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Down the Great Unknown: John Wesley Powell’s 1869 Journey of Discovery and Tragedy Through the Grand Canyon

Amazon.com Price:  $22.87 (as of 02/05/2019 00:38 PST- Details)

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Description

Drawing on rarely examined diaries and journals, Down the Great Unknown is the first book to tell the full, dramatic story of the Powell expedition.

On May 24, 1869 a one-armed Civil War veteran, John Wesley Powell and a ragtag band of nine mountain men embarked on the last great quest in the American West. The Grand Canyon, not explored before, used to be as mysterious as Atlantis—and as perilous. The ten men set out from Green River Station, Wyoming Territory down the Colorado in four wooden rowboats. Ninety-nine days later, six half-starved wretches came ashore near Callville, Arizona.

Lewis and Clark opened the West in 1803, six decades later Powell and his scruffy band aimed to unravel the West’s last mystery. A brilliant narrative, a thrilling journey, a cast of memorable heroes—all these mark Down the Great Unknown, the real story of the last epic adventure on American soil.

Edward Dolnick’s Down the Great Unknown depicts the “last epic journey on American soil,” John Wesley Powell’s exploration of the Grand Canyon and the fulminating, carnivorous Colorado River. The book, a model of precision, clarity, and serene passion, outshines, arguably, its bestselling brother-volume, Stephen Ambrose’s Undaunted Courage.

On May 24, 1869, Powell, an ambitious, autocratic, one-armed Civil War veteran and amateur scientist, and a casually recruited crew of nine–without a lick of white water experience–embarked from an difficult to understand railroad stop in the Wyoming Territory to shuttle through a region “scarcely better known than Atlantis.” Ninety-nine days, 1,000 miles and nearly 500 rapids later, six of the men came ashore in Arizona–the first humans to run the waters of the Grand Canyon. Dolnick tells this story of courage, naiveté, hardship, and petty squabbling simply and authoritatively the usage of entries from the men’s journals, deft overviews (we at all times know where we are), and short science, history, and psychology lessons, in addition to the prodigious knowledge of present-day river runners and his own first-hand observations. His prose carries the day: Powell looks like a “stick of beef jerky adorned with whiskers,” the boats are “walnut shells,” which in rapids are little better than “ladybugs caught in a hose’s blast” or “drunks trying to negotiate a revolving door,” whilst the river is a “taunting bully,” a “colossal mugger,” a “sumo wrestler smothering a kitten,” and a notable rock formation looks like what might happen if “Edward Gorey had designed the Bat Cave.”

Down the Great Unknown brushes against perfection. This is history written accurately–and too rarely is: enthusiastic, rigorous, painterly, gloriously free of both pedantry and hyperbole. –H. O’Billovitch

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