
There are ten great rivers in North America. Taylor places them within the six “continental divides” defined by mountain ranges.
Namely, these are:
• The Great Divide, which is the crest of the Rocky Mountains. Into the Pacific Ocean flow the Yukon, Fraser, Columbia, Colorado and Sacramento-San Joaquin Rivers.
• The Arctic Divide sends the Mackenzie River into the Arctic Ocean.
• The Laurentian Divide sends the Mississippi basin to the south, and the St. Lawrence to the northeast.
• The St. Lawrence Divide, and fifth, the Eastern Divide along the Appalachians contain the St. Lawrence and send the Hudson south to the Atlantic Ocean.
• The Sixth Divide circles the Great Basin west of the Rockies. Its rivers are “endorheic”: that is they run inwards to the Great Salt Lake. Rivers never cross the Divides… except sometimes.
Most of us live along rivers and our lives are caught up with rivers. Here’s some advice to the reader. Bring the book title to a personal level and relive some vivid river experience. In my case, it was lying alone with a broken leg for six days, having fallen into Cottonwood Creek, drinking the sweet water that tumbled down from alpine Brimful Lake on its way to the Stein River, which joins the Fraser at Lytton, just before the canyon. Yes, the creek ran through me.
The Stein valley is small, only 1070 sq km, but it’s very special. It was about to be crisscrossed with roads and logged in the 1980s but protest prevailed and now the pristine forest is a jewel in B.C.’s crown—the Nlaka’pamux Heritage Park, known for camping and salmon fishing.
Bring your own experiences to the book.
Eric Taylor delves into all aspects of a river’s life: geology, glaciation, ecology, flow variations, First Nation occupancy, colonial settlement and exploration, and possible future development.
Taylor outlines some development issues around major rivers in Canada. East of the Great Divide, the 4,000 km Mackenzie River runs from Lake Athabasca to its delta near Inuvik. The main tributaries are the Athabasca coming north through the oil sands, the Peace, and the Liard. Two issues stand out here. One was the proposed pipeline to bring gas south from Alaska. This was abandoned in 2017 after the Berger Commission found it “too disruptive to the environments.” The second issue is damming.
The W.A.C. Bennett Dam holds back the 1,760 sq km Williston Lake and generates power. It’s followed by the Peace Canyon dam. Then the Peace opens east into rich farmland. A hundred kilometers downstream, the Site C Dam will flood 6,000 valuable hectares and the power it will generate must be sold at a huge loss. So why keep building it? Taylor mentions the North American Water and Power Alliance (NAWAPA) as a possible factor. He also quotes General G.L. McNaughton, who calls NAWAPA “a monstrous concept, a diabolical thesis.”
B.C.’s most prominent river, the Fraser, is a consummate salmon river. Its 1,375 kilometres flow entirely within the province and there are no dams on it. Several tributaries including the Harrison, the Chilcotin, the Thompson and the tiny heroic Stein are spawning grounds for a huge variety of species returning annually from the Pacific.
Once, the river flowed north. Now it starts northwest out of the Rocky Mountain Trench. Then it turns south across the Interior Plateau, then through the Canyon where it is called “the savagest of all the major rivers of North America” (Hugh MacLennan). It abruptly turns west through a fertile alluvial plain and enters the Pacific in a huge estuary beside Vancouver.
Problems have developed with the Fraser’s salmon fishery. Returns have dropped recently from several million to less than a million and then briefly back up again. Causes? Climate change, overfishing, mining spills, fish farm disease and human development generally. Fraser River salmon remain in a “perilous state.”
Taylor goes into detail about the other great North American rivers, including the Yukon River, the Sacramento & San Joaquin Rivers, the Colorado River, the Rio Grande, the Mississippi River, the Hudson River, and the St. Lawrence River. He ends with a plea for better stewardship.
We have treated rivers as hydraulic machines and have neglected them as ecosystems. To avoid disaster, we must change. “The health of rivers is a metaphor for the health of Canadians,” writes Taylor. He urges readers to recognize the “Rights of Nature” and share water with the natural world.
Taylor’s book is a masterpiece of scholarship with exhaustive appendices, an index and notes. Your humble reviewer has merely skimmed the surface. Find your personal river and prepare for a wild ride. 9781771605113
John Gellard was named Canada’s “Best High School Teacher” in a Maclean’s poll in August 2005. His articles have appeared in BC BookWorld, the Globe and Mail and the Watershed Sentinel, as well as online at BCBookLook and The Ormsby Review.
