Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon

In this marvelous history, science journalist Sevigny (Mythical River) recounts the 43-day rowboat trip down the Colorado River undertaken by University of Michigan botanist Elzada Clover and her mentee Lois Jotter during the summer of 1938. Sevigny details how the duo successfully catalogued the flora of the Grand Canyon while enduring raging rapids, “stomach-somersaulting drops, and standing waves big enough to swallow a boat whole,” but her focus is on how Clover and Jotter refuted sexist assumptions about the role of women in science. Though historically botany had been deemed too feminine for men, Clover and Jotter undertook their expedition at a time when male scientists were becoming increasingly involved in the field and began excluding women (a well-known adventurer remarked, “Women... do not belong in the Canyon of the Colorado”). Sevigny also weaves in stimulating trivia on the natural history of the Grand Canyon, including explanations of the geological forces behind its formation and National Park Service efforts to repopulate native animals in the region. Drawing on Clover and Jotter’s journals and letters, Sevigny recreates their expedition in novelistic detail, producing a narrative as propulsive as the current of the Colorado. Readers will be swept away. Photos. (May)