Bear River: Last Chance to Change Course

Preface

Preface When the eminent documentarian Sebastião Salgado was asked where he gets his ideas, he replied that he discovers the seeds of a new documentary in the one on which he is working. Such has been the evolution of this documentary on the Bear River. My earlier book, People of the West Desert, documented the lifestyles, hopes, and dreams of people living in the high desert of western Utah and eastern Nevada. In writing it, I learned how fundamental water is in their lives. So, about five years ago, when schemes to dam the Bear River and move the water to the Wasatch Front began to crop up in news stories, my antennae went up. I already had realized that water will be the primary political, social, and economic issue in the Intermountain West in the twenty-first century. Looking at how the river that carries that precious resource to its stakeholders is being used seemed to be a good way to talk about these critical issues. Being a fisher, I’ve always been attracted to rivers anyway, and like all fishers, I dream of finding “new” water, perhaps some undiscovered spot where I can cast a fly before the word gets out. Although I knew that the Bear wasn’t known for its fishing, I told myself, you never can be too sure. Some clever fisher might have started that fable to protect his or her favorite hole. So exploring the Bear seemed to be a good way to satisfy my river lust while also learning about a river that has played such a dramatic role in the development of northern Utah, western Wyoming, and southern Idaho. Planning a documentary, especially one that is such a “big” story—geographically spread out and complicated with knotted, emotional issues—takes some time. This documentary was supported in its initial stages by Faculty Fellow and sabbatical leaves from the University of Utah and a development grant from the College of Humanities. I spent the first year of the project doing fieldwork to get a general feel for the river, and then the next six months in various libraries working my way through scientific papers and books that talk ix Preface about the geology, hydrology, geomorphology, ecology, and history of the Bear River and its basin. That subject matter is woven into the first four chapters of this book. Then I spent weeks in the field in all seasons, trying to capture the features of the river and its surrounding environment photographically to provide the reader with the most accurate picture of the Bear possible in a necessarily limited amount of space. To get to some places, I backpacked. Other times, I paddled a canoe. But most of the vantage points are accessible by vehicle and short walks. In some instances, landowners graciously gave me permission to photograph from their property. Most times, however, the images were taken from viewpoints on public land. Sometimes, when I wanted to take a shot from a pivotal position, I decided against it because I didn’t know who owned the land. In just a few cases, it was pointed out that what I thought was public land was not, and I appreciate the tolerance those landowners gave me. One man with a Napoleonic complex couldn’t be swayed. Ownership of the Bear and its adjacent lands tends to be a complicated and fluid issue, as well as a philosophical problem. I photographed with a four-by-five-format field camera and a 35 mm camera. I used the first to capture important geographic features in the greatest detail possible, and the second for documenting the activities of people, who have a tendency to move faster than bulky photographic equipment can follow. I shot on both color and black-and-white film. The images in this book come from that black-and-white portfolio. We’ve been able to print them as double-dot black duotones thanks to a grant from the Willard L. Eccles Charitable Foundation, for which I’m eternally grateful. The color images are the crux of the accompanying photographic exhibit. The book would have been incomplete, however, without including the human side of the story. While I was doing initial research, several names cropped up repeatedly, people who have a pivotal role in the way the Bear River is used. Or I stumbled across people who represent the interests of groups who also have had a long relationship with the river, even...