Dry River
Stories of Life, Death, and Redemption on the Santa Cruz
The University of Arizona Press
Poet and writer Alison Deming once noted, “In the desert, one finds the way by tracing the aftermath of water . . . ”
Here, Ken Lamberton finds his way through a lifetime of exploring southern Arizona’s Santa Cruz River. This river—dry, still, and silent one moment, a thundering torrent of mud the next—serves as a reflection of the desert around it: a hint of water on parched sand, a path to redemption across a thirsty landscape.
With his latest book, Lamberton takes us on a trek across the land of three nations—the United States, Mexico, and the Tohono O’odham Nation—as he hikes the river’s path from its source and introduces us to people who draw identity from the river—dedicated professionals, hardworking locals, and the author’s own family. These people each have their own stories of the river and its effect on their lives, and their narratives add immeasurable richness and depth to Lamberton’s own astute observations and picturesque descriptions.
Unlike books that detail only the Santa Cruz’s decline, Dry River offers a more balanced, at times even optimistic, view of the river that ignites hope for reclamation and offers a call to action rather than indulging in despair and resignation. At once a fascinating cultural history lesson and an important reminder that learning from the past can help us fix what we have damaged, Dry River is both a story about the amazing complexity of this troubled desert waterway and a celebration of one man’s lifelong journey with the people and places touched by it.
Here, Ken Lamberton finds his way through a lifetime of exploring southern Arizona’s Santa Cruz River. This river—dry, still, and silent one moment, a thundering torrent of mud the next—serves as a reflection of the desert around it: a hint of water on parched sand, a path to redemption across a thirsty landscape.
With his latest book, Lamberton takes us on a trek across the land of three nations—the United States, Mexico, and the Tohono O’odham Nation—as he hikes the river’s path from its source and introduces us to people who draw identity from the river—dedicated professionals, hardworking locals, and the author’s own family. These people each have their own stories of the river and its effect on their lives, and their narratives add immeasurable richness and depth to Lamberton’s own astute observations and picturesque descriptions.
Unlike books that detail only the Santa Cruz’s decline, Dry River offers a more balanced, at times even optimistic, view of the river that ignites hope for reclamation and offers a call to action rather than indulging in despair and resignation. At once a fascinating cultural history lesson and an important reminder that learning from the past can help us fix what we have damaged, Dry River is both a story about the amazing complexity of this troubled desert waterway and a celebration of one man’s lifelong journey with the people and places touched by it.
Historically, culturally, ecologically, and aesthetically, Dry River records the river’s metamorphoses in order to reconstruct five hundred years of geological and social change. With scholarly expertise artfully enlivened by his five super-keen senses and much literary skill, Lamberton has produced a southwestern environmental classic.’—Harold Fromm, author of The Nature of Being Human: From Environmentalism to Consciousness
‘Time is, of course, a river. So as Ken Lamberton walks the two-hundred-mile length of the Santa Cruz River near Tucson, he travels also through the long histories of the people who sank their roots in the sandy washes. Lamberton is an amiable and well-informed guide, and the territory he covers is fascinating.’—Kathleen Dean Moore, author of Wild Comfort
‘In this eloquent riparian love story, all things ultimately flow together: past and present and future, family and place, struggle and hope, and even earthly exploration and the search for signs of life on Mars. Taking stock of his life in the Santa Cruz watershed and stalking the passionate history and subtle natural patterns of this (often) dry river, Ken Lamberton warmly embraces his amazing family and the extraordinary desert characters, human and otherwise, of southern Arizona and northern Mexico. This is a compelling work of hope and celebration.’—Scott Slovic, editor of ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment
The narrative is delightful, and is told as the author walks sections of the Santa Cruz River, from its headwaters to its confluence more than 200 miles away. Often it is a wife
or daughter who drops him off or picks him up from his journey or accompanies him. The poetry of the page is matched by the humanity of the author's story.'—Electronic Green Journal
'A literary act of river restoration.'—High Country News
Ken Lamberton has written extensively about the desert Southwest, including Wilderness and Razor Wire, for which he won the 2002 John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing, and Time of Grace: Thoughts on Nature, Family, and the Politics of Crime and Punishment, also published by the University of Arizona Press. He lives with his wife in an 1890s stone cottage near Bisbee, Arizona.
List of Illustrations
1 A River Once More
2 Sources: The San Rafael Reach
3 Mexican Water: The Sonoran Reach
4 Border Crossings: The Kino Springs Reach
5 A River That Is: The Tumacácori Reach
6 A River Underground: The Continental Reach
7 Native Water: The San Xavier Reach
8 New Rivers and Watering Holes: The Tucson Reach
9 Confluences
Acknowledgments
Timeline
Selected Bibliography
Index
Related Titles
Renewing Our Rivers
Stream Corridor Restoration in Dryland Regions
Edited by Mark K. Briggs and Waite R. Osterkamp
The Sonoran Desert
A Literary Field Guide
Edited by Eric Magrane and Christopher Cokinos; Illustrated by Paul Mirocha
Requiem for the Santa Cruz
An Environmental History of an Arizona River
By Robert H. Webb, Julio L. Betancourt, R. Roy Johnson, and Raymond M. Turner; Foreword by Bernard L. Fontana
