Water on the Plateau (Plateau Magazine, Vol 53/3)

The meaning of water and how it affects the Colorado Plateau region are explained in this issue. "Water Warnings, Water Futures" by Wallace Stegner, Everywhere, water is life, but in the deserts it is also economics, aesthetics, politics, and religion. It is the visible shaper of desert landforms and the invisible shaper of desert civilizations. "Resources: Bargaining for Time" by Russell Martin Water availability permeates every facet of human existence on the high plateaus and bitter deserts. "Cycles: Water and the Land with photographs" by Chris Brown and text by Stephen Trimble A single fact explains much of the landscape of the Colorado Plateau: when water freezes, it expands in volume by a fraction of a percent. Water at its most innocuous is the power behind the plateau's personality. "Journeys: There Is Only One River. A Boatman's Lessons" by Larry Stevens Any boatman will tell you the river keeps you humble, but boatmen are an arrogant, pretentious lot. The humility they speak of is not subservience to their fellows; rather, it is an abiding acceptance of our meek and ephemeral relationship to the larger forces of nature. "Into the Earth" by Barry Lopez This article is excerpted from "Into the Earth: A Journey for the soul" which appeared in Notre Dame Magazine, May 1981.