| Title | : | Encounters with the Archdruid |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0374514313 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780374514310 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 256 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1971 |
Encounters with the Archdruid Reviews
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David Brower was an extreme conservationist. His 'religion' was wilderness. Brower's natural enemies were the mineral engineer, the resort developer and the dam builder.
What John McPhee did, in the three parts of this book, was to contrive meetings between Brower and each of these three. But these were not meetings in some boardroom. No. Brower hikes in the Cascades with the mineral engineer; he camps out on Cumberland Island with the resort developer; and he goes rafting through the Grand Canyon with the dam builder. Each time, McPhee is there with his wonderful ear.
You might think, then, that this is a book about Good versus Evil, the saintly Conservationist against the modern scourges: mining, resort building, reclamation. But by staging these dialogues in the wild McPhee changed the dynamic. The physical challenges necessitated cooperation. The respect was inexorable, and not just for physical feats. We need copper to maintain our way of life, the mineral engineer said. We'll surround the hotel with wilderness, the developer said. The lake will create a different kind of beauty while irrigating farms, the dam builder said. And the conservationist, still intractable, says he does not want the mine, does not want the resort, does not want the dam; but if they must come, he concludes, then I would want you men to build them.
So this became, for me, three tales of Good versus Good. Which is not as simple as that might sound. -
Great book. Have no idea why I never ran across John McPhee before stumbling upon him as a non-fiction author C. J. Box's Joe Pickett character read. Looked him up and found him to be a prominent and prolific writer and picked this one, probably his most popular work, to start with. Published in 1977 it describes three meetings in the wild that the then head of the Sierra Club, Dave Brower, the "archdruid" of the title, had with then prominent agents of development: hiking Glacier Park Wilderness with a mining consultant Charles Park; exploring Cumberland Island, Georgia, with the developer of Hilton Head Charles Fraser; and running the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon with the head of the dam-building Bureau of Reclamation Floyd Dominy.
McPhee's bias clearly favors Brower's pro-wilderness stance but he does treat the enemy fairly, making all four of the principals likeable and interesting and giving a presumably true rendering of the adversaries' statements of their views. McPhee treats you to a highly entertaining ring-side seat in the clash between the druidical belief that unless we cordon off wilderness we'll end up floating on garbage and the use-what-we-have view that preservation means we'll freeze in the dark. -
There's a passage from a science fiction story by Robert Charles Wilson that I love, and which came to mind more than once as I was reading this book. Here it is, from Wilson's story "The Inner Inner City" (and which you can find in his excellent collection
The Perseids and Other Stories):
We contrast the urban and the natural, but that’s a contemporary myth. We’re animals, after all; our cities are organic products, fully as “natural” (whatever that word really means) as a termite hill or a rabbit warren. But how much more interesting: how much more complex, dressed in the intricacies and exfoliations of human culture, simple patterns iterated into infinite variation. And full of secrets, beyond counting.
The three essays that make up this book each have the same beautifully simple set-up: David Brower, infamous leader of the Sierra Club and, for a time, the face of conservation in the United States, clashes with a person who has a very different philosophy about humanity's use of natural resources. Unlike Brower, who believes in the inherent value of large tracts of wilderness untouched by humans, each of his interlocutors firmly believes that the extraction of resources via industrial technique, the conversion of wilderness into real estate, and the mass re-engineering of nature by humans to be a moral good. What's more, they firmly believe that doing so is in the best interest of nature. And what makes this book so compelling is that each of Brower's sparring partners are sincere and knowledgable nature lovers, and often utterly sympathetic on the page. Sort of like that Wilson quote above, they each believe that human interventions in the environment are no less "natural" than those of rabbits or sparrows or komodo dragons.
Charles Park, one of the world's foremost minerologist profiled in the first essay, comes across as a man who has lived the majority of his life in nature, and has an encyclopedic knowledge of flora, fauna, and geology from throughout the world. Despite being a staunch mining advocate, Park believes that overconsumption of natural resources will lead to environmental ruin. But unlike Brower, who advocates a kind of reversion of the human species to a pre-technological lifestyle, Park believes that strict population controls limiting human procreation are the answer.
Next, we meet Charles Frasier, who developed Sea Pines resort on Hilton Head island (Frasier is, in fact, known as the father of the modern resort). Today we would call Frasier a green developer, given his attempts to incorporate nature into his building programs. McPhee follows Brower and Frasier around Cumberland Island, a barely inhabited island off the cost of Georgia that Fraiser wants to turn into another Sea Pines style resort, and relays for the reader the two men wrangling over how to develop the island to best protect Cumberland's apparently stunning wilderness.
Finally, Brower squares off against Floyd Dominy, United States Commissioner of Reclamation (translation: the United States dam builder in chief). McPhee follows Dominy, Brower, and a coterie of others on a rafting expedition down the Colorado River and into the Grand Canyon, a part of which Dominy had wanted to dam and turn into a reservoir (the scheme was defeated, in no small part thanks to Brower).
What made this book fascinating is that Brower's antagonists clearly love nature, and they have a closer connection to and deeper intimacy with the wilderness and wildlife than does your average person (and far, far more than I do, unrepentant urbanite as I am). These are not corporate bogey men or big business spin doctors attempting a disingenuous advocacy of activities that are self-evidently destructive to the environment. These are people who believe that human beings are a part of wilderness, and have a right to enjoy it and benefit from it as members of the community of species. The fact that humanity's actions have a far greater impact on the environment than other species is counter balanced, in their minds, by humanity's ingenuity in mitigating environmental risks.
What's more, the portrait of Brower that emerges in this book is by no means an unambiguously positive one. Though there is a sense that McPhee is fascinated by Brower the character, this is no hagiography. Brower unapologetically bends the facts, and is sometimes outright dishonest in his attempts to protect wilderness. And his justifications for wilderness conservation hinge on subjective notions of "natural beauty" that have little to no relevance to science.
(Side note: to be fair, the field of conservation biology was in its infancy at this time. However, Wilson's and MacArthur's
The Theory of Island Biogeography had already been out and making waves for a number of years when the events McPhee chronicles took place. One would think that it would have crossed the desk of the head of one of the country's most significant conservations groups. Anyway...)
Ultimately, this book elegantly and dramatically frames the tensions that continue to form the core of nature conservation in the United States, and although some of the notions expressed by even the staunch conservationist at the book's center, it is an excellent and fun introduction to these issues. -
Encounters with the Archdruid by John McPhee is an interesting narrative of differing views on environmentalism and the ongoing conundrum of conservation versus preservation. Focusing on David Brower (1912-2000), the prominent environmentalist who was Director and board member for the Sierra Club and Founder of the John Muir Institute for Environmental Studies, author John McPhee presents Brower's preservationist view that nature's value to society far outweighs any monetary value that society gives to the resources extracted from nature's wilderness areas.
The opposing views of Charles Park (1903-1990), geologist and mineral engineer, are presented when the author joins Brower and Park on a back-packing trip to Glacier Park Wilderness area in Washington State and where Park discusses in favor of mining and extracting resources for the benefit of present day economic benefit and believes that can be accomplished in an environmentally responsible way. Brower argues that the wilderness should remain untouched.
The second journey McPhee takes us is to Cumberland Island, a barrier island off the coast of Georgia, where Brower joins Charles Fraser (1929-2002), real estate developer, who wants to develop this island "wilderness" for its economic value with urbanization and wanting to consult Brower to do this in an environmentally sound way. While Brower still argues that it is unnecessary to intrude on the wilderness, he concedes that Fraser would be sensitive to the environment. (Cumberland Island National Seashore)
The last trip McPhee describes is with Brower and his concerns with U.S. Commissioner of Reclamation, Floyd Dominy plan to build dams on the Colorado River to overcome water scarcity and shortage to people in the region. Once again Brower argues against disrupting the natural ecosystem which he believes the dams would do.
McPhee's descriptions of the landscapes involved in the conservation/preservation movements are compelling and illustrative of the grandeur of nature and the wilderness areas. The writing is somewhat tedious, however. McPhee remains fairly unbiased in the arguments presented and the reader must decide for himself regarding these movements. And it is possible to alter ones' views on the environment depending on the times and circumstances. Extremist views on either side are not helpful. -
I first read this in the 1970s, and it holds up well to rereading, almost 50 years later. McPhee is a wonderful writer, and this is one of his better books. He arranged for encounters between Dave Brower, then the head of the Sierra Club, with Charles Park, a well-known mining geologist, Charles Fraser, the developer of the Sea Pines on Hilton Head Island, and Floyd Dominy, then the Commissioner of the US Bureau of Reclamation. McPhee made multiple visits to all these men, but the titular Encounters were face-to-face, in the field, Brower vs. his natural enemies. The meetings were surprisingly cordial. The least attractive, and least successful Encounter was the first, with the geologist. To my surprise, as I was a mining geologist myself, and still have Park's textbook. (I was a Sierra Club member too, for a time, in the Brower era, and mostly admired him.) Anyway, Park came across as a one-note Charlie -- and he set out on a wilderness camping trip with brand-new boots, which turned out not to fit!
Both the developer and the BuRec Commissioner turned out to be pretty reasonable guys, even if they had to "agree to disagree" with Brower. These were originally three long articles in the New Yorker, back when they ran good, long non-fiction. Recommended reading, if you would like background on some of the environmental battles back then. Which (then as now) weren't always clear-cut, as McPhee carefully points out.
The real review to read here is Tony's,
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... -
I found this book to be riveting; both a nature travelogue and an applied ecology seminar in one slim volume. Sierra Club director David Brower is the Archdruid, a man who uses the word "conserve" the way Carl Sagan used "billions". He's a die-hard environmentalist with a gift for PR who fights a never-ending battle against the government, developers, miners, and even humanity at large in his quest to keep as much of America as possible out of the reach of man forever, and McPhee – whose writing talent is truly impressive – allows Brower and his nemeses to explain themselves and their views on nature at length in flawless, crystalline prose. Whether sparring over mining the Glacier National Park with geologist Charles Park, or settling Hilton Head Island with developer Charles Fraser, or damming the Grand Canyon with bureaucrat Floyd Dominy, Brower's unstinting defense of the wilderness touches on issues of conservation vs. preservation that become more relevant every day. His fervent devotion to the outdoors is nearly religious (hence the book's title), but so heartfelt and understandable, given the irreplaceable natural wonders he's fighting for, that by the end of the book I was practically cheering for him even though his antagonists were just as thoughtful and compelling as he was. Though the book is lightly infused with that peculiar 70s nature mysticism, in a world where Louisiana steadily washes out to the sea and the Everglades dwindles by the day to the size of a mud puddle Brower almost seems more reasonable now than when the book was written. Very thought-provoking, and McPhee is an absolutely superb writer.
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Gosh I love John McPhee. Everything he touches is golden. It's strange how timeless his books feel, since they're hopelessly dated in terms of actual subject matter. What was once cutting-edge environmental activism now seems almost adorably quaint. What I think I love about McPhee is his remarkable ability to be fully objective--to present two (or more) sides to a story and to give each equal weight and consideration--while still writing with a clear and obvious passion for his subjects. McPhee so clearly burns with love and wonder for humans and nature alike, he seems to hold equal respect for conservationists and industrialists, he identifies with precision and poignancy both human hubris and human ingenuity. He's smart and he's fair and he's a damn good writer.
Read this book, and then go read all of John McPhee's books. He's an American treasure and a singular talent in narrative nonfiction writing. -
Non-fiction: A mineral engineer, a resort developer and dam builder take a walk, or a jeep, or a raft, through the wilderness with David Brower - conservation giant. McPhee accordingly observes, listens and documents three narratives, which essentially capture the presiding differences between the philosophies of each man.
It would have been so easy for this short book to present binaries of eco-good and anthro-evil. It's certainly possible that McPhee sways towards the former. As it is, however, the narratives provide a wonderfully objective account of the complexities faced by all those involved in the re-shaping of our natural environment. Though the three men "in opposition" to conservation, push consistently for further environmental exploitation in the name of human advancement, they are presented to possess equal integrity to the idealist eco-warrior: a mineral engineer argues - 'we can't stop all this- we must direct it.' The real exploration of the accounts, then, becomes preservation versus conservation.
All that aside, it gets 5* because it's the first non-fiction nature-walk narrative I've managed to find that isn't just one boring woman's journey through the wilderness. -
This book contains three narratives that introduce the reader to real-life characters who have influenced the way we manage our natural resources in the United States, and particularly in the west. These three fabricated accounts serve to examine the idealism and downfall of our Conservation and Preservation efforts. Of course, there are two sides to every story and in these conversations that's all there is; two sides. Black and white. But that's ok.
I thought McPhee treated this subject with insight and fairness. There is no right answer to what should be done with our precious resources and he didn't try to put one forth. His points were made clearly and I loved the settings in places that I am pretty fond of.
Paperback copy from my library. -
Just finished. Absolutely excellent. John McPhee is one of the great nonfiction writers of our time. As a New Yorker staff writer since 1965, he has contributed greatly to my own understanding of geology and natural science in general, as well as the broader and more all-encompassing science of conservation ecology and the environment.
Most poignant is the contrast between the environment of 1971, when this book was written, and the environment of today. The very first paragraph makes this painfully clear. Somehow I doubt that the days when a cabin was buried under snow are going to return.
More to come when I have time. -
McPhee is a master Craftsman and one of the few nonfiction writers who can make environmental arguments from the 1960s feel new and vital 50 years later.
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The Archdruid of the title is David Brower, ousted first Executive Director of the Sierra Club, and the man who in the early 1950s was largely responsible for halting the Echo Park Dam project at the confluence of the Green and Yampa rivers (thus saving
Dinosaur National Monument), the act of which symbolically launched the modern conservation movement in the U.S. In this book, creative nonfiction master John McPhee narrates a number of Brower's 'encounters' with various similarly visionary opponents to conservation, including materials engineer and renowned geologist-for-hire Charles Park, resort developer Charles Fraser (designer of Hilton Head Island in South Carolina), and Bureau of Reclamation Chief Floyd Dominy, famous (or infamous, depending on your view) builder of dams.
Brower's foes here are all outdoorsmen in their own right yet fundamentally differ with him through their essential belief in the primacy of practicality when it comes to natural resources. In their eyes, a river is not of any use if it is merely flowing on its own, without being harnessed for energy or water supply. A mountain that has yet to yield its store of copper to humanity is of highly questionable value. A wild, inaccessible island lacking any houses or recreational opportunities is a tragic waste of property. For his part, Brower sees these views as blasphemous, and in these pages he goes toe-to-toe in his firm but cordial way with their proponents. In his rhetoric he often walks the line between conservation and preservation, often leaning more toward the latter (note: exploring the variously interpreted differences between these two concepts and their significance to environmentalism is beyond the scope of this review). McPhee's book is as essential now to an understanding of the basic differences between conservationists and their opponents as it was when it first appeared in 1971. Really, not much has changed since then—as long as humans continue to procreate, conservationists will always be fighting a losing battle. -
I guess I need to read more John McPhee.
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Not only is this book a classic of environmental literature, it's also a classic of how a writer can get really close to a subject without imposing their views, instead letting the people in the story take center stage. David Brower on the Colorado River with Floyd Dominy, two great men with completely different worldviews, is as good as it gets,. They engage in debate between roaring rapids, and while they remain opponents, they emerge as friends. Powerful. I lived this. Around 2009, I arranged for a sequel that I'd write for Mother Jones. I went down the Colorado with Rich Ingebretsen of the Glen Canyon Institute and Paul Ostapuk of Friends of Lake Powell, who debated the merits of decommissioning Glen Canyon Dam and draining Lake Powell. Mother Jones decided I wasn't anti-dam enough and killed the story. I quit writing for them.
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Very enlightening. McPhee's writing style is very unique - sometimes boring but frequently brilliant (I'll post some examples below). What I like about him most is the subjects (human and otherwise) he chooses to write about. Most of his topics deal with the interaction of humans and nature. He's regarded as an environmental writer, but I find him quite balanced. His foils are presented as very human and sympathetic. I came away with an appreciation for both sides of the issues, which is a sign that McPhee has done his job right.
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Hilarious yet very serious.
Only somebody as idiosyncratic and droll a writer as John McPhee could get long-time Sierra Club leader David Brower in the same book -- let alone on the same pages, at the same place, and even in the same boat -- as one of his top enemies for many years, Bureau of Reclamation chief Floyd Dominy.
If you know anything about Dominy, as well as Brower, you know this book is worth reading for that reason alone. -
McPhee is a master of nonfiction. I admire the way McPhee presented individuals who had opposing points of view about wilderness in the Sierra Nevadas, an island off the coast of South Carolina, and the Colorado River. Written in 1971, the book is worth reading today.
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Brilliantly constructed, poignant.
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Written as three New Yorker articles in 1971. McPhee sets up three outdoor adventures with David Brower, the former Director of the Sierra Club who has been recently ousted after 17 years in the post for being too extreme on environmental issues and overspending against the club's budget. This is despite growing the Club from 7000 members in 1952 focused on the outdoors, mountaineering, the Sierra and John Muir's Legacy to 70,000 members with an influential impact on environmental policy and legislation. Brower was an avid climber in the 30's logging 70 first ascents of peaks in the Sierras and elsewhere. He left his job with the UC Berkley Press in 1942 to join the 10th Mountain Division as a training officer, fought in the Alps of Italy, earned the Bronze Star and then returned to UC. A fascinating man and the Archdruid of the title.
McPhee's and Brower's companions are men almost equally impressive and committed on the other side of the environmental spectrum.
The first is Charles Park a field geologist and Stanford mineral scientist who had explored the world in search of ore deposits. Together the three men backpack the Glacier Peak wilderness of the Washington Cascades which Brower wants to preserve and Park wants to extract as a source of copper.
The second is Charles Fraser an old money Georgian who developed Hilton Head Island with covenants strictly controlling the appearance and look of the island. Fraser has just purchased a large piece of Cumberland Island, an un-developed sea island in Southeast Georgia owned largely by the Carnegie family. Together the three camp and explore the island and discuss what this island can be in the future. Is it better to leave it as hard to access wilderness or to develop it in a protected fashion to open it up so others can have the experience.
The third is Floyd Dominy, director of the US Bureau of Reclamation whose signature project was the building of the Glen Canyon Dam and the forming of Lake Powell. The three explore Lake Powell and take a multi-day whitewater raft trip down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. Dominy wants to build another dam south of Grand Canyon to impound more water and generate more power.
In today's world you would feel Brower and these companions would never want to be in the same room together, much less share a raft, tent or canteen. McPhee lays out the viewpoints of all and concisely identifies what drives each of them. Park and Dominy come from environments where they believe that natural resources can be harvested responsibly against Browers viewpoint that we have lost so much of the world's wilderness that what remains should be protected so that future generations can experience it. These sections with Park and Dominy were the most interesting contrast of character.
Fraser feels the force of his will can steer the responsible development of any land, similar to the way it worked on Hilton Head. Fraser is not as linked to the outdoors as Dominy and Park, but his give and take with other old land owners on Cumberland is amusing.
The scorecard 50 years later. Glacier Peak was finally protected as a wilderness in 2010 by the Wild Sky Wilderness Act protecting it from mining. Dominy's plan for a Grand Canyon dam that would have flooded Havasupai Canyon was never brought to fruition. Fraser sold his interest in Cumberland Island and in 1972 it became a National Seashore with 9800 acres of protected wilderness. Brower's legacy won out. -
As timely today as when McPhee wrote it in 1971, "Encounters with the Archdruid" tells three environmental stories involving four men who are at once archetypes (a mineral engineer, a resort developer, a dam builder, and a militant conservationist) and, at the same time, real humans who are vividly portrayed by the author. While this may not be a book I would have picked up myself, I am glad my son-in-law, Ben, gave it to me to read. I can identify both with the naive young environmentalist I was in my 1970s college years as well as the Baby Boomer who continues to witness the ongoing battles between those who would bend the environment to do their will in the pursuit of the almighty dollar and those who seek to preserve our land for this and future generations. The essential rules of engagement have changed mightily in the 47 years since this book was published. However, respecting and maintaining our environment has become even more urgent and important. Kudos to McPhee for skillfully capturing a moment in time that continues to resonate profoundly today.
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McPhee is an extremely talented writer and in his (now classic) work of environmental literature he presents the issues with the complex analysis they deserve. No matter where one stands on the issues, this book is a good read. The WSJ review on the back of the book is wrong; this isn't about choosing sides, it's about understanding all of the ways the issue can be seen, the complex details and everyone's own contradictions. McPhee's well-crafted prose make reading this a breeze, so check it out!
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Complicated feelings about this. The first "encounter" struck me as a sort of masterwork in characterization and observation. The second also had its moments, but especially the third was less interesting, maybe because the book is full of so much nature porn that it starts to feel like padding. The problem could be the subject matter, because I'm quite impressed with McPhee as a writer but don't care much about nature or conservation. Going to try at least one more book of his sometime soon because I'm really impressed with the basics of what he's doing here.
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When I flipped to the last page and saw the gaping margin beneath the final paragraph, I was disappointed. This is a special book. Hard to say, but it could be my favorite of the long-form McPhee books.
This book is about conservation, preservation, development and Dave Brower. To read through his efforts on the Colorado, in the Cascades and elsewhere, then rush to the computer to see what's happened since is viscerally thrilling. Understanding the context and backstory of the Sierra Club, their efforts and squabbles through the lens of McPhee is delightful. This book has changed my travel plans. Read it. -
Wonderful profile of David Brower at the end of his split from leading the Sierra Club, three essays and adventures spent with him and a likely nemesis in the terrain: an advocate of mining Cascades Wilderness, of developing Cumberland Island, and of damming the Colorado and Grand Canyon. Fascinating for being an earlier era of conservation but still entirely recognizable arguments for access for people's needs vs saving the earth and humanity's dependence on a functioning ecosystem. Masterful journalistic project to record these titans on the land they are debating.
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Though dated, this collection of essays on conservation and controlled use of natural resources, presenting the arguments of various friends of his often while out in the field hiking or visiting, is still instructive and valuable today. It got a tad tedious, but I still followed along, and I have always enjoyed McPhee.
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John McPhee has a skill of making non-fiction read like fiction. Why read David Brower's wikipedia page when you can get through this book in three-four hours? And yes, Brower enjoyed being called the archdruid. Maybe I should find a cool nickname like that...
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McPhee has a masterful ability to make the seemingly mundane exciting.
