Fedarko delivers a wild story in the heart of the Grand Canyon
Some stories edify both the mind and soul. This is one of those books and it’s known from the opening:
“On any given evening in summer, but most notably in late June, there comes a moment just after the sun has disappeared behind the rimrock, and just before the darkness has tumbled down the walls, when the bottom of the Grand Canyon gives itself over to a moment of muted grace that feels something like an act of atonement for the sins of the world. This is the fleeting interregnum between the blast-furnace heat of the day and the star-draped immensity of the night, and when it arrives, the bedrock bathes in a special kind of light, the pink-and-orange blush of a freshly opened nectarine. This is also the canyon’s loveliest hour, when there is nothing sweeter, nothing more calming to the soul, than standing along the shallows at the edge of the Colorado River and breathing in the wonder of the place. The ramparts rising nakedly for more than a vertical mile above. The locomotive-size slabs that have peeled away from the terraced cliffs and shattered to pieces far below. And most bewitching of all, the muscular, sluicing, glimmer-gilded surface of the great river itself.”
These introductory lines tell us all we need to know to keep reading. In them we see a love of the Grand Canyon, reverence for the Colorado River, and the setting where the action will commence. It’s also evident, the story will be a human story because only people can appreciate the beauty Fedarko describes.
A Classic Tale
The spine of The Emerald Mile is classic: Young men seeking adventure. Fedarko’s nuance is weaving together many disciplines to tell the tale. His book boasts poetic lyrics, scientific explanation, conservationism, physics, and history. The spokes of the tale are the men who drive dories down the Colorado River. They are purest, preferring wooden boats, no shoes, and sleeping under the stars. Much like Peter Pan, the dorymen never grow up. They do, however serve duel purposes: guarding the river and remaining honest to their own integrities.
As the river guides and dorymen navigate visitors down the Colorado River they pursue a pure, naturalistic, and honest reverence for the Grand Canyon. They are comfortable in a state of nature, away from rules, people, and anyone who might impede their fun. The Grand Canyon and the Colorado River are their neverland. Without them, the world would make less sense. These young spirits remind us of unadulterated passion and it’s healthy to spend time with the lost boys, or river guides, from time to time.
Before arriving at the great adventure, Fedarko swiftly explains how the West was discovered. The prodigious John Powell first navigated the Colorado from top to sound. The story then flows forward to the magnificent engineering of the Glenn Canyon Dam and Lake Powell – and all the surrounding controversies.
Glenn Canyon sparked the first environmentalist movement, setting up a show down over the proposed Grand Canyon dam. Because of the organization of the environmental groups, they successfully quashed the effort to dam America’s treasured Grand Canyon.
Though Fedarko clearly sides with the environmentalist, he demonstrates balance and appreciation of the engineering feats and utility of the Glenn Canyon Dam. He’s a naturalist, demonstrating how obtuse and sad it is to alter a mighty river like the Colorado. Trying to tame it is a travesty, like declawing a lion and forcing him back onto the Kenyan savannahs. He sees the beauty of the river and mourns its perversion.
Notwithstanding, Fedarko finds human beauty in the mystic chords of nature. At its heart, The Emerald Mile is “The epic story of the fastest ride in history through the heart of the Grand Canyon.”
The Story Itself
In 1983 the Colorado River flooded because of massive snowfall upriver. Three young men used the dangerously fast river speed to set the record. They didn’t use one of the artificial rubber dinghy’s or massive life raft, instead they did it in a wooden dory. At the same time, the Glenn Canyon Dam nearly burst, which would have caused a massive disaster. Down river, the dorymen sailed down the Colorado, despite orders from law enforcement ordering everyone off the river.
At 11pm in June 1983, the river guides let rip a dory called the Emerald Mile. For the next 277 miles they slung around rocks and through rapids. They suffered injury, a crash, and adversity steering though the night, the entire next day, and though a second night.
Three Lessons emerge from The Emerald Mile:
1) You can’t tame nature without massive consequences – the river or the young men;
2) Once nature or values are destroyed, there is no going back, and
3) From time to time a test of strength is necessary for a healthy existence.
The story is great because it takes place in the United States of America, a place where these values remain as mighty as the Colorado River.
Fedarko concludes: the dory captains understand that the Colorado River running through the Grand Canyon serves as a metaphor, too complex for words, but known thoroughly by the dorymen. He continues, “Those dory captains know other things, too. They know that the canyon and her dories embody an elusive riddle. It is a paradox rooted in the dream that many of us share of immersing ourselves so deeply, so inextricably, into a pocket of landscape, or a stretch of river – anything that seems to embody the wilderness we have lost – that we may somehow take possession of those places and make them ours. Yet the truth, like an eddy, runs in the opposite direction. In the end, it is they that claim us. And we who belong to them.”
He might declare himself an unbeliever, but it’s not evident in his work. The book Fedarko wrote is clearly about God’s beautiful creations, the spirit of young men, and the power of divinely inspired moments. The book itself describes our Creator’s work and how he often uses the most unlikely people to help preserve it.
