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That's body with an i.com. Again, B-O-D-i.com. Hello

1:12

everyone and welcome to Talk

1:14

Nerdy. Today is Monday, December

1:17

18th, 2023.

1:20

And I'm the host of the show, Cara Santa

1:22

Maria. Now, this is the last show

1:24

of 2023. We always

1:26

go on hiatus for two weeks. So we

1:28

will be back on January 8th, 2024 with

1:31

a brand new episode. Before

1:36

we dive into this week's content, I

1:38

do want to thank those of you

1:40

who make Talk Nerdy possible. Remember,

1:42

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you all so, so, so much from the bottom

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of my heart. I hope that you all have

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a wonderful holiday, and I'm just so grateful for

2:35

all of the support over all the years. All

2:39

right, let's get into this week's episode.

2:42

So this week I have the opportunity

2:44

to speak with Melissa Sivony. She

2:47

is a science journalist at

2:49

KNAU, which is Arizona Public

2:52

Radio. She's

2:54

worked across different fields like water

2:56

policy, sustainable agriculture, and space exploration.

2:59

She's written two previous books, and

3:01

she has a new book out

3:03

now called Brave the Wild River,

3:05

the untold story of two women

3:07

who mapped the botany of the

3:09

Grand Canyon. So without any

3:12

further ado, here she is, Melissa

3:14

L. Sivony. Well,

3:17

Melissa, thank you so much for joining me

3:20

today. Thanks for having me. It's great to

3:22

be here. So I'm really excited to

3:24

talk about your newest book, but before

3:26

we dive into this really interesting story,

3:28

I would love to kind of just

3:30

know a little bit more about you.

3:32

So you're a science journalist. You work

3:34

for Public Radio. Have you always been

3:36

in broadcast? Has that always been sort of

3:39

your outlet? No, not at all. This

3:41

was an unexpected twist in my career path. I

3:45

had no intention of being a journalist, and

3:47

I actually didn't really have any formal

3:50

journalism training when I took up this job.

3:52

So, yeah. Did

3:55

you come from the sciences? What kind of

3:57

was your way in? I did, yeah.

4:00

I always wanted to be a scientist. When I was a

4:02

little girl, I wanted to be a geologist. I

4:04

grew up in Tucson, Arizona, and spent

4:07

my childhood running wild in the Sonoran

4:10

Desert and just really connecting

4:12

with the rocks and the plants and

4:14

the animals. And that

4:16

was my trajectory. That was my

4:19

plan was to be in the

4:21

sciences. And when I

4:23

got to the University of Arizona for

4:25

my undergraduate degree, I enrolled

4:28

in environmental science, which I figured would

4:30

be geology with some plants and animals thrown

4:32

in. You know? And

4:35

that was really my path. I was headed

4:37

down that path of being a research scientist.

4:40

And I still, to this day, am

4:42

not exactly sure what happened. But I

4:44

started taking creative writing classes kind of

4:46

on the side. Every

4:48

semester, I would just throw in a

4:50

class in poetry or fiction. And

4:54

it was a part of my brain that just

4:56

wanted, my brain wanted

4:58

that, like the writing side as well. And

5:00

so I ended up with a double degree

5:02

in environmental science and creative writing. And

5:04

it was a weird mix because the environmental

5:07

science degree at the University of Arizona

5:09

was pretty hardcore. I was taking organic

5:11

chemistry and analytical chemistry alongside

5:14

these poetry classes. And

5:16

I didn't really know what to do with

5:18

that mix when I graduated. And

5:21

I applied to a bunch of different schools that

5:23

had kind of programs that felt like

5:25

they would let me do both of

5:27

those things. So some of them were

5:29

science programs, and some of them were

5:31

journalism programs. And the one

5:33

that shook out that actually had full

5:35

funding was a creative writing program

5:38

with a focus in environmental writing.

5:41

So that was not my intention. I had no intention

5:43

of going off and getting an MFA in creative writing.

5:45

But that's just kind of where my path led me.

5:48

So I spent three years at Iowa

5:50

State University getting that environmental writing degree.

5:53

And then I graduated again. And again,

5:55

had no clear path of

5:57

what I was going to do with this very odd mix of

5:59

skills. skills, and I floundered

6:02

around in confusion for quite a while. And

6:05

then this job came up for a science

6:08

journalist at the NPR station in

6:10

Flagstaff, Arizona. And I

6:12

really wanted to come home to Arizona. I was, you

6:14

know, homesick and ready to come back to my mountains

6:16

and my desert. And

6:18

so I applied kind of on a whim. I did

6:20

not have these skills they were asking for in

6:24

journalism or broadcast. And

6:26

I think I waited to the very last day to

6:28

apply, and I got the job. And

6:30

so eight years later, I've been doing science

6:33

journalism for broadcast all that time. That's

6:35

incredible. So I'm curious, you know, the books

6:37

that you've written, you've written two books before

6:40

this new one that we're going to be

6:42

discussing. Were they at

6:44

least the first book Under Desert Skies,

6:47

was that part of your creative writing

6:49

program or did you write it after

6:51

you finished your degree? The

6:54

first book Under Desert Skies, I actually wrote

6:56

primarily during my undergraduate degree. I was in my early

6:58

20s. Wow.

7:00

Yeah, it was kind of a weird, you know, one

7:02

of the things that happened to me that I guess

7:05

shaped my career path was I applied

7:07

for the Space Grant Program, which is

7:10

an internship program for undergraduates. And

7:13

most of the students who apply and

7:15

get into that program are assigned tasks

7:17

that are very science focused. And

7:20

I guess because I had this weird

7:22

mix of science and writing classes, I

7:24

got assigned the job

7:27

of interviewing what they

7:29

called the old timers at the Lunar

7:31

and Planetary Laboratory in Tucson. So

7:33

the scientists who had been around in the 60s

7:35

during the Apollo era and the

7:37

director of the department wanted me to kind of

7:39

capture their memories and save them.

7:42

And so I dived into that

7:44

project. And at the end of the

7:46

year, I went to the director, his name was Mike Drake,

7:48

and I said, I don't think I'm done with this. I

7:50

want to keep doing this. And so he hired me again

7:52

and again. And I did that for about four

7:55

years during my undergraduate degree, collecting

7:57

these oral histories. And that turned into

7:59

my first. book Under Desert Skies. And so

8:01

that was one of those key moments.

8:04

You know, it was just chance that I got to

8:06

sign that project. But

8:08

it moved me towards being a

8:10

science communicator rather than being a

8:12

scientist. That's incredible. And

8:14

then moving on from there, your

8:16

second book, Mythical River, does have

8:19

more of that sort of personal

8:22

memoir quality to it. So is

8:24

that really you coming home? Yeah,

8:28

you can, well, you can kind of see

8:30

the influence of my, my creative writing graduate

8:32

degree. I wrote that during grad school, it

8:34

was my thesis project for my three year

8:36

MFA program. And yeah,

8:38

that's more, more personal, more memoir, because that

8:40

was the kind of writing that I was really learning

8:43

how to do in that program. And

8:45

so, you know, you kind of see

8:47

this wandering path I took through my

8:49

books, exploring kind of journalism and creative

8:52

writing and memoir writing and mixing science

8:54

into all of that. And I think

8:56

it's really with this third book that I

8:58

kind of hit my stride and, and found

9:00

my voice. Yeah, so

9:03

talk, let's talk a little bit about

9:05

that. So the book is called Brave

9:07

the Wild River, the untold story of

9:09

two women who mapped the botany of

9:12

the Grand Canyon. What brought

9:14

you to this topic? Let's start there.

9:18

Again an accident. I'm sounding like I

9:21

just everything happens to me completely by

9:23

chance. Wandering around bumping into it. No,

9:25

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I think this

9:29

is important to know though. But you know, sometimes young

9:31

people think they need to know what their career

9:33

path is. And I certainly didn't. But it took

9:35

me in wonderful and beautiful places. So it all

9:37

worked out. Yeah, so

9:39

I was I was working on a

9:41

totally different project, and

9:44

did not really have a lot of time, you know, I

9:46

have a full time job. So I kind of write on

9:49

the side on the weekends for fun, I

9:51

guess this is terrible. My career is writing

9:53

and my hobby is also writing. I

9:56

sound really boring. But that's how

9:58

it works out. So I

10:00

ran across their names by chance. I was looking for

10:02

something else. It was in 2018. I

10:05

was fishing around. I think I

10:07

was trying to find stories about the Grand

10:09

Canyon for Grand Canyon National Parks Centennial Year,

10:11

which was in 2019. So

10:14

it was like fishing around, looking for things online.

10:17

And this hyperlink popped up

10:19

that said, Women Botanists. I

10:22

was curious, so I clicked on it. And

10:25

this record popped up of

10:27

this archive that's here in

10:29

Flagstaff at Northern Arizona University.

10:32

And it's the collected papers of Lois

10:34

Jotter. And I

10:36

read the description and I learned that

10:38

Lois Jotter ran the Colorado

10:40

River in 1938 with

10:42

her mentor, Elzeta Clover. They

10:45

were both botanists. They made the first

10:47

formal collection of botany in this

10:49

region. And I

10:52

had never heard of them before. And

10:54

I was shocked. Why hadn't I heard

10:56

of them before? I've lived in

10:58

Arizona all my life and I thought I knew

11:00

quite a bit about its history, particularly its

11:02

history intersecting with the Colorado River and

11:04

with science. And yet their names

11:06

had never come on my radar. And so

11:09

I was curious and I kind of fished around

11:11

looking for more information about them. And

11:13

there really wasn't a lot out there. There were a few

11:16

things, but specifically there wasn't really

11:18

anything about the botany that they did. So

11:21

it kind of nested in the

11:23

back of my mind, I

11:26

should write something about these women. But I

11:28

meant I put it off. I

11:31

didn't start working on it because I was busy with other

11:33

things. And then around Christmas time

11:35

that year, I went into

11:37

the Special Collections Department at Northern

11:40

Arizona University to see an

11:42

exhibit of photographs that they had put up.

11:45

And there was a photo on the wall of

11:47

these two women, Elzeta Clover and Lois Jotter. And

11:50

Lois is like looking straight at the camera, you know,

11:52

and I'm standing there looking at her. I

11:55

fancy she's got like this accusing glare, like

11:58

she's looking at me, right? I'm

12:00

standing there looking at it and the curator of

12:02

the exhibit walks by and I say to him,

12:04

I've been thinking I should write something about these

12:06

women. He tells me to

12:08

wait and he disappears into the archives and

12:11

he comes back out with a cardboard box and

12:13

he takes out all this bright pink bubble wrap

12:15

that's in the box and inside the box

12:18

is Lois Schatter's hat. Oh

12:20

wow. It's

12:22

the hat that she wore in her 1938 expedition. It's

12:25

actually kind of a helmet. It's like very stiff

12:28

material to protect her head because

12:30

this was considered an incredibly risky

12:32

dangerous thing to do. So they wore helmets on

12:34

their river trip and it

12:37

just became all very real to me in

12:39

that moment like they became real people and

12:42

I started writing that day in the library. I

12:44

went and sat at the first table I came

12:47

to and I started making notes and then

12:50

yes, about five years later, four

12:52

and a half years later, I turned into this book,

12:54

Brave the Wild River. Oh,

12:56

it's incredible. So tell me a

12:58

little bit about the characters, right?

13:01

About, how do you say it? Elzada?

13:05

Elzada. Elzada and Lois. 1938,

13:09

were they, so they're botanists, but

13:11

were they formally botanists? Were they

13:14

trained or were they unable

13:17

to get degrees in their field? They

13:19

were formally trained, which was incredibly

13:21

unusual in the 1930s for a woman to get a PhD

13:25

in anything, let

13:27

alone in the sciences. So Elzada

13:29

Clover just had

13:31

her PhD in botany from the University of

13:33

Michigan. Lois Jutter was working on

13:36

hers. She had her master's and

13:38

was working on her PhD. And

13:41

that alone made them unusual and

13:43

was probably the first thing that made me

13:45

think they've got a story that needs to be

13:47

told. They were both quite

13:49

different from each other. Elzada Clover was the older

13:51

of the two. She was about 41 at the

13:53

time of this river trip. She

13:55

was a bit of a daredevil. She

13:58

Had an adventurous spirit. The

14:00

issue was obsessed with plants to

14:02

really the exclusion of. Everything else.

14:04

She did not want to get married

14:06

or have children or do any of

14:08

those traditional things that women were supposed

14:10

to do and nineteen thirties and she

14:12

wanted to collect plants and so she

14:14

would get into her car and the

14:16

summer times and she would drive west.

14:19

Her specialty was Texas so she would

14:21

drive west as far as he could

14:23

go and she would take objectives and

14:25

and that's how she got this crazy

14:27

idea that of see if she wanted

14:29

to kind of complete a survey of

14:31

the cactus in the southwest she's gonna

14:33

have to go down the Colorado River.

14:36

Which. of the time was not something

14:38

people were. Doing right leg people

14:40

weren't just taking boats and going

14:42

down the Colorado River through Grand

14:45

Canyon arm of considered very dangerous

14:47

wilde. Place and so this is a bit

14:49

of the. A crazy plan that she

14:51

took some and she knows that she

14:53

has to bring another woman along because

14:55

it's the nineteen thirties and if she

14:57

went into the wilderness. With a group

15:00

of men, people would talk some.

15:03

Sense you may not get the credit season

15:05

we're now that she deserves the men might

15:07

have gotten the credit see evidence is pretty

15:09

worried about that to for sure you don't

15:12

have to be known as a serious scientists

15:14

she wants to make her mark on bought

15:16

me. This has been a struggle for her.

15:18

She's the only woman in her department. She's

15:20

incredibly. Aware and it's very clear that she's

15:23

aware of the sexism she face and that

15:25

she struggles to get grants and promotions. all

15:27

the stuff that frankly, women in the sciences

15:29

still struggle with today. I'm very aware of

15:32

all of this, and. So I think she's thinking

15:34

like not only can do you have a great adventure.

15:36

But she can really make a mark on

15:38

her field and be taken seriously for once.

15:41

So she looks around and that to sizes

15:43

can invite. Most daughter to come with

15:45

her. Lewis's twenty four

15:47

years old. She's.

15:50

Quite. Different than elevators he's doing. kind. Of

15:52

more laboratory based work on

15:54

genetics her specialties the Evening

15:57

Primrose and but she does

15:59

have a. The amount of

16:01

and of outdoors experience that country

16:03

experience. And so she's got

16:05

the skills to do this and seen as

16:07

a to have lived together in the same

16:09

apartment for a couple years and so they

16:11

knew that they could get along with each

16:13

other in close quarters for long periods of

16:15

time which is a pretty important. Is

16:18

pretty important like qualification for. Going

16:20

on a river trip together because you're

16:23

gonna be. You know, there's no privacy

16:25

year, reliant on each other and potentially.

16:27

Life and death situations and so

16:29

and so they don't buy clothes

16:31

to go along, and Lois accepts.

16:34

And and off they go. In

16:36

the summer of Nineteen Thirty Eight

16:38

on this forty two day trip

16:40

down the Colorado River. So.

16:45

Where are? Where did it start?

16:47

And where did it ends? So

16:49

they started a Green River. Utah's

16:51

so actually. On the On the Green

16:53

River tributary of the Colorado. Which

16:55

the stretch as a kind of nice quiet

16:57

stretch of the Green River and least and

16:59

of three or four days going down the

17:01

Green and then they hit the Colorado at

17:03

a place called Cataracts Canyon which at the

17:05

time. Was considered even scarier than

17:07

the Grand Canyon. It's this long

17:09

stretch of whitewater, really big rapids.

17:12

They hit it as high water.

17:14

It's summer, which is the rainy

17:16

season arm, and so there's a

17:18

pretty like raging floodwaters going. Down

17:20

the river, Ah, they go to Catterick

17:22

Canyon. They go to Glen Canyon which

17:25

is now underneath Lake Powell behind Glenn

17:27

Pick. Glen. Canyon dam on but it

17:29

wasn't at the time. They take a little break

17:31

at a place. Called Least Ferry Ride

17:33

on the Arizona Utah borders. And

17:35

then they go to the Grand Canyon

17:38

and they and the journey at Lake

17:40

Mead which was there behind Hoover Dam

17:42

had just been built. and the all

17:45

in all it's more than six hundred

17:47

miles. Of Whitewater. Wow

17:50

and What? Were they in

17:52

What? with their vessel. So

17:54

they were in wooden. Boats say since

17:57

it's not how he really do

17:59

this. And of trip today. Must be able to

18:01

date go in a in a big rubber raft but

18:03

doesn't. Exist and nineteen thirties and

18:05

so they went. Knees and a

18:08

hand crafted wooden boats that recalled

18:10

Cataracts boats. They were sort of

18:12

a new single design and they

18:14

were built by who? The person

18:16

who officially was the expedition leader,

18:18

a man named Norm novels. He

18:20

had a little bit of experience

18:22

going down western rivers, but he

18:24

had never done the Grand Canyon

18:26

or Cataracts and in he didn't

18:29

have any whitewater. Experience he is. A

18:31

idea was that if he wanted to

18:33

start a commercial river running business to

18:35

the Grand Canyon, like make it a

18:37

thing to sign up for a Grand

18:40

Canyon trip and a what what better

18:42

way to get some publicity than to

18:44

bring a couple of women along. For.

18:47

A haze and so was it. How

18:49

or how many people total were on

18:51

the sturdy? Six people in all, including

18:53

the two women. So it is indisposed

18:55

to be three scientists and three. Boatman,

18:57

although those divisions kind of

18:59

broke down as the trip

19:01

continued success. And did

19:03

they each have their own boat? Or was it you

19:06

know to both. Three votes, Three both.

19:08

So I'm paypal and about. Wow,

19:10

where did they sleep for adult

19:12

like? So confused how to such

19:14

an assassin. Seattle is working as

19:16

you are going to assist. You

19:19

mean you can do so if you know.

19:21

Even today in the Grand Canyon you sleep

19:23

on sand bars so you know you're going

19:25

on the river and for the most part

19:28

your beer in these cliffs. right? Like if

19:30

you think about the Grand Canyon thing, steep

19:32

sheer cliffs and you're going down this very

19:35

rough wherever you're dodging rocks and wearable than

19:37

rapids, you know. And then at night there's

19:39

really not a lot of places to sleep.

19:41

They're not a lot of options for you

19:44

because you can't sleep on a cliff and

19:46

so you have to. Look for a sandbar.

19:48

so those are places where the this the river

19:50

has pushed up. It's kind of slowed down and

19:52

it's it's dropped a bunch of sand and created

19:55

this kind of broad. flat sandy area

19:57

and so you would he would

19:59

seek the or you'd pull up the

20:01

boats onto the sandbar at night, and you'd

20:03

roll out of bedroll. They didn't have tents,

20:05

they didn't have sleeping bags. They

20:07

had bedrolls, and so you'd roll out

20:10

of bedroll on the sand and sleep out under

20:12

the stars. Wow. And

20:14

so what kinds of

20:17

critters live around the river?

20:20

Just about everything. They talked

20:22

a lot about the rattlesnakes. It

20:25

was a high water year, and so the rattlesnakes

20:27

were quite active. They'd all been pushed out

20:29

of their dens probably, and they encountered them

20:31

quite a lot. Pink

20:33

rattlesnakes, which Lois Jotter actually thought were

20:35

pretty cute. They're pink to

20:38

blend in with the rocks in the area. Oh,

20:40

all kinds of things. There's rodents,

20:42

there's birds, there's fish in the river. There's

20:45

probably in the 1930s, there might be mountain

20:49

lions prowling around, maybe even

20:51

jaguar, which they

20:53

wouldn't see, but they probably were seen

20:55

by, if that makes sense. The

20:58

fever, all kinds of things. Even

21:01

today, it's a wonderful

21:03

haven for wildlife. And

21:05

so I think about the Grand

21:07

Canyon, and I think of it

21:10

as a designated national park. And

21:12

by 1938, it had already been

21:14

a designated national park, but my

21:16

assumption is that there wasn't a

21:18

whole lot of infrastructure yet. Not

21:22

a great deal. At the rim, sure, there

21:24

was quite a push in the 1930s to

21:27

bring tourists to the South Rim of the Grand

21:29

Canyon, because it

21:31

was the Depression and visitor numbers were falling

21:33

off. And so the superintendent at the time

21:35

was really big on getting tourists to the

21:37

rim, and he was starting to develop the

21:40

kinds of stuff you see there today, the

21:42

roads and the buildings and all of that. But

21:44

down at the bottom, some

21:47

people would be making that hike. It's a

21:50

long 10, 11 mile hike down to the

21:52

bottom. There

21:54

wouldn't have been much there for river running

21:56

because river running wasn't happening. There had only

21:58

been about a... a dozen river

22:01

running expeditions since John

22:03

Wesley Powell went down. He was the first non-native

22:05

man to make that trip in the late 1800s.

22:09

After him, just about a dozen expeditions.

22:11

So you're talking about almost a century

22:13

where a dozen trips go down this

22:15

river. There really wasn't any

22:18

preparation for river running trips, and

22:20

actually the superintendent was pretty unhappy

22:22

about El Zeta Clover's trip. He

22:25

did not want her to go. This

22:28

was not done deeply in cooperation

22:30

with the National Park. Not

22:33

at all. Yeah, there were

22:35

letters written to the superintendent, basically just to tell

22:37

him that they were planning on doing this. He

22:40

wrote back and he said, I can't stop

22:42

you. Legally, I cannot stop you. But

22:44

if you get into trouble in the park

22:46

boundaries, we're not going to come rescue you. You're

22:49

on your own. Right. This is

22:52

not a sanctioned activity from

22:54

our perspective. No, not at all. He

22:57

was pretty unhappy about the whole situation.

23:01

I have to assume that there

23:03

were times when there was a

23:05

bit of trouble. Obviously, this

23:07

book is written in such a

23:09

way that it's part natural history,

23:12

part biography, and part

23:14

thriller. So

23:16

I don't want you to give too much

23:18

away, but I would love to maybe hear a

23:20

tale or two of some of the

23:23

trials and tribulations along the way. Sure.

23:25

Yeah. They had a lot of bad things happen to them.

23:29

Not unexpectedly, perhaps. Yeah.

23:32

It is pretty exciting. It's exciting

23:34

to write about, probably was not as

23:36

exciting to live through, or at least

23:38

was horrifying to live through. They're

23:41

not really prepared for what they're going to see.

23:43

So they spend those first couple of days on

23:46

the Green River and everything's fine, and it's quiet

23:48

water, and then they hit the head of

23:50

Cataract Canyon, which at the time

23:52

the newspaper is called the Graveyard of the Colorado River.

23:54

There were all these horror stories about all the boats

23:56

that had sunk, and all the people that had died

23:58

trying to get through Cataract. at Canyon. They

24:01

were exaggerated horror stories, but it was still, you

24:03

know, this is the attitude at the time, it's

24:05

like, this is impossible. And they

24:07

get there, and the Colorado is

24:09

this big, powerful, muddy

24:12

river. It's running very, very

24:14

high with rainwater and snow

24:16

melt. And they're

24:19

not prepared for what they're about

24:21

to do. I mean, again, nobody

24:24

on this trip has ever rafted

24:26

whitewater before. And they've got these

24:28

handcrafted boats that they've been adding

24:30

extra screws to as they go

24:32

down the river, you know. And

24:34

so they stop at the head of Catara Canyon,

24:36

and they pull up the boats, and they all

24:38

go to look at the very first rapid. And

24:40

they're doing what's called scouting. They're trying to figure

24:42

out like, what's the best way to tackle this rapid? Like,

24:44

do we go left? Do we go right? Like, how do we

24:47

do this? And they spend like an

24:49

hour standing there staring at the rapid trying to

24:51

figure it out. This is their very first test.

24:53

And while they're standing there, one of

24:56

the boats gets away. Like,

24:58

it's been tied up to a tree,

25:01

and it hasn't been tied very well.

25:04

And it pulls away and it goes

25:06

off down the river without them. This

25:08

is really bad because they have three

25:10

boats. And you can imagine they probably

25:12

split their gear evenly between the boats.

25:15

And so at the very start of their trip, they're

25:17

about to lose like a third of their

25:20

supplies, like their food, right? There's

25:22

no place to stop and get extra

25:24

food. They don't have a radio to call

25:26

for help. They can't hike out.

25:28

Like, if they lose this boat,

25:31

they're going to starve before they get to

25:33

a place where they can get more food. So this

25:35

is pretty bad. So Lois Jotter

25:38

and her boatmen jump into one

25:40

of the other boats and they

25:42

chase it. They chase it downriver.

25:44

And so her first experience with

25:46

a Colorado River rapid is chasing

25:48

this runaway boat. And

25:50

at the end of all of this, she

25:53

ends up alone, stranded,

25:56

all night. I won't

25:58

tell you all of the details. But the upshot

26:00

of this is she ends up all alone all

26:03

night on a sandbar separated

26:06

from her companions. And

26:08

it was really that story that made me

26:10

wanna write this book. I was

26:12

looking through her archives right at the very beginning

26:15

of my research and I found this letter she

26:17

had written to her mother about this experience of

26:19

being alone all night on the Colorado River. She

26:22

described it in such wonderful detail, the

26:24

animals that she heard and how she kept having

26:26

to move her fire because the water was rising

26:29

and she's having a pretty

26:31

good time because she's got all the bedding and almost all

26:33

the food with her and the rest

26:35

of them are cold and miserable and having a

26:37

terrible time. And

26:39

at the end of all of this, she writes to

26:41

her mother that she had a lovely time and I

26:43

loved that about her because I think me

26:46

personally in that situation, I probably would have been

26:48

terrified. I would have been like, what

26:51

have I gotten myself into? This has all

26:53

gone wrong. But she was,

26:56

I mean, she had a lot of grit, she had

26:58

a lot of courage and she

27:00

had a deep connection to the natural world and

27:02

I saw all of that just in that moment

27:04

where she's alone all night on the sandbar. Oh,

27:07

I love that so much. It's,

27:10

I just can't imagine, I

27:12

mean, it sounds scary today, but I have like

27:14

a cell phone, you know what I mean? And

27:17

it's really, I think sometimes hard to

27:19

put ourselves in historical,

27:22

like a historical empathy

27:24

frame and realize what

27:26

things were like with technology where it

27:28

was. Like people didn't have stuff, like

27:31

they didn't have much stuff or did they have any stuff

27:33

at that point that was like made of plastic? Right,

27:36

none of that. Yeah, they didn't have any of the

27:38

kind of modern things that we would take on a

27:40

camping trip. But I have to say, like, if

27:42

you want to experience that, like if you feel like you

27:45

wanna top into what it was like in the 1930s or earlier,

27:48

the Grand Canyon is a really good place for it

27:50

because when you go down to the bottom of the

27:52

Grand Canyon, like there's no infrastructure

27:55

down there. Your cell phone does not

27:57

work. You cannot call out and

28:00

you. really and truly cut off from

28:02

the outside world. I ran

28:04

the Grand Canyon as part of my research for this

28:06

book. I had never done anything like that before. And

28:10

it does something strange to your

28:12

mind and your body. You are

28:14

so cut off from everything up

28:16

here that we spend our days

28:18

doing email and phone calls and

28:21

texts. And I think

28:23

after a while you start to really feel

28:26

what it means to be human. That

28:28

sounds a little strange, but the

28:30

longer you spend down there, the more you're like, this is

28:32

what it means to be a human being. Waking with

28:35

the sun, going to sleep with the sun, just

28:38

being connected to the world around

28:40

you. You don't need

28:42

entertainment. You don't need Netflix in

28:44

the evening. You know what I

28:46

mean? Your entertainment is just

28:48

watching the way the sun changes the

28:50

color of the walls. And it's really quite

28:53

enough. It's more than enough. So

28:56

yeah, it's worth it. You

28:58

should try it sometime. All

29:02

right, everyone. I want to take a quick

29:04

break to thank the sponsor of this week's

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purchase. I'm

30:45

curious for those who are listening

30:47

in who are

30:49

getting excited about the prospect, because I

30:51

think many of us have visited many

30:54

national parks around the country, I hope,

30:56

you know, I like to kind of travel

30:59

and camp and I have a camper on

31:01

my truck and I like to get away

31:03

as often as possible. But I guess I

31:05

didn't know that you could,

31:07

like, how does access work? How do

31:09

you get there? And

31:12

is it easy enough to, you know, do you

31:15

need to be like a professional athlete to do

31:17

what you did when you were researching the book? In

31:21

the bottom of the Grand Canyon, like how do you get there? Yeah.

31:24

Yeah. I suggest that you

31:26

prepare for that and don't take that lightly.

31:28

The hike from the rim to the river

31:30

is quite a serious hike, even if you're

31:32

staying on the kind of the main trails,

31:34

which you should do. So

31:37

yes, prepare for that. I have

31:40

done that hike. I'm not like a super athletic person,

31:42

but I planned and did it carefully to make

31:45

sure I was going to be safe. River

31:48

trips are nowadays really quite, you

31:50

know, relatively easy. You can sign up

31:53

for a commercial river trip. You don't have

31:55

to be a professional athlete. You'll

31:57

have boatmen who know what they're doing. boatmen and

31:59

boatmen. Women so know what they're

32:01

doing and know exactly how to keep

32:03

you safe. And and so, the commercial

32:06

ships I think are pretty quite pleasant

32:08

and accessible. Except for the costs, they're

32:10

quite expensive. That

32:12

they're very very different than the Nineteen thirties

32:14

like you know you know the maps are

32:17

so detailed the equipment as he knows so

32:19

kind of time tested Rates it's is not

32:21

at all like what they were doing the

32:23

nineteen thirties where they just built some boats

32:25

and went off without knowing that they're getting

32:28

and. Yeah. And this is

32:30

such a silly question the like how do you

32:32

get down there? Like you said, you can hike

32:34

and but. What? Are the other ways that. You

32:36

can it is. You enter in the water

32:39

outside of the canyon. Reddit

32:41

the head of the grand canyon that the

32:43

typical place where you would launch the boat

32:45

as is com be very some the border

32:47

of Utah and Arizona and it's one of

32:49

the few places where there's kind of a

32:52

break in the canyon walls and you can

32:54

actually drive a car down to the river

32:56

and so yes as i was natural. Like

32:58

you break in the geology where you can

33:00

put. A boat and and that's right at

33:02

the very head of the Grand Canyon and then

33:04

I and then off you go in. The

33:06

only place you can get out some is a

33:09

half way down. You can hike out on one

33:11

of the park service trails or you can do

33:13

the full trip and you can get out

33:15

at a place called Diamond Creek and so it's

33:17

a long. Stretch of Water where there's really

33:20

not very many options for for bailing

33:22

for getting out. And that's the same

33:24

as the Nineteen thirties as it is

33:26

today. Yeah, no Starbucks down. There is

33:28

a major inferior in earlier in a

33:30

manner that years to. Assess advice. I

33:32

mean I love that because even

33:35

though it's a funny thing is

33:37

that there are plenty of opportunities

33:39

and examples of throughout our throughout

33:42

the U S M. Specifically were

33:44

talking. About. The U S I'm kind of

33:46

our park service that likes. There are plenty

33:48

of examples there at the U S where

33:51

you can be a bit is disconnected but

33:53

I think they're not as. They're

33:56

not always accessible. For individuals Grand Canyon I feel

33:58

like is one of those. parks

34:00

that is sort of

34:03

up there, right? It's like probably in the

34:05

top five that people think of when they

34:07

think of like Americana and they think of,

34:09

you know, bucket list places that they

34:11

want to see either if

34:13

they're not American and they're coming to visit

34:15

or even if they live here and they're

34:17

sort of going on these family vacations. Would

34:20

you agree with that? Yeah, I

34:22

mean it's iconic, you know, it's like one of

34:24

those places that people in America and a

34:26

lot of people around the world want to

34:28

see. I mean I have to say

34:30

it's such a different experience seeing it from the

34:32

rim than seeing it from the river and I

34:34

feel very privileged that I was able to have

34:37

that experience because

34:39

from the rim it's very unreal, you

34:41

know. Whenever I'm there I always think

34:43

of like the like the Wile E.

34:45

Coyote cartoons, you know, where he like

34:48

paints some scenery for the

34:50

roadrunner to run through or whatever. It

34:52

looks very unreal, like it's like this

34:54

glittering strange thing that's been like painted

34:56

on the sky. But if

34:59

you have the chance to either hike down or

35:01

take a river trip, everything kind of changes and

35:03

when you're at the bottom it's the

35:06

most real place you'll ever see

35:08

in your entire life. Like the

35:10

colors are so bright, the smells

35:12

are so strong. I remember

35:14

walking once down one of the little

35:17

tributary rivers that was coming down to the river

35:19

and I stopped dead in my

35:21

tracks because of the smell of a flower. Like

35:23

it was like a current of smell that

35:25

came and hit me in the face and stopped me

35:27

in my tracks, you know. It's the most real place

35:29

I've ever been in my life. The textures of it

35:32

were so incredible and I was, yeah, I

35:34

was lucky I had that chance. I went

35:36

with a botany crew. I didn't

35:39

think I could really scrape up the

35:41

money for a commercial trip which are quite expensive so

35:44

I volunteered to go with a botany crew

35:46

that was waiting out an invasive grass and

35:49

that's how I got my trip down the river and

35:53

it was amazing. Yeah, you

35:55

know it's interesting because I think

35:57

of these characters right and especially

36:00

way that you sort of painted the picture of

36:02

Elzeta Clover and her sort

36:05

of singular focus on

36:07

plants and her singular interest in

36:09

plants. And so I'm curious, as

36:12

you were digging deep into the

36:14

archival documents

36:17

that you were able to access

36:20

in researching this book, what

36:23

was her perspective when she was

36:25

down there? Was it still like

36:27

plants, plants, plants, plants, or

36:29

were there moments where she was like,

36:32

holy shit, look at this vista, look

36:34

at this landscape? It's

36:36

funny that she actually was quite focused on the

36:39

plants. Yeah, that's kind of what I think.

36:41

Which I love about her because

36:43

most people go to the Grand Canyon for

36:45

the geology, right? And people spill a lot

36:47

of ink trying to describe the geology. And

36:50

it was like she couldn't see it. You

36:52

know, she had like blinkers on, she was

36:54

looking at the plants. And

36:56

she was living in a time where,

36:58

again, nobody had done a formal plant

37:00

survey in the Stretcher River. And so

37:03

there were people who said she wouldn't find anything.

37:05

It was just like this barren desert.

37:07

Nothing was growing down there. And

37:10

so she goes and she collects more than 400

37:13

different species of plants. She

37:15

discovers this place that's just rich

37:18

with plant life and really extraordinary

37:20

plants that have all kinds of

37:22

strange adaptations to help them thrive

37:25

in this very difficult place where there's

37:27

floods and droughts and things that are trying

37:29

to eat them. And, you know, it

37:31

was just it was fascinating to be able to see

37:33

it through her eyes. And when I went on my

37:35

trip, I brought her plant list with

37:37

me. And you know,

37:39

it's kind of like going down the

37:41

river with her because every night they would stop

37:43

at a sandbar, she would mark where they were

37:45

camping. And she would write down the plants that

37:47

she collected that evening. You know, she was often

37:50

working late at night with a flashlight, you know,

37:52

after the sun had gone down and everybody else

37:54

had gone to sleep. She'd be out

37:56

there collecting these plants. And I was able to kind of

37:58

do that with her on my trip. Grand Canyon trip,

38:00

I'd be like, here's where she found this

38:02

plant and look around and see

38:05

if I could see the same plant still growing,

38:07

which sometimes I could. Maybe

38:09

not the exact same plant, but the same species of

38:11

plant. And so it was incredible

38:13

to be able to see it through her eyes

38:15

and just see the richness of the biodiversity

38:18

of the life down there. Yeah, see,

38:20

and even the way that you're describing

38:22

it, like obviously you were

38:25

the person to write this

38:27

book because I think that we we,

38:30

me, I, sometimes when I

38:32

think about different topics in the

38:35

sciences and different subject matter,

38:37

and I've been podcasting now for almost 10

38:39

years and covering all sorts of different topics,

38:41

I have my interests. I have the things

38:43

that are a little bit harder for me

38:45

to connect to. And I think

38:48

about a story about a bunch of

38:50

plants. I'm like, how in

38:52

the hell do you make that into

38:55

rich and fascinating story? And of

38:57

course, following the chronology and the

38:59

sort of adventure

39:01

of the journey is

39:04

an important approach. But also, you

39:07

know, talk to me about your process of basically

39:09

telling the story of collecting

39:12

plants and figuring out how

39:14

to make that story meaningful

39:17

and deep and interesting. Yeah,

39:20

yeah. Yeah, thanks for saying that. You know,

39:22

I mean, I had a lot of imposter syndrome starting

39:25

off writing this book. You know, I'm not

39:27

a botanist. I'm not a river runner. I felt

39:31

like I was entering this kind of brand

39:33

new frightening world as I started.

39:35

And I think but

39:37

I wasn't able to really tap into that child

39:40

that I used to be that

39:43

ran around in the desert and wanted to be a

39:45

scientist, you know, as a kid, I

39:47

really got to know plants in a way that

39:49

you don't as an adult. You

39:51

don't I mean, like as an adult,

39:53

now I can study plants through books and

39:55

I can go look at them, but I don't have that

39:58

same experience I have as a child where I

40:00

knew every prickly pear that grew around

40:02

my house and I would go out in the

40:05

summer and I'd collect the fruit and I Turn

40:07

them into strange, you know dishes and I eat

40:09

them You know, I mean like this very visceral

40:11

experience with desert plants that I had as a

40:13

child was something that really helped me So

40:16

my process, you know, I

40:19

had I had the diaries from both of

40:21

the women They both had the foresight to

40:23

keep diaries and to donate them to archives

40:25

before they died I

40:27

had their original plant list that they kept on

40:30

the river trip You know It was a scientific

40:32

notebook where they were making notes about the plants

40:34

they were finding and then I had The

40:37

plants themselves are still in herbaria all over the

40:39

country and there are scans of many of them

40:41

that are available online So

40:43

I had those Those pictures

40:45

of the specimens they took and since the

40:47

book came out I've got a chance to

40:50

go into a an archive and see some

40:52

of the physical plant specimens, which is pretty

40:54

cool so that's

40:56

kind of what I had for like my research and what

40:59

I did was I I mapped

41:01

their trip on a map of the

41:03

river and I made notes along the

41:05

way of things that happened to

41:08

them or things they found and I

41:11

kind of let the geography shape the story

41:13

So as I was moving through the story,

41:15

you know I would know that I'd want

41:17

to write about a particular thing that happened

41:19

to them at a particular place and then

41:21

I'd go check Their plant list and see

41:23

what plants were around and I

41:25

sort of haphazardly picked the plants that spoke to

41:27

me To focus

41:29

on and a lot of times that's because I knew

41:31

the plant from my own childhood But

41:34

sometimes it was something new to me that

41:36

just had a fascinating life history, you know

41:38

parasitic plants that steal from their neighbors

41:41

you know There's all kinds

41:43

of weird plants out here in the desert And

41:45

so it's sort of haphazardly picked the plants

41:47

that I wanted to focus on and I and

41:50

learn as much as I could about their life

41:52

history in some cases about how

41:55

they were used by indigenous people in

41:57

the area or cultivated by indigenous peoples

42:00

And yeah, the plants

42:03

were characters, right? I wanted to see

42:05

them the way Elzeta Clover saw them

42:07

as these vibrant,

42:09

dynamic, changing things

42:11

that have these life histories of their

42:13

own. Yeah. Oh,

42:15

that's so... And how were you affected

42:17

by it? How did it kind of

42:19

change you from the time you

42:21

went into this project or the time you came out?

42:26

You know, I probably

42:28

felt for the first time in

42:30

my very wandering career that I

42:32

was doing the right thing. You

42:36

know, I've had a lot of doubts,

42:39

you know, a lot of looking back

42:41

over my career and feeling, you

42:44

know, I kind of... I

42:48

moved away from that childhood dream of being a

42:50

scientist. I'm still in the sciences, but being

42:53

a science journalist, that was a hard transition for

42:55

me. That was a hard

42:57

identity shift to be writing about science instead

42:59

of doing it. And

43:01

I've often felt like I sort of let myself

43:03

down by making that change in my career, which

43:06

wasn't really a conscious change. It just sort of

43:08

happened to me because I was good at writing

43:10

and I kept being pulled in that direction. And

43:14

it wasn't until

43:16

I found this story and I started writing

43:18

this story and I realized that

43:21

I was able to pull on all of those

43:23

strange wandering things that I've done in my career

43:26

and just pour my heart into telling

43:28

the story of these two women who

43:30

have been kind of overlooked and neglected

43:32

in the historical record and

43:35

show it through their eyes as scientists,

43:37

you know, show what this trip was

43:39

like as botanists. That's

43:42

when I knew that I had all that wandering stuff had

43:44

paid off, like I was in the right place and

43:47

I was doing the right thing. So

43:51

this book really was like

43:55

meaningful in almost a different kind of

43:57

way than the first two books. It

44:00

was, yeah, it clicked with me in a

44:02

different kind of way. I

44:05

needed those first two books, they were stepping stones to

44:07

get me to this place. But

44:11

I felt differently about this story. Gosh,

44:14

it's hard to explain why. There was just something

44:16

about these two women and their story that really

44:19

connected with me. I guess it's

44:21

because it's the kind of story I would have liked

44:23

to read, like myself when

44:25

I was younger. If I

44:28

had known more stories like this when I

44:30

was coming up through high

44:32

school and enrolling in environmental science in

44:34

college, maybe my own path would

44:37

have been different. Maybe it would have felt like

44:39

I belonged. Because a funny thing happened to me

44:41

when I was young and I was interested in

44:43

science, people would always tell me that's so great,

44:46

we need more women in science. I

44:48

know they meant well, but to

44:51

be honest, it created this impression of

44:53

this giant black hole that I

44:55

had to fill. Yeah, it's

44:57

a lot of pressure. It's a lot of

44:59

pressure. It was lonely and it did feel

45:01

lonely when I enrolled in

45:04

those analytical chemistry classes and there weren't that

45:06

many other women in the room. I

45:09

think that loneliness is

45:11

probably why this story sparked the moment I

45:13

heard these two women's names and I was

45:16

like, why haven't I heard of them before?

45:18

It was a spark of recognition. It was

45:21

like, yes, there are women who have

45:23

been doing this work since the beginning

45:25

of time. They have always been there and

45:28

being able to tell their story feels

45:30

meaningful to me. It feels like I'm

45:32

helping the ones coming up behind me

45:34

and showing them that they are

45:37

on the right path and that they're not alone. Yeah.

45:41

Talk to me a little bit

45:43

more about that specific idea.

45:48

Diving into this book, really

45:51

looking in the mirror yourself. I

45:56

don't want to say women in science,

45:58

whatever. We're both women in science. but

46:00

feminism in science. Like,

46:03

it's more than just people

46:06

who happen to be women who are doing

46:08

science, but it's the concept of

46:10

what it means to push back,

46:15

and what it means to have an

46:17

identity that is meaningful, and

46:20

that is not based upon some

46:22

sort of prescribed pathway

46:26

that like men for just, oh God,

46:29

I was gonna say years, millennia

46:31

kind of have carved for you.

46:33

Like, talk to me a little

46:35

bit about that component of

46:39

writing this book, the feministic

46:41

component. Yeah,

46:43

it took me a long time to figure out exactly how

46:45

to write about it. I

46:47

wasn't planning really on writing about

46:50

sexism. When I started the project, you

46:52

know, I wanted it to be an adventure

46:55

story. I wanted it to be focused on

46:57

the science. That was my plan, and it

46:59

is, but

47:01

there's quite a bit about sexism in there too,

47:03

and I couldn't leave it out as much as

47:05

I kind of wanted to, to be honest. I

47:08

couldn't because it was part of the lived experience

47:11

of both of these women, a huge part of

47:13

it. And they were getting it

47:15

from both sides because they were getting the science

47:17

side of people disregarding their work, telling

47:19

them their work wasn't important, telling them

47:21

they couldn't do the work. And

47:24

then the river running side, you know, they were

47:26

the first non-native women to make this journey. And

47:29

so they were getting a lot of focus from the

47:31

press and the journalists who were coming to interview them

47:33

and talking to them about, oh, do you think, you

47:35

know, women can make a trip like this and describing

47:38

in great detail the clothes they were wearing

47:40

and what their hair looks like, and saying

47:43

very disparaging comments about how sunburned

47:45

they were, you know, right? Just

47:48

like really just horrible, horrible

47:50

newspaper articles about them. And

47:53

so, you know, they were kind of like caught in this

47:55

world where everybody was telling

47:58

them that they did not believe. long,

48:00

like they should not be doing this thing.

48:03

To try to keep the focus on science

48:05

through all of that and to do

48:07

the work they did, which was really

48:10

meaningful work. They made an important plant

48:12

collection. They published two important

48:14

papers when they got back. We're still

48:16

using this research today. What

48:19

they did mattered, and yet in

48:22

their own lifetime, I think they never really

48:24

got the recognition as scientists that

48:26

they were hoping to get. They

48:29

went back home. That's an age old

48:31

story, right? Oh, yes. Yeah. They

48:33

were quite aware of it. Elle Zeta in particular,

48:35

her colleagues gave her a hard

48:38

time afterwards about how she was just a daredevil

48:40

and she was doing it all

48:42

for the press clippings and the excitement. She

48:45

was so frustrated. She was like, that's not why

48:47

I did this. I did this for botany. Yeah,

48:51

I had to write about the sexes

48:53

and they faced. The more I

48:55

wrote about it, the more familiar

48:57

it felt. It's

48:59

all stuff that's unfortunately still happening today, maybe not

49:01

to the same degree. It

49:04

has changed. Luckily, there are no front

49:06

page headlines about women rafting

49:08

rivers today. This is an improvement.

49:11

We're still seeing the same kinds

49:13

of things happening to women today.

49:17

That was something the book had to

49:19

teach me as I went along. It wasn't something

49:22

I was planning on writing so much about, but

49:24

it's an important part of the story. Yeah.

49:27

Yeah. I'm super

49:29

curious as we're coming to a

49:31

close on the hour. Lately,

49:35

I've been asking the same question. I always close

49:38

the episode by asking the same two closing questions.

49:41

Before we get to that segment, is there anything

49:43

that we didn't dive into, anything

49:45

that we didn't touch on

49:47

that you want to make sure we do

49:49

before we close out? I'll

49:53

just say a tiny bit more

49:56

about what I mean when I say

49:58

that botany was important. They

50:00

were running the river at a

50:02

time in the 1930s when

50:04

the river was right on the cusp of all

50:06

of these changes. The big

50:09

dams were being built, the tourists

50:11

were starting to come in, non-native

50:13

plant species were starting to spread.

50:17

They made a record at a time when

50:19

it was really important for us to have a record.

50:22

And now, almost a century later,

50:25

in order to

50:27

know how to protect and

50:29

restore this really iconic place

50:31

that is world-known, we

50:34

have to know what it used to look like. We

50:36

have to have these kinds of records of what it

50:38

used to be. And so I

50:40

think their work is only becoming more

50:42

and more important as time goes on. And

50:44

I really believe that it's so

50:47

incredibly important to have diverse

50:49

groups of scientists, diverse groups

50:51

of people working on these

50:53

problems. We need all

50:56

of those different voices and all of those different

50:58

eyes and all of those different people at the

51:00

table to solve these major

51:03

issues that we have in environmental

51:05

science today. Yeah. Yeah.

51:08

No. It's

51:11

such an important theme that I

51:13

think bears repeating over and over

51:15

again. Because we cannot hear it

51:17

enough because we still have, obviously,

51:20

a lot of work to do.

51:23

And so it's really important not just to reiterate

51:25

that idea, but to do it in such a

51:27

way that is such a compelling

51:30

story. Because of course, I

51:32

mean, you know better than anyone as both a

51:35

broadcast science journalist and a science

51:37

writer. It's all about the story, isn't

51:39

it? That's how we get there.

51:42

Yep. Stories are powerful. So

51:46

listen, I always close

51:48

my show with the

51:50

same two questions. And I'm always

51:52

super curious because I interview people from all different

51:54

walks of life and all different fields to

51:58

kind of, I don't know, compare and contrast. where

52:00

they're coming from. And they're really

52:02

big-picture questions, so apologies if

52:05

they're heavy at your feet and if you need a

52:07

few minutes to come up with an answer, that's fine.

52:11

So I want you to think

52:13

about the future in whatever context

52:15

feels relevant to you. So this

52:17

could be personal, it could be

52:19

professional, it could be, let's

52:23

say, at the community level or the

52:25

national level or the global level or

52:28

even the cosmic level. So

52:30

the first question is, what

52:32

is keeping you up the most

52:34

at night lately? Where are you

52:36

struggling maybe with pessimism,

52:39

with cynicism? What's

52:41

really worrying you about the

52:43

future? And on the flip side of that, so

52:46

we do end on a more positive note, where are

52:48

you finding your optimism? What are you

52:51

kind of genuinely and authentically

52:54

hopeful about looking forward to? Heavy

52:59

questions. I

53:02

mean, I work in the news. So

53:07

everything keeps me up at night. It's been tough,

53:10

it's been a tough eight

53:13

years really, since I got this job as

53:15

a journalist. I think I had

53:18

maybe a moment that most of us

53:20

had during the pandemic. Since

53:22

I'm the science reporter here, I was

53:25

a pandemic reporter for about two solid years.

53:27

That is all I covered. And

53:31

it was eye opening, seeing how,

53:37

you know,

53:40

I've always hoped, I've always believed,

53:42

I've always been passionate about science,

53:45

but seeing its failure to make

53:47

meaningful changes in society, changes that

53:49

would save people's lives. Not

53:53

that it was all a failure. I mean, thank

53:55

God we got vaccines eventually, but the

53:57

failure specifically in my field of science

53:59

communication. I don't

54:02

have to elaborate. You all know what I'm talking about.

54:04

Yeah, it was a tough time. It was

54:06

a tough time. Yeah. It changed the way

54:09

I saw a lot of things. It changed

54:11

the way I felt about our chances of

54:14

mitigating climate change, of

54:17

mitigating the loss of endangered species,

54:20

all of these other things that matter to me

54:22

as someone who cares deeply about science and

54:24

the natural world. It

54:27

changed really everything about how I saw the world. Yeah,

54:31

and that's still hard for

54:33

me to see that

54:36

this career path that I

54:38

have chosen, science communication, it's

54:40

going to fall short. There

54:43

are gaps that cannot be crossed. I

54:46

didn't used to feel that way, but I do now,

54:48

and that sometimes keeps me awake at night. It's

54:56

your hope or your optimism. For some people,

54:58

I find that it's related to the same

55:00

thing that is worrisome, and for

55:02

other people, it's like something completely different. Where

55:05

are you finding your hope and your optimism? Or are

55:07

you struggling to do so? I'm

55:10

struggling. I've been struggling for a

55:12

while to do so. I think it helps me.

55:18

There's a reason that I write five

55:20

days a week and then I write on the

55:22

weekends. That

55:25

is because that is what I was put on this planet

55:27

to do. I might have

55:29

doubts about how meaningful it will be.

55:31

I might have doubts about how it will

55:33

move the needle. I might still wonder if

55:35

I'd be better off filling embankments

55:38

somewhere, like shoveling

55:40

dirt, doing anything

55:42

else. But at the end

55:44

of the day, I know at my core, that's what

55:46

I was put on this planet to do. It helps

55:49

me to just remember that sometimes. The

55:51

act of putting words on a page is

55:53

an act of optimism. I

55:57

always feel optimistic when I'm writing because it's

55:59

an active. creation. And even

56:01

though most of those words sit on my computer and never see

56:03

the light of day, the act

56:06

of creation helps me. And going

56:09

outside helps me. I mean, I live in a

56:11

beautiful place. I can walk out my back door

56:13

and be in the world's

56:16

largest ponderosa pine forest and

56:19

just listen to the birds and smell

56:21

the vanilla smell of the pines and

56:24

be present and think

56:26

about how resilient nature is. It really

56:28

is incredible. And so that helps me

56:31

a lot as well. I

56:33

love that. Well, gosh, it's been such

56:36

a joy to just to

56:38

hear how you speak about the written

56:40

word, but of course, to

56:42

dig deep into this book and to explore

56:44

this story with you today. Thank you so

56:47

much for being here with us. Thanks

56:49

for having me. Of course. Everybody, the

56:52

book is Brave the Wild River, the

56:54

untold story of two women who map

56:56

the botany of the Grand Canyon by

56:59

Melissa L. Sivany. Melissa, thank you so

57:01

much. And everyone listening, thank you for

57:03

coming back week after week. I'm really

57:06

looking forward to the next time we all

57:08

get together.