The Secret Knowledge of Water: Discovering the Essence of the American Desert

I have read extensively my entire life, and this book is in a league of its own. It's on the same pace as Ellen Molloy or Edward Abbey, but surprisingly more interesting, and a real treasure. Thank you Craig Childs.

This book by naturalist Craig Childs belongs on any Edward Abbey bookshelf, where writers have fallen in love with the desert Southwest and portray it eloquently on the printed page. Childs is more scientist than environmentalist, but he has Abbey's fascination with wilderness adventure, which takes him in search of what he regards as the most elemental aspect of the desert - the water to be found there. These searches take him far into remote areas of the vast Colorado River watershed, mostly in Arizona, including the canyons that feed into the Grand Canyon. The book is divided into three sections: still water, streams, and flood. We discover that if one knows how to search for it - and the first inhabitants of these areas did know - there is water to be found in plentiful supply. Likewise, there are spring-fed streams that flow during certain seasons, and in and along both kinds of water there is a host of different life forms, plants and animals, each place representing a specific and evolving ecosystem. Childs' eye and ear for detail and his scientific knowledge join to create vivid accounts of the discoveries he makes as he explores. We learn, for instance, how pools of rainwater in the desert wastes become populated with forms of aquatic life and how these survive, even through long periods of extreme drought. For me, a particularly harrowing adventure was his exploration of a system of caves from which a stream of ice-cold water emerges high on a canyon wall near the Grand Canyon. Others include his pursuit of floods in the making in this same system of canyons following summer cloudbursts, and he underscores the perilousness of his curiosity by describing the deaths of other hikers and campers taken by surprise by flash floods. Often he travels alone for days and weeks at a time; sometimes he takes along a companion. What he writes of his experiences is consistently full of wonder, as well as a realization that human interference with the natural order (pumping from aquifers, as just one example) is rapidly and permanently altering ecosystems that have adapted to the desert environment over millennia.

Although I had planned to do so, I had not gotten around to reading this wonderful book until I had some time while I was waiting in an airport recently. I immediately understood the author's reverence for the waters of the desert because I grew up in southwestern Arizona and intimately know some of the places he mentions, as well as others that he does not. The water tanks of the area near and on the Camino del Diablo and the life-giving stream called Sycamore Canyon are well known to me and I am very familiar with tadpole shrimp and some of the other smaller organisms of the tinajas, playa lakes and puddles. Indeed, Craig Childs has caught the not so easy to define wonder that one feels when seeing water in the desert. "The Secret Knowledge of Water: Discovering the Essence of the American Desert" voices what many desert rats (as I was when I was younger) would have difficulty saying- that water in the desert is almost a holy entity, a substance that defies definition (despite our knowledge of the chemical structure) because it is manifestly the material of life. As a scientist I can find fascination with the multitude of creatures that live in the springs, creeks, rivers and tinajas, but the awe goes much deeper than just collecting facts, necessary and interesting as they are. It is, as Childs has so eloquently described, a visceral feeling that one gets- a deep satisfaction - when one sees the surface of deep and cool pools of water in hidden rocky tanks (such as Tinajas Altas, which I have not seen, but have been close to, or another group he does not mention, Cinco Tinajas in Big Bend Ranch State Park, Texas, which I have seen), or of a stream flowing in a thin sheet over the bedrock of a desert canyon, as in Sycamore Canyon. I have only one very minor bone to pick. He says his mother was born in the Sonoran Desert, but no part of that desert reaches the Texas-Mexico border. I think he means Sonoran Life Zone. But this is a minor quibble in a book that is a gem of writing about the natural world of the North American deserts. Read this book if you would understand the reverence for water that is engendered by a life in the desert.

I've lived in the desert, I've hiked in the desert, I've camped in the desert and I've cursed the desert but nothing I have read before made me understand and love the desert like The Secret Knowledge of Water does.Until I read Craig Childs' essay, I never gave much thought to water in the desert except that without it you die. Childs paints a vivid picture of the juxtaposition of desert and water in all of its manifestations. I can still picture the pools of water in the tinajas of the barren, sun-baked Cabeza Prieta and the thunderstorm-fed floods on the Arizona Strip. I can feel the terror he must have felt squatting on a ledge in a feeder canyon of the Grand Canyon as flood waters rose and swirled around him and his relief as they receded, leaving behind tons of debris. I can also feel his awe at the power and majesty of nature at the same time. I can feel his exhilaration as he bathes in a deep, cool waterpocket after a long day's hike. And I can sense his deep respect for the original peoples of the desert and how they have adapted to its caprice.It is obvious from his style that Childs has an abiding love for the desert. If you know and love the desert, you will find The Secret Knowledge of Water a fascinating read and come away with new respect for the desert and for the waters which both nurture and shape it.

The Secret Knowledge of Water: Discovering the Essence of The American Desert by Craig Childs is a must read for anyone who is stirred by the desert. Water is the defining mark of the desert and everything you look at testifies of its presence. In this book Childs takes us through all the various incarnations of water in these arid lands...the water that waits in pockets and tinajas; the water that moves in washes, streams, rivers and aquifers, and finally to the very heart of fierce water that tears and creates in torrents of violence - floods. Water is what we pray for and what we fear. He explores the ways of the Tohono O'odham, "Don't drink too much water" and recreates the routes of Father Kino tracking precious water in the Cabeza. From triops that suspend themselves - anhydrobiosis - life without water to the native fishes of desert streams struggling to survive in the face of habitat degradation, to the riparian habitats and barren plains - he covers it all, in an artistry of words that left me feeling reverent.This book is written in the holy prose of a prophet, one who knows. Childs is a natural writer who has gone to the desert and become a part of it. He cracks the door and lets the land bear witness for itself. It is incredible writing, better than I have ever known.

the secret knowledge of water is tempting, sensual, humbling and even frightning. having recently moved into the area which childs so reverently describes, i was moved by the passion and understanding in his writing. the desert is ruthless. that much is clear from living here and reading this book. however, the desert also holds amazing beauty and power; all fluidly shared by the author. i highly reccomend this read to anyone who has experienced water in any form. i guarantee you will come away with a new respect for mother nature.