Ann+Weiler+Walka


 * Ann Weiler Walka: Walking the Unknown River (And Other Travels in Escalante Country)**

Ann Weiler Walka is a local writer who lives in Flagstaff. She writes poetry, stories and essays about the landscape, history, and people of the Colorado Plateau. Her writing is very descriptive, and it is often laced with scientific information, especially on the subjects of Ecology and Geology (like the various names of rock strata, sections of geologic time, identification of birds, plants, trees, reptiles, etc… like the info you might find in a guidebook). She gets most of her subject matter from about 40 years worth of hiking, camping, backpacking, and river trips on the Colorado Plateau. She has written for various journals, and magazines, and she has also published two books:

//[|Walking the Unknown River (And Other Travels in Escalante Country)]// which is book of poems and prose about the Escalante River, Glen Canyon, Navajo Mountain, and all of the country in between. Her other book is entitled, //[|Waterlines: Journeys on a Desert River]//. It is a book of stories and poetry inspired by the landscapes along the San Juan River.

Aside from being a Writer and Naturalist, she is also a guide for the [|Museum of Northern Arizona’s Ventures program], which offers outdoor educational field trips all over the Colorado Plateau.

Here is a brief summary of //Walking the Unknown River (And Other Travels in Escalante Country)//:

The book is broken in to 4 sections: one on the Escalante River, the second is about Glen Canyon, the third revolves around Navajo Mountain, and the last (entitled Coming Home) is about peoples place in the landscape. About half of the book is poetry, with subjects ranging from map reading, climbing rocks, and hiking, all the way to amphibians, and Apache warriors. The other half is full of prose-like essays about such things as the Mormon pioneers, explorations of the Colorado Plateau, Native American oral traditions, geologic time, and the simplicity of camp life.

Walka's writing is enhanced with excerpts from other individuals who have left their mark on the Colorado Plateau in some way or another; people like the explorer J.W. Powell, Everett Ruess (a desert tramp), Lizzie Decker (a Mormon pioneer), Ernest Nelson (a Navajo singer), and many more.

It is a short book (only 98 pages), and is very easy to read. It is a pretty interesting little volume, plus its small size and light weight definitely make it worthy of a weekend backpacking trip, or an overnight float down the river.

Works Cited:

Museum of Northern Arizona. "MNA Ventures Trip Leaders." MNA Ventures. . Museum of Northern Arizona. 11/03/2009. .

Shrewsbury, Norm. "Unknown River Cover". Photo. Vishnu Temple Press 1999. 12/02/2009. .

Walka, Ann Weiler. Walking the Unknown River: And Other Travels in Escalante Country. 1st. Flagstaff AZ: Bluff City Books, 2002.