Confluence: Navigating the Personal & Political on Rivers of the New West

by Zak Podmore

"Podmore's essays resemble Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau with an extra dose of social, racial and political analysis."
— ARIZONA DAILY SUN

In the wake of his river–running mother's death, Zak Podmore explores the healing power of wild places through a lens of grief and regeneration. Visceral, first–person narratives include a canoe crossing of the Colorado River delta during a rare release of water, a kayak sprint down a flash–flooding Little Colorado River, and a packraft trip on the Elwha River in Washington through the largest dam removal project in history.

Award–winning journalist and film producer ZAK PODMORE covers conservation issues, outdoor sports, and Utah politics. He is a Report for America fellow at the Salt Lake Tribune and editor–at–large for Canoe & Kayak magazine. His work appears in Outside , High Country News , Four Corners Free Press , and the Huffington Post . He lives in Bluff, Utah.

Genres: Memoir

220 pages, Paperback

Published October 29, 2019

Reviews

[Emma Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s giving ~introspective bro~ at times, but dang I liked it. Themes of grief and healing, life and loss, belonging and ownership, and what we owe to the world and each other.

[Gina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely, evocative, thoughtful nature writing and reflections. I especially loved the holding one of the Patron Saints of such writing, Edward Abbey, to account for his views on immigration. This book held its own next to other western river books that I've read recently - Where the Water Goes, and A Line Becomes a River - but with its own voice and adventures and human perspective.

[Sarah Zucca · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book wasn’t quite what I expected, however, I wasn’t totally sure what to expect in the first place. I knew it would be about the rivers of the west and how they’re threatened. I had a feeling it would involve rafting (confirmed by the cover synopsis). I didn’t know it would be a deep philosophical journey to experience it. It wasn’t about the facts of the threatened rivers. It wasn’t an in-depth take on the fight for the rivers. It was about experiences on the rivers, in argument for their protection.

I definitely was most interested in the anecdote about the southern US border, the desert crossing and interactions with the caballeros, and then also about the dam near the Elwha. I learned some things and it reinvigorated my spirit to fight for what is just in those areas.

Lots of powerful musings about the importance of deep thought when interacting with the wild. It’s an extension of ourselves. We must take care of it to keep the intimacy.

Possible trigger warning - cancer related death

[Tonstant Weader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Confluence: Navigating the Personal & Political on Rivers of the New West is a collection of six essays by Zac Podmore that brilliantly connect the rivers he traverses to his own life and the political and social issues that plague us today.

In “Home Sometime Tomorrow” he describes the conflict of values over a uranium mill near the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation, the constant conflict of jobs vs. environment. Cancer is far more common than it should be, but as one cancer survivor on the side of the mill and its jobs put it in a public meeting, “You can learn a lot from cancer, she says. We shouldn’t be afraid of cancer, she says. Cancer can be a good thing.” This is essay is the most personal as Podmore talks about the his mother’s death from cancer, one that you cannot help but believe is the result of the poisoned river waters.

“The Delta” describes the economics of water, how if it is not used, it is “wasted.” We dam the Colorado at the border, blocking any water from flowing into Mexico, being wasted, but in 2014 there was a release, a “pulse flow” that allowed water through and he and friends attempted to paddle that flow, the Colorado to the sea. He considers Bastaille’s idea of excess and waste and water economies.

“The Confluence” is about his paddling trip down the Lttle Colorado to the Colorado and how difficulty and inaccessibility make places bulwarks against the globalized world culture. In “The Rio” he talks about immigration and paddling the river talking to lawyers, journalists and activists and considers Charles Bowden and Edward Abbey, in particular Abbey’s racist anti-immigrant stance that has had an unfortunate influence on some parts of the environmental movement. “The Dam” celebrates the removal of a dam in the Olympic Peninsula, restoring a river and salmon population. “Feathers” is a short consideration of life, death, and what matters and his encounters with birds who make him think of his mother and his father’s idea that a heron is her visiting them. It is a lovely reminder that we are not the center of the universe.



I absolutely loved Confluence from start to finish. It is a short book and covers a lot of ground – I guess I should say it covers a lot of water. The writing is beautiful. I love the way he brings in philosophers from Bataille to Arendt to Thoreau and many others. He summarizes them well and evaluates their relevance to the issues brought forward by the river he travels. He describes the places he travels with the kind of specificity and immediacy that makes you see and feel it your head. The sense of time and place is wonderful.

I encourage everyone to read it. He talks about important issues without becoming polemic. He can understand and empathize with people he disagrees with. This is a rare skill in today’s polarized world. He has no desire to polarize but rather bring people together in a sort of confluence.

I received an e-galley of Confluence from the publisher through Edelweiss.

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[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author is a white-water kayaker and journeys down the San Juan (Arizona) and Elwha (Washington) Rivers from their sources while diving into philosophical questions about man's negative impacts on the environment and attempts to correct them. He kayaks the San Juan after a flash flood, and the Elwha after the dam on that river has been removed. Confluence explores man's relationship to the natural world and our utilitarian attitude that finds its final conclusion in something like all the water being removed from the Colorado river for human consumption and agriculture. In the chapter, Rio, Zak Podmore and a few friends travel to the end of the Colorado River after the U.S. and Mexico agreed to release a small amount of water to flow to the Pacific. The impact of this release of water, nowhere near to a restoration of the wetlands, sees the return of some wildlife, fish and birds, and their habitat. There is no guarantee that this is going to continue.
As the author points out, humans' destructive impact on the natural world, without a drastic change of course, threatens our very existence. While Zak Podmore does not even try to make up a prescription for hope, there is hope here, in the beauty of nature and finding our place in it.
Another element of the book is the author's personal journey after the early death of his mom. It is the course of nature and life itself that brings meaning and hope. This is a wonderful treasure of a book.

[David Meyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book of grace, passion, and the American West. The stories of adventure, landscape, grief, and fierce love for the land are moving. The language is evocative and imbued with a depth that bores down to the essence of humanity in the way the Colorado River bored through the sandstone and limestone layers to make the Grand Canyon. Podmore's ability to erode the layers of artifice that overlay our modern world and expose the beauty and vitality that lie underneath is remarkable and refreshing. His words remind me of the best passages from Edward Abbey minus the cynicism and bitterness. When the time to travel it inspires me to go seek desert wisdom by logging the miles, getting the blisters, and filtering the sand from the soup with my teeth. Do yourself a favor and read this book.

[Wayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book 19 of 2020: Confluence by Zak Podmore

This book is a collections of well-written and thoughtful essays of river trips completed by the author. Each essay frames a specific topic such as uranium mining at the Grand Canyon, the now (hopefully forever) defunct plan for a tramway to the confluence of the Little Colorado, immigration, and the removal of dams.

Interspersed among the essays is the story of the author's life, his love of Utah, and the mourning of his mother, killed by cancer. I found the introduction of various philosophers and their viewpoints to be interesting. I don't read a lot of philosophy, but this work makes me think I should, in order to round out my scientific training to a more complete worldview.

[Tami · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author takes us on a spiritual journey down rivers, through red rock country and through the impacts of losing his mother at a young age to cancer. Living in the same part of the country, I could easily visualize the places he describes and see the faces of the native Americans. I was fascinated by his trips down the Colorado River and the risks he took to touch places that were only available under certain circumstances. And, I learned so much about the impact of uranium mining in southern Utah. Because he tied together a series of previously written essays, it was a little disjointed, but the journey was definitely worth it.

[Mia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zak Podmore is the Edward Abbey of the twenty-first century. He combines his love of the west, particularly those rivers that flow through arid land, with his passion for conservation of the waters and the peoples who historically depended on the rivers. He visits many parts of the west despoiled by extractive industry. The water is so contaminated as to be unusable, even dangerous to the peoples. In other sections of the book, he acknowledges that he uses the his river travels as a way of being close again to his mother, who died at the age of fifty two after a lifetime of traveling the river. All in all this collection of essays is memorable.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Received this book as a thank-you for donating to The Salt Lake Tribune. A lively, well-written collection of essays about a variety of issues impacting the American West. I enjoyed how author Zak Podmore weaves personal experiences and philosophical musings as foundations for larger political discussions. He painted a beautiful (if sometimes depressing and frustrating) picture of life in the West where water is becoming, if not already, the region's most precious resource/commodity.

[Danielle Service · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zak is a friend. I cannot emphasize enough how moving it was to see this in finished form; I read some of these essays at their inception, but they've grown into carefully polished works of art. If you love the West the way I do, this book is a must-read. It will give you insight and food for thought.

[Arius · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven't meaningfully revisited my eco-despair in 15 years, and this was the best possible way to revisit and reflect and update context for our decade. The sort of book I'm going to buy a stack of and irritatingly gift to everyone. I'm markedly less outdoorsy than Podmore but each one of his perspectives hit home.

[Peter Pierson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant. Beautiful. 'Simple as that. Trying to put my words into some form of review would seem condescending to richness of words and imagery and ideas wonderfully squeezed into the 148 pages of this.
Well done, Zak Podmore—and Torrey House Press for seeing value in this little volume
This—warrants attention on so many levels.

[Angelica Cronin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. It felt like a disjointed effort to tell a story. I enjoyed the incorporation of traditional philosophy, but felt like much of this story has already been told by better writers. I wasn't sure if it was trying to be a memoir or political/nature text. All important content, though, so I'll give it 3 stars.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great writing by Zak Podmore who is the sort of guy that carries Heidigger in his backpack. Ed Abbey and Charles Bowden make an appearance in the chapter about the Rio Grande.

[Carol Dix · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting voice out of Bluff. Related strongly to river stories and musings, less so to the political - but the perspective mostly aligns with my own.

[Caleb · Rating 5 out of 5]

I devoured this.

I only wish there were more essays, but I'm sure I'll revisit them plenty.

[Rae]

Water politics. Death of a parent. Immigration. River running. Artificial intelligence.

[Mindy]

A wonderful navigation of local political and personal matters. I highly recommend for the ecocritical messages and sacred reverence for Utah landscapes.

[Fletcher Lucas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short but sweet. The interweaving of river trips, western American politics, and his own life with his mom was told in a beautiful way. Can’t wait to see what Zak Podmore writes next.

[Joseph Koffel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely beautiful

[Mike Worley · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars

[Crystal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lyrically written, beautiful

[William Graney · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is brief in length, but highly concentrated in it's content. All of the topics the author writes about are of interest to me and the way he presents them are professional and well thought out. What I liked the most was the philosophical nature of the writing and the way he refrained from being harsh in his judgments. He has an environmentalists' perspective, but it reflects well on him that he considers other points of view.

[Corey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, thought provoking, a must read.