John Wesley Powell was a Union captain in the American Civil War, and later, the first modern explorer to chart the dangerous Colorado River and surrounding Glen Canyon. Abbey greatly admires the fearlessness and aesthetic delicacy of Powell’s published account—two qualities Abbey hopes to emulate in his own memoir. He invokes Powell frequently as he and his friend Ralph Newcomb retrace the explorer’s steps along the Colorado some 90 years later. In this way, Powell serves as Abbey’s literary and exploratory model: for instance, he’s sensitive and spiritual enough to name a rock feature Music Temple, a move that Abbey notes with delight. In another way, however, Powell serves as a moral conscience against the recent damming of the Colorado, a development that forever obscured Glen Canyon’s beauties and moved Abbey to publish his protests in Desert Solitaire. Abbey invokes Powell’s memory as he rails against the dam’s new artificial “Lake Powell,” a name intended to honor—but, in Abbey’s opinion, a destructive disgrace to—the brave explorer.
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John Wesley Powell Character Timeline in Desert Solitaire
The timeline below shows where the character John Wesley Powell appears in Desert Solitaire. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Rocks
...trying to return to civilization from their botched mission. A page from the explorer John Wesley Powell’s diary illustrates how dangerous Cataract is: in 1869, Powell describes enormous whirlpools and rapids...
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Down the River
...that the resulting body of water, Lake Powell, is an insult to its namesake, John Wesley Powell, the first American to explore the dangerous area. A decade ago, however, one could...
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...transports him to a childhood desire to float down the river like Mark Twain or Major Powell .
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Plenty of great explorers have come before Abbey and Newcomb—mainly John Wesley Powell, the Civil War veteran who first charted Glen Canyon in a three-month journey. Though...
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Taking off again, Abbey and Newcomb pass a feature that Wesley called Music Temple on his expedition, a cave that’s full of delightful resounding noises. Abbey...
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