What You See in Clear Water: Life On the Wind River Reservation (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "A century ago, when a journey from the Union Pacific depot in Rawlins, Wyoming, to the Shoshone Indian Reservation meant 150 miles in a hard..." (more)
Key Phrases: fattest buffalo, tribal water code, tribal water rights, Wind River, Bull Lake, Little Wind (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Seventeen years ago, journalist Geoffrey O'Gara left Washington, D.C., for northwest-central Wyoming to take a job covering environmental and resource issues concerning the Rocky Mountain region. He settled on the outskirts of the Wind River Indian Reservation, and over the years became deeply attached to the land, its people, and the story of "two cultures that have been arguing for 150 years over the same beloved country, and trying to find a way to share it."

What You See in Clear Water traces the history of the reservation from its beginnings, when the Shoshone Indians signed a treaty entitling them to a region encompassing some 44 million acres, to the present, when a century and a half of cuts and revisions have reduced the reservation to 5 percent of its original size. The Shoshones have been compelled to share what remains with their traditional enemies, the Arapahos, and today, both peoples grapple with the familiar hardships of reservation life: poverty, high suicide rates, persistent health issues, and the hostility and indifference of their non-Indian neighbors. For the past two decades, much of that hostility has centered on a highly charged clash between the Indians and whites over water rights to the river that runs through the reservation.

Although O'Gara's narrative is anchored by the ongoing debate over who will decide the fate of the Wind River--and the lives of the people who depend on it--the story deftly and compassionately illuminates the larger conflict that has persisted ever since the European settlers came to the Americas. "It is the unfinished struggle between Native Americans and the whites who surround and threaten to subsume them--once a military conflict, now a cultural war, complicated after all these years by the fact that neighbors, even antagonistic neighbors, know one another in intimate and sometimes affectionate ways." And it is O'Gara's deep concern and abiding affection for the Wind River's inhabitants that give his book its power and its grace. --Svenja Soldovieri

From Booklist

Journalist O'Gara turns to his home ground, the Wind River Range of Wyoming, for this compelling collage of history, reportage, economics, and science. By chronicling the struggle for the resources on and around the Wind River Indian Reservation, centering on the controversy over the water and irrigation rights from the Wind River itself, O'Gara expertly presents the recent history of the American West in microcosm. We learn about past and present heroes of the Shoshone and Arapaho tribes who inhabit the reservation, about the pioneer farmers and their descendents who came to Wyoming to try and scrape a living from the arid land, and about the experts in geology, hydrology, and natural resources law on each side of the issue. Although sections on water and water rights might seem beyond the average reader, O'Gara writes so clearly that they are not. His portraits of the men and women caught up in this saga over the last hundred years make the book strangely moving, while his descriptions of the Wyoming rivers and mountains are the next best thing to being there. Greg Garrett
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; Second Printing edition (October 17, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679404155
• ISBN-13: 978-0679404156
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #989,242 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully human, November 29, 2000

By	Jill A. Rock "[e-mail]-terr... (Astoria, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This book is rich with geographical details of Wyoming and history of the Shoshone and Arapahoe people. O'Gara skillfully and lovingly describes the Wind River Valley like a sculptor shapes his beloved work. He is an excellent storyteller. What I loved most was O'Gara's deep attention to human relations, personal histories, and character. He always tells the tale with the human in the center. He never proselytizes or places blame. He doesn't demonize or romanticize. Also, the Native Americans are depicted as people, not political images or symbols. It's easy and fun to read, yet never strays from reality. I loved reading it. I wish more stories about Native Americans were told so warmly and truthfully.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent case study of modern day water politics, June 16, 2001

By	Philip Carl "EcoAngler" (Half Moon Bay, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The author manages to guide the reader though a conflicting set of water resource issues on the most legally confusing of all landscapes... the Wind River Reservation. Lined up across the court-room aisle sit the anglo farmers who tap the river for irrigation and the native residents wanting to restore the "in-stream flows" to support the trout fishery. Its a conflict the author uses to drive the story forward, but is only a single thread of a much richer story. The author interleaves the battle over water rights with the history of both the Shoshone and Arapaho and the opening of land within the reservation for white settlers. The author's love of the Wind River Reservation is evident in his first hand accounts describing the area's geography and natural history. This book succeeds by tying together the story's long and interconnected threads into a comprehensive picture of water politics.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A page-turner for anyone who loves The West, January 30, 2001

By	Virginia Sauro (West Friendship, Maryland USA) - See all my reviews

O'Gara has masterfully woven together past, present and future in this rich account of the Wind River Basin, its people and their struggle for self preservation. O'Gara's intimate knowlege of the social, political, economic, legal, and geologic issues that converge in this complex and fascinating story is as impressive as it is vast. He describes the land with skillful and clear-eyed detail, and he tells the story with a respect and compassion that must only have come from someone who has lived in and loved the West for many years.