Outdoor Conservation Book Club discussion

Apologies for the late post, but I was traveling! Anyway I picked this book because I have an obsession with the Mississippi River. I grew up and have spent nearly my entire life on land built by the Mighty Mississippi. Someone once asked me, on the banks of the St Croix River, what river felt like "mine", and I said the Mississippi. I think that person thought I was being uncreative, but I honestly do feel like my entire life has been shaped by this river. In fact even while answering that question, the St Croix River was flowing towards the Mississippi and on towards my home. So it was a given I'd probably pick this book at some point. So let's read it!

This book was a finalist for the 2024 Willie Morris Award for Southern Nonfiction and is about the history of the Mississippi River. From Google Books: "In this landmark work of natural history, Boyce Upholt tells the epic story of this wild and unruly river, and the centuries of efforts to control it. Over thousands of years, the Mississippi watershed was home to millions of Indigenous people who regarded “the great river” with awe and respect, adorning its banks with astonishing spiritual earthworks. The river was ever-changing, and Indigenous tribes embraced and even depended on its regular flooding. But the expanse of the watershed and the rich soils of its floodplain lured European settlers and American pioneers, who had a different vision: the river was a foe to conquer.

Centuries of human attempts to own, contain, and rework the Mississippi River, from Thomas Jefferson’s expansionist land hunger through today’s era of environmental concern, have now transformed its landscape. Upholt reveals how an ambitious and sometimes contentious program of engineering—government-built levees, jetties, dikes, and dams—has not only damaged once-vibrant ecosystems but may not work much longer. Carrying readers along the river’s last remaining backchannels, he explores how scientists are now hoping to restore what has been lost."

Happy reading!