I’m reading John McPhee’s 1971 Encounters with the Archdruid for the first time, though it’s been on my bookshelf for longer than I care to admit. McPhee writes about conservationist David Brower as he meets three opponents, including Floyd Dominy, head of the Bureau of Reclamation in the 1960′s. McPhee, Brower, and Dominy go down the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon on the same raft.
They refer to a 7″ X 50′ scroll map of the Colorado that labels the rapids and who died in them. I found a citation through an essay by Richard D. Quartaroli, “Evolution of the Printed Colorado River Guide in Grand Canyon, Arizona.” It turns out the scroll map is Grand Canyon by Leslie Allen “Les” Jones, who created several other such river scroll maps. WorldCat indicates that a copy of the map is held at the University of Utah.
Earlier in the book, Dominy shows McPhee a Bureau of Reclamation film designed to promote dams in the West, Lake Powell: Jewel of the Colorado. This video is available through the Open Video Project at the University of North Carolina.
