Dan Collins - Glen Canyon Dam, Arizona
The year was 1962 and I was in the 4th grade in Los Altos, California. Ms. Mukai, our home room teacher, said she had a special film to show us that day. It was the story of the Glen Canyon Dam.
Wikipedia tells us that the Glen Canyon Dam is a concrete arch dam on the Colorado River in northern Arizona in the United States, near the town of Page. The project was started in 1956 and completed in 1966. The dam was built to provide hydroelectricity and flow regulation from the upper Colorado River Basin to the lower. Its reservoir is called Lake Powell, and is the second largest artificial lake in the country, extending upriver well into Utah. The dam is named for Glen Canyon, a colorful series of gorges, most of which now lies under the reservoir.
The first half of the film was a visual essay in sculptural rock formations and prehistoric sites. Many of the canyons and rock ledges had been inhabited by the Anasazi, the ancestors of the modern Pueblo people. They mysteriously disappeared sometime in the 13th century--perhaps migrating south to the mesa tops and river banks of modern-day Arizona and New Mexico. The filmmakers captured a magical land of secret grottoes, sluice canyons, rock houses protected by sandstone arches, a world of orange frozen waves set against impossibly blue skys.
The second half of the film began with an explosion. Whole mountains cascaded into the gorge below Page, Arizona. A curving concrete wedge grew between sheer sandstone walls. Slowing, inexorably, Lake Powell appeared--a blue shield suspended in a treeless stone frame . As the waters backed into the complex finger canyons of northern Arizona and southern Utah, the evidence of ancient civilizations was submerged. A wild river became a bathtub.
The class fell silent. Here was a new world offered on a platter, then snatched away--all by a 30 minute film.
Wikipedia tells us that the Glen Canyon Dam is a concrete arch dam on the Colorado River in northern Arizona in the United States, near the town of Page. The project was started in 1956 and completed in 1966. The dam was built to provide hydroelectricity and flow regulation from the upper Colorado River Basin to the lower. Its reservoir is called Lake Powell, and is the second largest artificial lake in the country, extending upriver well into Utah. The dam is named for Glen Canyon, a colorful series of gorges, most of which now lies under the reservoir.
The first half of the film was a visual essay in sculptural rock formations and prehistoric sites. Many of the canyons and rock ledges had been inhabited by the Anasazi, the ancestors of the modern Pueblo people. They mysteriously disappeared sometime in the 13th century--perhaps migrating south to the mesa tops and river banks of modern-day Arizona and New Mexico. The filmmakers captured a magical land of secret grottoes, sluice canyons, rock houses protected by sandstone arches, a world of orange frozen waves set against impossibly blue skys.
The second half of the film began with an explosion. Whole mountains cascaded into the gorge below Page, Arizona. A curving concrete wedge grew between sheer sandstone walls. Slowing, inexorably, Lake Powell appeared--a blue shield suspended in a treeless stone frame . As the waters backed into the complex finger canyons of northern Arizona and southern Utah, the evidence of ancient civilizations was submerged. A wild river became a bathtub.
The class fell silent. Here was a new world offered on a platter, then snatched away--all by a 30 minute film.
Glen Canyon BEFORE Lake Powell .
...in the labyrinthian backcountry, starting at the floor of the Glen, myriad glens, grottoes and cavernous alcoves welcomed visitors in those halcyon days before the flooding. Hikers and river rats (an endearing term for rafters) considered the interior an Eden of finely fabricated sandstone deposited during the Mesozoic Era (roughly, 250 to 65 million years). These idyllic haunts were just about everywhere to find, where each small or large chamber was a treasure unto itself. Occasionally, thin veils of waterfalls graced the view. Because of numerous streams and collected pools of clear water, there was always a riot of riparian trees, plants and wildflowers. No wonder Major John Wesley Powell came up with the designate, Glen Canyon, on his first canyon country expedition in 1869 (though he originally called the setting Mound Canyon).
--from http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/12/08/1166388/-It-Wasn-t-Nice-To-Drown-A-Lady-Revisiting-The-Glen-Canyon-Lake-Powell-Rigamarole-Part-1# by Rich Holtztin
...in the labyrinthian backcountry, starting at the floor of the Glen, myriad glens, grottoes and cavernous alcoves welcomed visitors in those halcyon days before the flooding. Hikers and river rats (an endearing term for rafters) considered the interior an Eden of finely fabricated sandstone deposited during the Mesozoic Era (roughly, 250 to 65 million years). These idyllic haunts were just about everywhere to find, where each small or large chamber was a treasure unto itself. Occasionally, thin veils of waterfalls graced the view. Because of numerous streams and collected pools of clear water, there was always a riot of riparian trees, plants and wildflowers. No wonder Major John Wesley Powell came up with the designate, Glen Canyon, on his first canyon country expedition in 1869 (though he originally called the setting Mound Canyon).
--from http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/12/08/1166388/-It-Wasn-t-Nice-To-Drown-A-Lady-Revisiting-The-Glen-Canyon-Lake-Powell-Rigamarole-Part-1# by Rich Holtztin
