Brave the Wild River is a harrowing story of the first two women to travel down the Colorado River by boat. These daring women were botanists and the first to catalog the plants along the river.
I chatted with author Melissa Sevigny this week. Here is part of our conversation:
Q: How did you hear about Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter?
A: “By accident. I ran across Lois Jotter’s archive at the university in Flagstaff, Arizona, where I live. There were boxes and boxes of her diaries, letters, and notes, and I just fell in love with her. I was so surprised I had never heard of either of these women before, even though I grew up in Arizona and thought I knew a lot about Grand Canyon history.”
Q: The Colorado River was undammed and untamed in 1938, and the rapids were treacherous. What qualities did these women share that enabled them to undertake this challenge?
A: “Mostly undammed, yes, although the Hoover Dam—really the start of the great dam building era on the Colorado—had just started to fill up. Even today, the Colorado through Grand Canyon is a wild place, and back then, there weren’t really good maps or equipment or guides to help.
I think Clover and Jotter were very determined and passionate about their work. They wanted to make their mark on the field of botany. Clover had an adventurous streak, and Jotter had plenty of backcountry experience, so the idea of the rapids didn’t frighten them. Of course, it’s possible they didn’t quite know what they were getting into. But once on the river, they both just went full-throttle and loved it.”
Q: I was interested to learn that Native Americans had affected the distribution of some of the canyon’s plants.
A: “Absolutely. There are 11 tribes affiliated with the Grand Canyon. Havasupai, Hualapai, and others have been shaping the environment there for thousands of years.
Food plants such as certain types of agave and prickly pear were probably moved into the region, and mesquite and cottonwood trees were sometimes tended and cultivated. I spoke with Indigenous ethnobotanists and scientists, and I’m so grateful for what they shared with me. The tribes still have very close connections to the plant life of the canyon today.”
Q: You cover a bit of geology, describing the different rock formations the women encounter as they raft down the river. Have you studied geology as well as environmental science?
A: “I’m obsessed with geology, though I never officially studied it. When I was a kid, I was convinced I was going to become a geologist, and I still read voraciously about rocks. I had to stop myself from writing too much about geology, since it was supposed to be a botany book! Wayne Ranney’s Carving Grand Canyon is the place to go for more.”
Q: I read that you’ve been teased about ‘weeding the Grand Canyon.’ What is that about?
A: “I knew I couldn’t write this book without rafting the Grand Canyon myself—something I’d never imagined doing. I signed on as a volunteer with a crew that was weeding an invasive species, ravenna grass, out of the canyon corridor. I thought it was kind of funny, the whole idea of weeding the Grand Canyon. We think of it as a wild, isolated place, but it really has been affected by humans in a lot of different ways. I wrote about the experience in National Park Magazine, and how I came to feel the value in caring for a place you love, even in such a small way.”
Q: Brave the Wild River won a National Outdoor Book Award and a Reading the West Award. Congratulations! What are your current projects?
A: “I just made the brave leap into freelancing full time, in part to carve out time to write another book – but it’s early days. Right now I’m working on a geology piece about a woman who was key in the understanding of plate tectonics for High County News. Look for that in early 2026.”
Follow Melissa’s work on her website here.
Find Brave the Wild River here.
