Encounters with the Archdruid

Infobox Book
name = Encounters with the Archdruid


image_caption = Cover painting is "The Hetch-Hetchy Valley, California" by Albert Bierstadt.
author = John McPhee
subject = Narrative non-fiction
publisher = Farrar, Straus and Giroux
pub_date = 1971
pages = 245cite news|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944506-4,00.html|title=Spring Cleaning|date=April 17, 1972|work=Time|accessdate=2008-09-27]
isbn = 0-374-51431-3

"Encounters with the Archdruid" (1971) is a narrative nonfiction book by author John McPhee. "Encounters" is split into three parts, each covering environmentalist David Brower's confrontations with his ideological enemies. The book chronicles his struggles against miners, developers and finally the United States Bureau of Reclamation. McPhee blurs traditional journalism—the reporting of facts and accounting of events, with thematic elements more common to fiction. The book was generally well received in the popular press and became an enduring part of the portrait of David Brower.

ynopsis

Notionally a profile of Brower, "Encounters" is broken into three sections. The first chronicles Brower's conflict with Charles Park, a mineral engineer hoping to find and exploit mineral reserves in Glacier National Park. [cite book|last=McPhee|first=John|title=Encounters with the Archdruid|publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux|date=1971|pages=22-23|isbn=0-374-51431-3] Charles Park is portrayed as calculating and pragmatic, unwilling to foreclose real economic value from current generations in order to leave the environment pristine for future generations. This pragmatic view was starkly contrasted with Brower's insistence that "I believe in wilderness for itself alone". [cite journal|last=Nelson|first=Robert H.|date=Spring 1997|title= Does “Existence Value” Exist? Environmental Economics Encroaches on Religion|journal=The Independent Review|publisher=The Independent Institute|volume=1|issue=4|pages=499|issn=1086-1653] McPhee facilitates or observes the dialogue between these two contrasted figures as he does for the other two sections in the book.cite news|url=http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/wsj/access/70836607.html?dids=70836607:70836607&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:AI&date=Aug+11%2C+1971&author=By+EDMUND+FULLER&pub=Wall+Street+Journal++(1889-Current+file)&edition=&startpage=8&type=historic&desc=Of+Honest+Men+Who+Disagree|title=Of Honest Men Who Disagree|last=Fuller|first=Edmund|date=August 11, 1971|work=The Wall Street Journal|pages=8|accessdate=2008-09-27]

The second section introduces Charles Fraser, a real estate developer in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. Fraser's characterization of environmentalists as modern druids who "worship trees and sacrifice human beings to those trees" provides the charge against Brower that forms the title of the book.cite news|title=The Last Word: Wild Men|last=Jellenick|first=Roger|date=September 12, 1971|work=The New York Times|pages=BR71|accessdate=2008-09-27] Brower came to Georgia in order to stop Fraser's plan to develop Cumberland Island. Like Park, Fraser is is depicted as nuanced and pragmatic: his vision of development is controlled and regulated land use. Fraser's development of Hilton Head Island is still considered a model for planned development and McPhee notes that Fraser considers himself a true conservationist. [McPhee (1971), pp. 92–95] [cite news|url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9404E3DC103DF93AA25751C1A9649C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1|title=Charles E. Fraser, 73, Dies; Developer of Hilton Head |last=Martin|first=Douglas|date=December 19, 2002|work=The New York Times|accessdate=2008-09-27] Brower would eventually win this battle, with a groundswell of opposition forcing Fraser to sell his development on Cumberland Island to the National Park Foundation. [McPhee (1971), pp. 149–150]

The third section presents David Brower's unraveling. Here Brower battles Floyd Dominy, then the commissioner of the United States Bureau of Reclamation. Displaying only some of the reserve and pragmatism of the previous two figures, Dominy relished the damming of rivers, while Brower considered damming the ultimate offense. [cite news|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/books/review/Royte-t.html?_r=2&sq=&oref=slogin|title=Of Crime and the River |last=Royte|first=Elizabeth|date=February 17, 2008|work=The New York Times|accessdate=2008-09-27] Brower struggled to save the Glen Canyon from being flooded by the Glen Canyon Dam but failed and as the story progresses, he is increasingly marginalized in the environmental movement for his perceived militancy. [cite journal|last=Robinson|first=Nicholas A.|date=Summer, 2001|title=David Ross Brower and Nature's Laws|journal=Pace Environmental Law Review|publisher=Pace University|volume=18|issue=2|pages=224|url=http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/lawfaculty/374|accessdate=2008-09-27] Wendy Nelson Espeland, in "The Struggle for Water", argues that the Bureau carries much of the blame (or credit) for "radicalizing" Brower. [cite book|last=Nelson Espeland|first=Wendy |title=The Struggle for Water: Politics, Rationality, and Identity in the American Southwest|publisher=University of Chicago Press|date=1998|pages=76–77|isbn=9780226217949]

Reception and influence

McPhee's catalog of these conflicts between the growing needs of society and the shrinking wilderness "pre-saged" what would become known as "wise use", or prescriptions for use that balance the existential value of the environment against societal needs. [cite book|last=Bentley|first=Susanne |coauthors=Lucas, Brad; Tchudi, Steven; |title=Western Futures: Perspectives on the Humanities at the Millennium|publisher=University of Nevada Press|date=2000|pages=171–175|isbn=9781890591045] "Encounters" was positively received in both "The New York Times" and "The Wall Street Journal". "Time" gave a positive review as well, noting the narrative similarities to a novel. The term "archdruid" stuck with Brower and was used appreciatively in many of his obituaries, including one McPhee wrote for him, when he passed away in 2000. [cite news|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2000/nov/08/guardianobituaries1|title=David Brower: Environmental champion whose passion founded Friends of the Earth|last=Reed|first=Christopher|date=November 8, 2000|work=The Guardian|accessdate=2008-09-27] [cite journal|last=McPhee|first=John|date=January 2001|title=Farewell to the Archdruid — conservationist David Brower |journal=Sierra|publisher=Sierra Club|url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1525/is_1_86/ai_68274091]

Notes