Mar 30, 2016 Celebrating the Spring Equinox with the Voice of Edward Abbey

Thirty-five years ago last week, March 21, 1981, the radical environmental activist group Earth First! unrolled a gigantic sheet of black plastic to simulate a crack in the face of Glen Canyon Dam, a controversial hydroelectric dam on the Colorado River at the Utah-Arizona border. Afterwards, the group’s members gathered in adjacent Page, Arizona to hear author Edward Abbey speak in honor of “three important occasions: the rising of the full moon, the arrival of the Spring Equinox, and the imminent removal of Glen Canyon Dam.” In his approximately 13-minute speech, Abbey employed biblical language to criticize industrial and urban development in the American West, extol the beauty and uniqueness of the canyons flooded beneath the dam’s reservoir, Lake Powell, and celebrate the power of Mother Nature to undo the works of man.

The Edward Abbey Audio Collection (A0779) http://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv41323/ in the Audio-Visual Archive offers visitors the opportunity to experience Abbey’s speech and examine the author’s words, rhetoric, and speaking style. In addition to a full recording of his 1981 Glen Canyon Dam speech, the Edward Abbey Audio Collection contains the 1987 audiobook, Freedom and Wilderness: Edward Abbey Reads from his Work, as well as a recording of a lengthy May 1989 memorial celebration of Abbey’s life and influence, featuring speeches and performances by fellow activists and authors. These items are available to listen to on CD in the Special Collections Reading Room.

An acclaimed author of fiction and nonfiction works and outspoken critic of environmental and public lands policies, Edward Abbey (1927-1989) also appears occasionally in the KUTV News collection (A0303), as in this 1972 clip.

Written by Molly Rose Steed