Witness to Water: How to Save the Colorado River, with Pete McBride

The Colorado River is treated much like plumbing on a map, but out on the ground it’s a living system with thresholds, memories, and consequences. I’m joined by award-winning photographer, filmmaker and adventurer, Pete McBride, whose latest book Witness to Water: One Photographer's Mission to Defend the Colorado River traces two decades of unexpected reporting and personal reckonings on the river he grew up with. We talk about the alarming reality of collapsing Rocky Mountain snowpack, rising heat, and a basin-wide standoff that pushes reservoirs like Lake Powell and Lake Mead toward 'power pool' and 'dead pool' levels right now.

From there, the story gets visceral. Pete describes walking into Glen Canyon as the water recedes, finding ghost forests, vanished rock art, and signs of life returning fast as habitat reappears. We dig into why dams create ecological surprises, including endangered fish dynamics and invasive species risks, and why water policy can’t be solved only in fluorescent-lit rooms. One of Pete’s simplest proposals lands hard: get the negotiators in a boat and have them be with the river together.

We also hear of Pete's extraordinary rare hike through the Grand Canyon, heartbreak on the Colorado River Delta, and later the healing legacy of Delta Dawn, where a pulse flow briefly had Pete and friends become the last people to paddle to the sea, and where ongoing targeted releases now rebuild pockets of riparian forest and bird habitat. Along the way we explore 'earned hope', Indigenous leadership and successes, uranium mining and the uncertainty around amazing groundwater dynamics, along with the quieter lesson running underneath it all: how silence and soundscapes shape what we notice, what we protect, and even what we become.

Pete's recent op-ed in Time Magazine, How to Save the Colorado River, might even have been called How to Save All Rivers. It certainly had us also talking about the parallels here in Australia with the Murray/Dungala River, along with our recent journey there.

Pete's short video update from the Delta.

Chapter markers & transcript.

Recorded 22 May 2026.

With thanks to Ed Roberson on the Mountain and Prairie podcast.

Music by Pete McBride.

Katie Ross and I talk about the Murray/Dungala River journey for ep302. And Katie talks a bigger water story in ep304.  

Transcript

Welcome And Why This River

Pete 0:00

This one I've done just sort of uh I kind of played with it on the river.

AJ 0:04

G'day, Anthony James here for The RegenNarration with the stories that are changing the story, enabling the regeneration of life on this watery planet. This is Pete McBride, award-winning photographer, filmmaker, and author, and muso, whose work has taken him to incredible places all over the world. But one river has unexpectedly drawn him back home, the Colorado. I'd just come off the Murray-Dungala River with our first confluence group and was on a train in Melbourne listening to Pete talk on one of my fave US podcasts about his latest book, Witness to Water, One Photographer's Mission to Defend the Colorado River, and I found myself quickly firing texts off to people about it. It's a departure from Pete's previous photo-driven projects, it's all words, and ventures to very personal terrain, while bringing together two decades of stories, observations, and earned hope from time spent on and around rivers. And his recent op-ed in Time magazine, How to Save the Colorado River, might even have been called How to Save All Rivers. G'day Pete, how are you? Good, AJ, yeah, nice to see you. Nice to see you too. I'm really looking forward to this. It's uh it was uncanny when your podcast with Ed on the Mountain and Prairie Podcast dropped. We had just come off a paddle from our longest river here in Australia, the Murray Dungala, and so much of it resonated so much. As much because of a lot of the parallels, right? It's at similar length. Going through its big, in this case decadal, plan review, uh has a sort of a cultural mythology around it too, yet is so diminished in reality. At times the mouth doesn't reach the sea, and it's been just recently changed to critically endangered, you know, sort of upgrade or downgrade or whichever way you want to see it. There's so many parallels to the rivers, and then with some of your insights that have come through your journeys and obviously in this book of yours. So I'm really looking forward to picking apart some of this and going at it. I wondered firstly, I assume you've been to Australia amongst all the continents you 've visited?

Pete 2:18

Never been. I've been to your your uh near neighbors there a little bit to the south. So I've been to New Zealand. Don't beat me up over it, but uh my brother's been to Australia. My uncle worked in Australia, my late uncle. Um, so it's I'm long overdue. I need to come visit you and and ride one of those surfboards in the back.

AJ 2:42

Yes, yes, there's plenty of that to be had. And yeah, some of these rivers. So it's so funny to hear that you for all your travels, almost everywhere else, and yet not here. So maybe we'll have to fix that at some stage. Yeah, 100%. I'm wondering, speaking of your river, quote

Snowpack Collapse And Water Gridlock

AJ 3:00

unquote, Colorado, how the state of play is there right now. I know in your book you said you had to close your farm ditch more towards the um the origins of the river for the first time ever. Did you have to do it again this May?

Pete 3:13

Uh, we have a few days left in May, and so we've not gotten the call yet, but it may happen in June. Last year was bizarre, I've never seen anything like it, but this this year was incredibly unique on snowpack. So our rivers are are fed by the snowpack and the Rocky Mountains, our tributary rivers, and I've done a lot of work around this around the Colorado, which I'm fascinated. I'd love to learn more about your rivers. I'm intrigued to know that you it's the same similar length. And so we had the worst snowpack in recorded history. I think it's at 6% right now of recorded kind of historical values. So, not a lot of water up there in the mountains um in the form of snow. And so it's gonna be hot and dry, and they're I think everybody's scrambling. Um, water managers are in a bit of a gridlock. The mountain states don't agree with the desert states. Uh they're draining certain reservoirs to fill others so they can keep the hydroelectric generation working. Uh, that would be in Lake Powell, otherwise known as Glen Canyon, formerly known as Glen Canyon. That's kind of one of the hotbed issues right now.

AJ 4:29

Yeah, it's funny you should mention Glen Canyon out of the gates, too, because your visit there that you described in the book for all your travels, I mean that that's just stayed with me so vivid.

How The Colorado Gets Diverted

Pete 4:43

That's cool to hear. Okay, so if you've never been to the Colorado River, it is a river that starts out the window here in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Um, and the those Rocky Mountains go all the way up into Wyoming, all the way to the northern Canadian border, and so basically all the snow melt that flows off the western side, which isn't much of it, is actually diverted underneath the continental divide to places like Denver and Colorado Springs in the state of Colorado. There's 22 of these tunnels. So we're pulling off a lot of the water right out of the start. But then that river goes through seven states. Um, I grew up on it, so I call it my Backyard River. I learned to fish in it. I probably basically learned to kind of swim in it as a little boy. Became interested in kind of the ecology of rivers or walking in it, and um so seven states, and then it got crosses the US-Mexican border and and goes into what used to be the largest desert estuary in North America, and that has in my lifetime completely run dry. So the Colorado River, which most people know of it for the Grand Canyon, the river's 1,500 miles long. That's whatever, um, what is that, 16,000?

AJ 5:55

Two and a half thousand.

Pete 5:57

Two and a half thousand kilometers. So the the Grand Canyon is is roughly 500 kilometers long. 277 miles of the river is just the Grand Canyon. So the Grand Canyon, if you think of it, it sits in the middle of the river system. It's 6,000 feet deep. So that's what um 2,000 meters, a little under 2,000 meters deep. It's 18 miles wide, that's roughly 30 kilometers wide. It's extraordinary. You have all the you know geologic history of the world and a lot of archaeological history and a vast amount of biodiversity in it. But at the top of the Grand Canyon was a dam that they built in the 1960s. And that bookends the Grand Canyon, and this is what most people don't understand. And then there's a bookend on the other side of the Grand Canyon that's Hoover Dam. So that used to be the largest dam in the world. So that's by Las Vegas, that created Lake Meade, and then above it is Glen Canyon Dam, and that created Lake Powell. It flooded a place called Glen Canyon. And so you've got the Grand Canyon surrounded by these two basic immense human-created machines, and basically the Grand Canyon on some level is a plumbing system in between the two.

Glen Canyon Resurfaces From Lake Powell

Pete 7:11

And so Glen Canyon, uh, and what I talk about in the book is um I found some old footage of my father's that he went walking up there and exploring it in 1968, and he filmed it, and I was able to digitize some of the footage, and I used that footage as my clues to figure out where he went precisely. And not only was I able to find the tributary canyon he walked up, but I was able to find some of the archaeological wonders that he had filmed. And the reason I was able to do this is because we've had three decades of drought, hotter, drier climate, more straws in the drink, the river and the reservoirs are been, we've just been pulling off the bank account of these reservoirs. So Lake Powell sits right now, I think, at about 22% full. So 78% empty, if we're gonna speak in pessimistic terms. I usually try to see the glass half full. So we're not even we're not even a quarter percent full. But uh because it's so because it's so low, uh, the water level that my father saw in 1968, because they were just finished the dam, it was slowly being flooded, is about the same level that I've seen as the water level is receding. So my entire life, this canyon's been underwater. I learned to water ski there. We motored over some of these places that my father walked, and my father's still alive, but his memories are a little bit dusty on these. But I was able to use his footage, and so I was I walked up there with a Native American friend, a guy named Len Nessifer, who's half Navajo, and so he gives a great hands-on Native American perspective. He's very bright, he has a PhD, and he's a good reminder of the history and and impact we've left on the native cultures. And so he came with me and another friend, um Eric Balken, who runs this Glen Canyon Institute. They're trying to kind of understand this beautiful canyon and what may happen if the water continues to recede. And so I was able to actually identify exactly where my dad was by luck. Amazing. And I stood exactly where he filmed and where he had filmed in 1968. He was looking at at rock art paintings that were probably 1200 years old. What I saw was just um reservoir water scum. It had all been eroded and washed away and left behind the residual minerals, the bathtub ring, as we call it. Yeah. Um, but some of the forests that he walked through are now are still there. We call them ghost forests. They're standing dead, these giant 70-foot cottonwood trees. And so that was very powerful to see that what's happened in his lifetime, his life, my lifetime, and then to see get Len's perspective and hear him saying, like, would would anybody ever flood, you know, a famous, a famous monument in America? Obviously, no. But to the native people, this was their famous sacred monument. So those that went to Glen Canyon before it was turned into a giant reservoir, um, say it was as magical, as profound, as um jaw-dropping as the Grand Canyon, or more so. And having seen some of these side canyons by foot now without the water, I I have to agree.

Power Pool Versus Dead Pool

AJ 10:44

It's so striking that I believe the term is Deadpool. When if those big reservoirs get below the level that they can operate the infrastructure that its purpose was set up for, and that it's on the cusp of that, desperately trying to avoid that. And on this flip side, then you've got this exhibit A, if you like, of what we thought we had consigned to history, and yet within a lifetime, it's back. And I believe, Pete, am I right in recalling that there were even signs of life quickly re-inhabiting some of those side canyons?

Pete 11:22

Yeah, spot on, AJ. It's um I never thought I would see these places. I remember motoring over these places and my dad being like, Yeah, there were some amazing alcoves underneath us. I and I'd ask him more, and he'd sort of avoid it. So not only are these amphitheaters and these alcoves and connected alcoves that it it I mean, there's one called um Cathedral in the desert, and it is exactly that. And it has a little spring trickling through the center of it, and the the walls have kind of collided, so you're you feel like you're in a a place of worship, but it's built by by the hand of nature.

AJ 12:02

To Lynn's point, hey, the metaphor of Sacred Price.

Pete 12:06

Exactly. And so it's sacred for the Navajo and other Native American tribal communities. So to see that revealed, and I think I had motored over with my family years, you know, decades prior. So A, to see that is amazing, but B, to come back, and I walked exactly where my father went up this side tributary, and I saw footage of him walking through beaver dams and these lush cottonwood forests. Most of those cottonwood forests have been drowned in there, the ghost forests. But the beavers are back, the bird life is back, there is fish, there's some natives, many native species. Uh, the freshwater orchid uh just sort of popped back. So nature, uh, as Len said to me down there, nature bats last. But it's uh it's a reminder of our um our hubris to think we could green the desert. And it's you know a wonderful reminder of how small we are of humility. And yes, there's a tremendous amount of loss in the process, both on the natural side. Um, there was obviously on the economic side, the recreation and all that's vanishing. And I understand people are bummed about that, but at the same time, I'm trying to remind people we should be celebrating that we are potentially getting another national park that is as worthy, if not more so, than the Grand Canyon. Whether you can visit it or not, just to know that that exists on this planet, I think is is pretty cool. And yeah, it may be a silver lining in in the picture of this water crisis that we're facing in the southwest. But at the same time, um, it's good to be aware of it. What was there? And just to back up for a second, the the issue of dead pool, there's another term that they're worried about, which happens before deadpool, and that's called power pool. And that's when the water level gets so low you don't have enough head to actually spin the turbines, you'll start pulling air into the the turbine system.

AJ 14:09

What's dead pool then?

Pete 14:11

Deadpool is when the water levels drop even. So you have power pool, and then you go down another 50-some feet, and then you have dead pool, and that is where you can't get water past the dam. They built the outlets too high. So we'd have to actually go in and bore holes underneath this dam.

Dams Coming Down And Going Up

AJ 14:29

It's interesting in the context too, right, of the record amount of dams coming out in the States last year. It reached 100 and released, what was it, 5,000 miles worth of river to reconnect, and that was the longest amount of river in any given year. It's clearly a pattern of dams coming down. I mean, they're varied sizes, right? They're not they're not these sizes. But nonetheless, you've got that pattern, and you've still got new dams going in. So it's like on multiple fronts, it appears to me.

Pete 15:01

Sorry, we have an emergency alert.

AJ 15:04

Yeah, what's that for?

Pete 15:08

Don't know. Something's happening. Hopefully everything.

AJ 15:12

I do remember that. We traveled across the States for what ended up being 16 months till last year. That's how we met Ed. And I do remember the emergency warnings on your phone would be yeah, you're not gonna miss them. They make a hell of a sense.

Pete 15:26

I haven't had an emergency warning on my phone in like seven months, and now it happens in the middle of a podcast. Just to remind you, just to remind you. Yes.

AJ 15:38

Oh, perfect, perfect, as if we arranged it. Yeah. Uh so you've got this microcosm in a couple of fronts, I reckon. Of the moment, I wonder if you think this too, that you've got this amazing rush to take dams out and the benefits of that, and you know, even the life returning from dams that are just emptying, but showing what can happen if we can reconnect systems. And yet you've got more dams going in because it's like, oh, we're running out of water, we need more dams to make sure we're going to be able to service A, B, and C. It feels to me like that's a bit of the dynamic we've got across the board. That that there's a realizing that that master of the universe engineering view of the world was too hubristic, and yet there's a doubling down of those still in that worldview because that's the way they know to fix stuff. Yeah. So you go harder, faster. And I don't know where it comes out, but it really looks like there's those two dynamics at play, not just with water, but across the board.

Pete 16:39

It it it's a great point. It's fascinating. You know, there's been a lot of old dams. Dams have a lifespan, of course. Um, anything we build um is to a degree temporary, of course, such as life. And so a lot of these old dams are they're they're they're a hazard, they can't produce electricity, they never did produce electricity. Um, they're filled with silt and sediment, so they're coming down, and it's it's great. It's amazing to see it happening. I never thought I'd see it. The dam situation on the Colorado River, these are ginormous dams. So the Hoover Dam, which is by Las Vegas, was the largest dam in the world. I think it was 735 feet high. It's been far, far eclipsed by dams in China now and elsewhere. And then Glen Canyon Dam started in 1963, I believe, and it took a while to finish it. It's huge as well. The the really fascinating thing is now the natural ecosystem, because we've engineered this, we've plumbed this river so much that the species of endangered threatened fish are dependent somewhat on those dams. I'll give you an example. There is a fish that lives inside the Grand Canyon, it lives elsewhere as well, called the Humpback Chub. And it it evolved for millions of years in warm water, which the Colorado River used to be when there were no dams. It would get warm as it moved through the desert. So then we built a dam, and the water coming out of the bottom of the reservoir was cold water. And these fish were like, uh oh, this is terrible habitat. So they moved into the side tributaries, like the little Colorado River, where it was natural flowing river and the water was warm. Now they live in these small pockets below the dam, and now there is invasive species living in the reservoir above the dam. So if the dam level gets too low, these invasive species, like I think it's some a certain species of bass, smallmouth bass, swim right through the turbines unaffected, and then they kill and it threatened. They were endangered, now they're threatened, endangered species of fish. So those that are trying to keep an eye on nature and lend nature a hand and bring it back, are suddenly realizing that the dam is caught in the middle of it. It's a catch train too. And that's just one, that's just one of the environmental kind of challenges. There's all the challenges of how to if they're this, they divide, they manage the river by the mountain states, which are four states at the top: Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Wyoming, with the desert states below, Arizona

Fish Ecology Trapped By Engineering

Pete 19:20

and Nevada, and California. They do not get along right now. They see this river very differently. They need to. I suggested they get in a boat together and float down the river and don't get out until they have an answer. That seemed like the most elegant solution in my book.

AJ 19:38

Well, I hear that loud and clear. This is one of the moments where it was like hit pause on the podcast you did with Ed when you talked about the story that John McPhee wrote up in the 70s in the Grand Canyon. Yeah, exactly. Perhaps worth recounting here because it feels like you could be right. Like, this is what exactly what should happen.

Pete 19:58

I mean, I wrote an op-ed about it. Um, the idea came from there is a book that I read when I was in university, um, Encounters with the Archdruid by John McPhee. And it's about um David Brouwer, who started the Sierra Club, he was a big outdoor climbing um guy, and um so late in the evening, and I have a newborn child and I'm sleepless that my memory's not serving me. Floyd Domini.

AJ 20:26

Yeah, there we go.

Pete 20:27

He was the head of the Bureau of Reclamation, he was pro-dam. David Brouwer was anti-dam. What did they do? Um, did they avoid each other at conference rooms, which is happening today, and not go to the river? No, they actually went and did a Grand Canyon trip in a, I believe it was a wooden dory together. And David Brouwer, the big mountaineer tough guy, he actually walked around a rapid and Floyd Domini gave him a hard time. But I think they didn't, they weren't like coming out as like, you know, singing kumbaya and hugging. Uh they had long debates on the beach at night, they debated, they drank, but they came out, I think, with a level of respect not only for each other, but for the river. Did that play a hand in there being less dams in the river, perhaps, or different? I'd like to think perhaps. Um, so that was the foundation for why the seven states

A Radical Fix: Float Together

Pete 21:20

should all get in a boat, maybe with the Bureau of Reclamation. That's the federal. Right now it's managed by the states, uh, and if they don't figure it out, the federal government of the United States will come in and decide for them. And many fear that the federal government doesn't know as much as they should about this river as the local communities do.

AJ 21:40

So there's a fear there. Very consistent themes here, too, Pete, on Murray Dungala. And with this review, you know, currently playing out as well, it's as it is on the Colorado, it's a moment in time, too. And you know, funnily enough, I mean, to back up a step, I guess, it was years ago I was by the Murray and I thought. Oh, I'd love to paddle. Well, it was more than that. I felt the call, if I if I can say that, to paddle the whole thing, the two and a half thousand kilometers. And in the end, I didn't or I haven't yet, but actually an American colleague of mine, uh, we decided to run a group on it that we would take people on it. And for sort of these reasons, which has us coming out thinking, I mean, we just put the word out and said, who wants to come? But it sort of has us thinking now, maybe we should extend the invite specifically to, you know, these sorts of people. And then funnily enough, I come across in Melbourne, the nearest city, capital city to it, that that's precisely what the Yarrow River Keepers Association, one of these groups that you document so well that's been working at this stuff forever, that they invited ministers onto the boat. The head of it and the founder said to me, that's the tinny, as we call little outboard motor boat, that's been our our greatest asset, because that's where we take people like this onto the river. And that's ended up being the first river in an Australian parliament to be designated as a living entity. You're ahead of us. Yeah. But I never would have seen it coming here either. And it came from that sort of a thing. So it it does put a bit of flesh on the bones of the idea that it's it's not just a quip. I have wondered too, Pete, is it for all the transformations along your journey, including the one or the ones that have taken you back to the Colorado River, your home after all those world travels for the last 20 years, summing to this book, Witness to Water? I don't know. Who's gonna ask these people onto the Colorado? I mean, do you do you think maybe one of my journeys should be that? Or is that for someone else? Like, how are you thinking about your role from here?

Pete 23:55

Uh, it's a good question. I've I mean, I I have friends who work in the river conservation space. There's a group called American Rivers. They've they agree with the idea, and I think they're working towards that. I would love to go be invited on one of those trips. I'm just the storyteller guy, so I may not have enough of a resume, you know, the big clout. Um, but I've been working in trying to remind the world of these things. I'd I'd love to learn and go visit your river. It it sounds intriguing to me. So it's the same length, yep. Doesn't reach the ocean all the time, or just seasonally?

AJ 24:30

These are very good questions. It's a complex set of circumstances. But fair to say, in sum, we have to do alternate things like dredging to get it to get through. This is in South Australia by the time it gets to the mouth. And even so, it was just recently upgraded, downgraded to critically endangered, which is going to get it more funds. But you know, you fear that more funds means more fixes of the variety we're talking about, unless we can come to know river differently. So

Australia Parallels And River Personhood

AJ 25:00

we don't grapple, it's not been so extreme, I suppose, as it has got to in the States with the Colorado. I mean, it's a different, it's a seventh of our continent. Like it's a huge landmass. That the basin that it's part of, the Murray-Darling Basin, is as we call it, the whole basin. But you know, it's two million people that depend on it. But it's more, in our case, it's two million people directly, and then masses of export food. And then the health of the people because of the food or and quality of food and water, not just for the people impacted farming, but but who consume. And of course, if it's a seventh of a continent that's similarly sort of sized as the states, it's the rest of life. Yeah. And I guess with the sort of precarity that's in the southwest, too, where aridity is such a, you know, if we don't get it right, it dies. Like it that's the end of the road. Yeah. So that there are many overlaps.

Pete 25:49

Yeah.

Sacred Rivers And The Tap Mindset

Pete 25:50

There's a thing I explore in the book a little bit, and that is um just how we see rivers. And I spent I had the good fortune to to in my work as a photographer getting assignments. I got assigned to go to India for National Geographic, and I followed the length of the Ganges River. Coincidentally, maybe this is the magic sweet spot for rivers, but it's also about 1,500 miles, 2,500 kilometers. It drops, it starts up at nearly six and a half thousand meters, though. So it's big altitude drop. And it's a huge river. It supplies something like 400 million people, if I remember that, or half a billion now. Um, so it's significant. It it flows down through the bottom, kind of the cuts um basically across from comes out of the Himalaya and then cuts underneath Nepal and Bhutan and ends up on the east side of kind of midway of India. Anyway, the the fascinating thing is they believe the river to be sacred. Everybody goes to the river's banks every evening and pray to it. It's part of Hindu culture. They do offerings, they call it Arti or Hindu happy hour. So they they go to celebrate and sort of um cherish their river. So they kind of hug it daily. But in their hugging, they believe it's sacred, so you can't contaminate it, so they put a lot of trash in it. And yet we in the Colorado, we aside from a few dirt bags like myself and others that love boating and fishing and exploring, we turn our backs on it. We just figure that water comes from the tap. Um, food comes from the grocery, water's from the tap, and we've really broken our connection to the natural system and and our rivers. And so I think that is an interesting concept that um I wish I knew how to do a better job of raising that awareness. And I I think the best way to do it is getting people in a boat. I mean, I think the boats, the canoe, whatever it is, a life jacket, a fishing rod, a pair of hiking shoes, those are the best classrooms, in my opinion. And uh, we need we need more of that. Because if we don't, we're gonna have these negotiations for your river and your country and my backyard river in a soulless, fluorescent-lit conference room where everyone's only looking at paper, a river on paper, and a river on paper at the end of the day doesn't exist for nature.

AJ 28:21

I want to keep going on that thread. But just on the Ganges visit, and I I've been to the mouth there too, to Varanasi and seen the the revering. And yep, certainly when you bring the eyes that we're bringing the confrontation of it. But it's so telling that you went because you you thought the problem with our rivers is that it's not viewed as sacred. That's the issue. But to go there where it is viewed as sacred and to see it in all sorts of trouble, too. But the layers of complexity, again, that there actually is some scientific basis to their belief that it purifies things. They don't need to worry about that.

Pete 28:59

I mean, that was extraordinary. I mean, that's a whole other layer we can get into. There are these bacteria phages that eat bacteria, they don't know where they come from. And I did I documented the river with my cameras, but also I took water samples and we we we tested the water samples for heavy metals and um dissolved oxygen, which is a indicator of river health, water health. And the river kept recovering itself after getting just basically beat to a pulp from from I mean there the river was dead by the Taj Mahal. It was there was no oxygen, there was no dissolved oxygen in the river. It was disgusting. There was a dead monkey that floated past me. There's human waste, animal waste, you name it. I was out there, of course, in bare legs trying to do a water test. Just downstream, where it that's the Yamuna tributary that flows back into the main stem of the Ganges, Maganga, as they call it. And suddenly the river's back to life at 8%, uh eight, not eight percent, I think the number's eight for dissolved oxygen particles, um, at Allahabad, which is a very sacred confluence area. Um, and so people asked, Well, did you swim in it? And I was like, Well, I was measuring the water and it seemed pretty good. So, yeah, I did swim there, and I was trying to, you know, when in Rome, so to speak. I didn't get sick. That's interesting. So it's an interesting conundrum. We we humans, we leave our footprints, and um, but we it's I I think the the deeper issue is is do we how we see nature?

AJ 30:38

Yeah.

Pete 30:39

Are we in charge or is nature in charge? And I think it's pretty obvious to me that nature's in charge, but I maybe a growing mine, you know, part of a minority on that one.

AJ 30:49

I'd like to think otherwise, but oh, I think it there seems to be a correlation between how hard we get hit and how soon we realize that. But what really stood out to me though is then when you said we've got our own form of wishful thinking, right, in our culture, that we'll just machine our way through it and just keep building more dams, whatever the case may be. I had literally just had uh my colleague that we ran the river journey with, Katie Ross is her name, from Wisconsin, and she had just given a keynote at a at a water association conference in Perth. So I was there, and the Minister for Water introduced it. And it was a great introduction, too, by the way. He talked about his personal transformation having had that portfolio assigned to him, he never realized, you know, A, B, C, D. But he also said we need to generate more water. And oh, it portrays a worldview instantly in the language. But of course, in this case, he's talking about desalination and other things of that ilk for the complex conversations they are. But what hit me most is in your in your chapter on this when you said both cultures aren't asking what the river might need.

Writing Witness To Water With Vulnerability

AJ 32:00

That felt like the pivot point. Yeah. Precisely. So if we can take this segue into your personal journey, this was such a person you were asked to write a photographer asked to write a book with you stuck a few photos in there, but not too many.

Pete 32:18

Yeah.

AJ 32:18

And in it, you weave together this transformed life of yours that's ended up on the Colorado for 20 years, which does put you in a position of an authority that if you believe some of the people who've spoken to your work think is right up there amongst the highest because you've, as the title would suggest, witnessed it so deeply and and for so long and by getting on it and in it and around it. And uh it does make me wonder for you, Pete, having gone to River in this way, having felt it in this way, and having written about it and shared some of those extraordinary personal journeys and transformations. How was the process for you of sharing that, of pulling it together as a whole narrative? And I guess what do you feel on the back of it of having put it out there?

Pete 33:08

It was um it's a great question. It was, it was a it was a challenge. I've I've done some writing my whole life. I started as a newspaper writer. I've never I've never I've no ego about my writing. I'm one of those hardworking writers that just rewrites and rewrites and struggles. But I liked, I like storytelling. I like to have written. And I think I've probably shot, I don't know, in the upwards of uh over a million images, maybe it's two million, I don't know. I've done a lot of time looking through a camera, and we're now so saturated in imagery that I feel like it's important to get the story out in any way I can. It's like for me, it's a four-legged stool. There's there's the visual, there's the speaking in person, there's this, um, there's social media and um broadcast, um, and then there's the the written word. There's film too. I put that in the visual. And so I've really tried my hand in all of them. In part because I think it keeps me on my toes, it sort of sharpens me as I age, and my my brain dulls a little bit. It forces me to push myself. So um I I enjoyed the process. It was hard, it was long. It started as a different book, more about climate change, and the publisher um realized that I've nobody wants to hear another book about climate change, but water really is on many levels a backdoor to talk about a changing climate. And yeah, if the climate changes, the rivers all die, but it's not as political to a degree if you start talking about water. And so it gets me into the door to groups that otherwise wouldn't hear it, which is good. And the publisher, I got him Randy, he he gave me um, I'd worked with some different editors, and the editor that helped me with this, she's extraordinary. She um, Hillary, she was living in Hawaii, and um she helped sew it together. I I you know I had a lot of pieces I'd written, I wrote a lot, I talked to her a lot. Um, she helped pull scripts I'd written for my own documentary films and wove them back into the book. So it it I started to realize, oh wow, I've done that, and and um, then she nudged me where she needed to, and then she nudged me to go more personal, be more vulnerable, um, talk about my own challenges with which, you know, I've I've plenty, and I always hate the navel gazing concept, but I think it helps maybe people relate. I talk about um um mental health, my own mental health. I've been people some see my world as being, oh, you live the dream, you're doing these big fancy talks, you're going on these assignments, and and that's been peppered with a lot of incredibly steep lows um and depression and no suspension. I would have these lows that would just keep going. That happened after COVID, I think, probably because I was alone and I probably drank too much wine. I got on some crazy wine delivery service that you're living alone and you're not supposed to leave the house. That was a bad move. That's some great wine. But um, I hardly drink wine at all anymore. I've basically gone cold turkey stop. Wow. So I talk about that and I talk about family and my father and our time together, and how he nudged me into talking about um the river and got me up in his airplane, and and how we spent years flying together, and how a lot of this is around our memory of the natural world, and so I talk about my father's memories of this as he ages, and um our memory as a society. So so it was uh it was challenging in the challenge. I liked that was fun. It was I'm grateful for Hillary of and Randy taking a chance on me. Um, and it'll um who knows where the book will go, you know, it's sort of moving its way out. It just came out, um, and um it was incredibly nerve-wracking. I felt like I suddenly was on stage naked. I was like, what have I done? Yeah, I wondered. Yeah, and so it the first and foremost um was having my parents read it, and I was petrified. And they came back and thought it was very touching. And I've had other family members read it and say it's a really good tribute to my parents, and and um, I just had somebody today from National Geographic say you can't stop thinking about it, which is really kind, and you know, maybe too much it there's there's not enough um sassiness in there, you know, sex, rock and roll, and drugs and all that, but uh so it's it's probably never gonna move um to a huge audience. Who knows? I I wish it would because water is important, but um um yeah, I include Heidi, who's my um my fiance in the story, um which was very vulnerable and she approved. And so I've gotten over the uh the total dread and fear factor, and now um I'm just um now I'm in a little bit of the relief factor, we'll say.

AJ 38:08

It's so good, Pete. I mean it it's so good for that. In many ways, I think it's what sets it apart because it's not just about the thing, it's about the entwinement of people and spirit, you know, life and water. And there was a an end to a book I love by Liz Carlyle called Healing Grounds uh a few years ago. Um she'll be on the podcast shortly, actually, thankfully. And it ended with a it was a book that was going to be about climate as well, and ended up being about the land practices and even regenerative agriculture, if you will, of Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans, African Americans. Uh she realized there were these ancient practices and that the dialogue around climate and you know, water for that matter is is another layer. And her closing passage was talking to a Mohawk woman called Stephanie Morningstar, and she said, So what's it all about, after all? And and she had two words, and they've never left me since. And it was ancestor work. I like that. I thought about that with your book, and that your dad happened to be the one that said, Why don't you do a project on the Colorado too? Let alone the parents who, you know, in your words, dragged you around to all these places as a kid, but has formed you in the way you're really grateful for now. So yeah, I felt like that was actually really is what made it overall.

Pete 39:28

I appreciate it. I I really do. It it you know, I'm not you could tell me it sucks too, and I I'd take it I I I'd rather have an honest response than uh I have it. I have had one two-star review on it recently, which got to me not because it was two stars, but because the comment was that there was no it was there was no photos. And I've never advertised it to be a photography book. So I I found that more entertaining. But um that's all right.

AJ 39:55

Well, just for the record, mate, I've had a I've had a one-star review on this podcast. So oh, what was the complaint? I don't think there was one. It was just like, there, got ya. There, take that. So you just you shelved that as well.

Pete 40:09

Well, it's good. You gotta build your Teflon skin somehow. You do.

AJ 40:13

Yeah. But it's funny you got that critique though, given the amount of images you have published on it.

Pete 40:18

Yeah, I've done a whole photography book on the river, and so hopefully that if that person's listening, they can go get see that. And um, but on I'll add one thing. Um, I've had um, and we can get into it more. Uh what was fun too is just is trying to be inclusive about I've been very privileged to meet a lot of people in this process. Um I spent a year walking the length of the Grand Canyon with Kevin Fedarko, who's an extraordinary, you know, best-selling writer, and a dear friend. And we get people joke that we're like Eeyore and Tigger. We're like polar opposites, um, light and dark. But he was generous. He wrote an um, he wrote the introduction, and then Len Nessifer, my my um friend who went in Glen Canyon with me, um, who's from New Mexico, I he credits me as you know introducing him to the water issue and kind of calls me his his crazy um uncle or something. And and he wrote this piece and it showed up, and it was so spot on and so good and so moving to me to to know that we're of we're of different ages, of different backgrounds, of different cultures, that we could come together and create a bond around the story of rivers and water and have him be part of the book. I don't even know if he's read the book yet. I I I think he has started, he's a busy guy. Um hopefully you get to it Len if you ever hear this. But um I'm grateful for for both Kevin and Len for doing that. But also um the book, and in general, it's just fun to tell stories of others that are doing amazing

Earned Hope And Community Led Wins

Pete 41:52

work. I I try to talk about in the um the concept of earned hope, which is not my term. I heard it from a woman named Chris Tompkins, which I love the term because it's about putting sweat and equity behind your action to make a difference. It's it's just hard work and not giving up versus just saying hope and prayers on the internet. It's like getting out and getting dirty and being like, I'm not gonna give up and I'm gonna pound the pavement and I'm gonna get beat up, I'm gonna get knocked down, I'm gonna get up again, and I'm gonna keep doing it. And there's stories of that at the Delta, there's stories of that with the Havasupai tribe helping create a new national monument to prevent uranium mining. A young Native American woman of that tribe named Maya Telusi. Um, she introduced the former president of the United States, Joe Biden, when they announced the monument as an 18-year-old. I started filming her when she was nine with her mother, Carlotta, who's like a remarkable force. She's a great leader in the Native American community around the Grand Canyon. And I'm gonna see her next week. I won't see Maya because she's because of her her kind of blooming, blossoming career. I made a film about her and she's she's now gone on to college in Japan.

AJ 43:10

Oh wow.

Pete 43:11

But the point is that I've been able to create some relationships, which isn't little to do with me. It's really just I think the river kind of brought us together. Or water or the land, and and that's special to me because I would have never otherwise encountered these people, perhaps. Maybe storytelling brought it a little bit, but um so that's fun. It's brought me to you, right? And now I need to go to Perth.

AJ 43:37

Yeah, that's right. And the Murray, you'll be joining us on our next one.

Pete 43:40

I I'd love to. I would love to. So I've I feel like I'm I'm speaking too much, but um, I just wanted to share that because I think um the stories of others and community is so important to me.

AJ 43:52

Yeah, no, and I and I'm really I mean, in my role too, I'm really taking stock a lot of the similar feelings. And learnings, I guess, have been my similar to Ed. I've been doing this for nearly the decade as well, unexpectedly. And I can feel a lot of what you're describing. So, you know, I had to check who said I forgot that T. S. Elliott is largely credited with the line that says, For all your travels, you'll come to return home and know it for the first time. That hearing how you know how you're still getting to know it through these people for already someone who grew up on it is just I mean, it's just so rich and amazing. What a gift. Yeah. That in finding a way to gift to others that you're s you're swamped in return by those gifts.

Pete 44:41

Yeah. Yeah, there's some I think maybe it's a Chinese proverb, you never step in the same river twice.

AJ 44:46

Yeah, think it often.

Pete 44:48

And um, yeah, I I sometimes it sounds maybe a little corny, but I think of the river as a some sort of a friend or you know, I've tried to leave the story of this river. Everyone's like, oh, you're the river guy. And I'm like, well, no, I I used to do like mountaineering stories and like human conflict stories, adventure stories. I still do adventure around the rivers, but every time I left, it seemed like the river would pull me back, or some amazing human being that was had an amazing story on the banks of the river would pull me back. And so it seems like um somehow the river's gotten hold of my soul, maybe all four chambers of my heart. And um I'll keep trying to to beat the drum and and and be a voice uh or a tiny voice for it because it seems like it's gets forgotten.

AJ 45:37

Yeah.

Pete 45:38

There is a section actually that I need to know learn more about, but there is a Native American community in where the river is the border of California and Arizona, about two-thirds of the way, three-quarters of the way down where they have actually, like you guys have done, have given the river rights.

AJ 45:57

That's right.

Pete 45:58

And we have not, um, really anywhere else. So we barely have minimum stream flow rights in a lot of these rivers.

AJ 46:05

Yeah.

Pete 46:06

So that there's no minimum stream flow at the end of the Colorado River, to my knowledge, because that's why it runs completely dry. Yeah. It's not just seasonally dry. I just want to make it clear that the mightiest river in the southwest United States that carved the Grand Canyon. Again, the Grand Canyon you can see from outer space, it's a pretty good accomplishment as a river. Does not reach the ocean anymore. That that seems like wow. That's a that's a wow moment. But you know.

Delta Dawn And A Pulse Flow To Sea

AJ 46:36

Well, this is the thing, is that and I did want, I was hoping our conversation would come to Delta Dawn, your film project, where, well, as it stands, you're the last person to paddle to the sea on the Colorado because some water was let through. Oh, and but before we go here, again, to be clear, very interestingly, too, we did podcast on it a few weeks ago. The Yarra River in Melbourne, the Birrarung, didn't actually get rights. It got recognized as a living entity, but not rights that you could take to a court of law, for example. But many of the advocates view that as more positive because it creates a narrative and an exchange about what that means. So anyway, that's another conversation.

Pete 47:20

Yeah, I I'm gonna think on that. And I need a noodle on that. That's interesting. Yeah, you can tell more of a personal story about it.

AJ 47:26

And you can speak to people about it, right? Yeah, across the divides, if you will. Yeah. And uh, and yes, it was with my colleague who I mean, we're debriefing on the river journey in public basically on the podcast, but we did it by the error because our journey was done and we'd ended up in Melbourne together, and so I wanted to find out what had come of the error. I'll go check that one out. It's super interesting, and a story to follow. But back to Delta Dawn, because uh, I mean, speaking of what it used to be, could you put it more powerfully? That six million years of flowing to the ocean till 1998, and not since, but for this time, that you managed to be on it because some water had been let through, and what an effect that had on you, on the people you observed. And that came about, no, from your dad's instigation to do a project on the Colorado that you'd you'd had a previous one where your heart had been broken because it you reached the part where it just died and didn't make the sea, and this time you happened to be on it when it did.

Pete 48:27

Yeah, yeah. I'll I'll give you the update, which is fun, because there's some positive news there. Um, and I'll try to do it as briefly as I can. So I started this project 20 years ago. My dad's like, why don't you do a story on water? He was hoping I'd stay at home. I was like, sure, I'll do a story on water at home. And then of course it came the whole, it became the whole river, so then I was gone all the time again. Um it's a big river. Yeah, it's a big river. And so my first I did a source to see. Um, a friend of mine named John Waterman paddled the entire length of the river after his mother passed. It's an amazing story. He wrote a book about it. It was a national geographic assignment, but I I didn't have the time to go with him the whole time, so I hired my dad. I paid his costs what I could legally with the FAA, and um and so we flew it and did aerial pictures, and then I met John at the end and we paddled the river, and this is the opening of the book, and the river just fizzles out into this frappuccino pit, as I call it, and it's disgusting. And John's feet got terribly infected, and we packed up our pack rafts. I figured, well, maybe we'll see a little bit of the delta left, nothing. We walked 100 miles, so that was heartbreaking, and it was like, well, how did I not know this happened? This is so weird. It's in a part of the world, it's not very populated, so it on a certain level it makes sense.

AJ 49:47

But is your river two-way? Like it's the river you grew up on it.

Pete 49:50

Yeah, yeah. And uh, I grew up on this thing, and I always just grew up in the belief that rivers flowed to the sea, it's what they naturally do, and and then dried up in my lifetime right after I left university. I'm like, this is bizarre. Why don't we know? Nobody knows about this. Anyway, I was like, well, what can I do? I can't do much. I did a book, I did a short film and got some recognition. They used the book with the US and Mexican delegation. And next thing I know, they're talking about doing a pulse flow. So these amazing environmental groups working with the communities in Mexico, and um they purchased water rights and they released it in 2013, I think. Um around then, it was like less than 1% of the river, and they stored it up in Lake Mead for a bit, then they brought it down and released it out of um the last dam, the last major dam, the Morales Dam, right at the US Mexican border. They had a big party, and they let this Titanic pulse of water blast into the delta. And it was it was it looked big, it was tiny in in comparison to the whole volume of the river. And we're like, well, we better paddle this. So we did and we planned it, and it took time because the river it took a couple weeks for the river to finally connect, and a lot of water went into the ground, into the water table. And I mean, it was extraordinary A to paddle it. I was like, wow, this is where I walked, and now I'm back in the river, and suddenly hearing the birds and it was fish swimming. I have no idea how they got there so quickly. Wildlife was like, hey, like there's a party on the Mexicano River Delta, let's all get there, like the coyotes and everybody showing up. You'd pick up a handful of sand and it would start swimming in your hand because all these crustaceans had been waiting in the sand for like two decades to like be like right on agua. So that was extraordinary. The mosquitoes came out in thunderous biblical droves, and I didn't have a mosquito net. That was oops. Um, and then the greatest part beyond all this was seeing the community come out and just have the fiesta like you've never seen, and it reminded you that we all love rivers, like, and you don't know what you've lost until it's gone. I think Ben Franklin said you you learn the value of the well or water when the well runs dry. So they were down there celebrating with dancing horses and everything. So um, I documented it did this film Delta Dawn. It's talk about it in this book. I've showcased it in this photo book. Um, and it was one of the highlights of my moment. We became the last, my understanding, three human beings to paddle the Colorado River all the way to the sea. And we joined this, this guy joined us named Juan Boutron, who's like the um, he's like the bird expert James Bond of Mexico. I mean, he can MacGyver. There's a show called MacGyver in the US where he could, you know, we know it's anything. Yeah. Um, so he's the like the Mexican MacGyver, older gentleman. He'd never paddled a paddleboard. He did it in his first day in his his Wrangler jeans. We finished with him and another friend named Sam Walton, um, who's a big supporter of conservation, and um very hard journey. And I left that being like, that was so great. Wow. Like, I believe in the power of humanity and to bring back nature and regenerate and everything. I was like inspired, but after a little while, I was like, what's really gonna happen? There were a lot of people saying it was a waste of water. Usual critics there, a lot of it went into the groundwater, it was so wasteful and blah, blah, blah. And they plan to do more pulse flows after that, and and they have. And so the update is that I just came back from the Delta this last fall, where I went to one of the sites where we spent the night. Um, and when we spent the night there, it was like a dust bowl. The river was flowing through, there's a little bit of vegetation, and some great Mexican friends down there made us tacos, and we played music, and we toasted the river, and we moved on. But it was like, wow, this feels like we're the river's passing through like a moonscape. I just went to the same spot, and because they've been doing these pulse flows, they haven't been able to connect the river all the way to the sea, but they use the irrigation canals and they kind of do a spot pulses, and they've been targeting these little restoration areas. So think of them as like pearls on a necklace. And this place, um, Chelsea down there is like um, that's the name of it, is um it's a forest. No, it's like it's a forest. There's all sorts of songburns, they get like 14 million birds passed through these restoration sites. Man, and I mean we had this big celebration. I was actually one of the guest speakers, which was a great honor. I did try to do it in Spanish, but they had you know the more important local Mexican people and native community of Cocop speaking. I did a I'll share afterwards. I made a short little film on that. Oh, you can happily share on your website if you like.

AJ 55:08

Thank you.

Pete 55:09

Um, it kind of tells this whole story with visuals, and um, I left that being like, wow, there is that is earned hope. Right. We're we're living in a time of division and war and conflict and kind of crazy politics around the world and America, and kind of a war on science and nature and conservation. And amidst all that, through all this like craziness and noise, and you see part of the Colorado River Delta like just quietly blooming back to life and showing what we can do when we we don't give up and we put a little sweat equity behind our heart and soul.

AJ 55:51

And that's just on a drip feed. I mean, yeah, you you felt like at the time you you wrote Nyon a Miracle, then, let alone hearing this. But it does bring to mind what you also said, Aldo Leopold had written in his trip, which was sort of like this. No, he described the entire Delta looking like that in his lifetime, which wasn't that long ago a lifetime ago. So that's what it wants to be, and and to think it can manage it on a tricky.

Pete 56:18

Yeah, he said that basically exactly a hundred years ago, 1922.

AJ 56:22

It's kind of poetic that there's a there's a semblance of it returning on the centenary of those words.

Pete 56:28

Yeah, it's like a postage stamp compared to what Aldo saw. But um, yeah, he describes he went down there in his in a canoe with his brother, and he described, and I I love to probably butcher this quote, but he always says the river was nowhere and everywhere because he could not decide which of a hundred green lagoons was the least speedy path to the Gulf. I mean, sounds like fine river trip.

AJ 56:58

Oh yes, and it occurred to me when I was thinking about the part and watching obviously on your film the parties. I mean, just the how it brought people alive, l let alone as you say, the rest of the living beings sharing the joint. But the difference between being serviced with a water supply and being alive with how it gets to you and what else it feeds. I mean, you used the words at some stage, didn't you? There's a deeper thirst we've got to be mindful of that we have. Yeah.

Pete 57:29

No, it it's uh it's a thirst for, you know, I I sound woo-woo saying this, but it's kind of a thirst for the soul. There's something about it. We like to sit on the shores of rivers and look at them, and not not it's not accidental. We've been doing it for millions of years. Or thousands for us, really.

AJ 57:49

Yeah.

Pete 57:49

Yeah. Anyway, that was that was special. I'm I'm glad you brought it up. And it's part not all of what I just spoke about made it in the book because the book had to go to press and all that stuff. But um, it sounds like you know, you guys are experiencing pockets of that in your world.

AJ 58:04

Yeah, no, that's right. It's it's absolutely on as well.

Grand Canyon Silence And Primal Intuition

AJ 58:07

And there's that tension of the moment, but certainly the invitation is there. It okay, let's go more woo-woo, Pete. If we dare. I'm ratting, baby. So the Canyon walk. I mean, unbelievable. Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, firstly, that you did nearly kill yourself far out. By the grace of God, you went and you you did emerge from the first attempt, and then you make it through with Kevin the whole way. And what was it? Sort of 700 and something walking miles, and you know, up and downs in that and searching for water and etc. etc. That you felt it's what you emerged with. I mean, what did you say? Like more people have walked on the moon than have done this. So what you emerged with is telling. And it it's a message to the rest of us who won't ever do that. Because you're smarter. I tell you, certainly my soul is drawn to it like a moth to light, but uh but I probably won't do it all the same. But maybe I'll do something crazy here at some stage because it's it is amazing what you get, no? And two things really hit me of what you described. And one, especially as a visual artist, that you said it was the silence that most moved you, and I think related to it, I imagine related to it. And these are the words that really grabbed me because I hear them around Australia and elsewhere too, from connection like this. And they were you said you developed almost a primal intuition that you started to feel so much more than you expected. Bring us into that if you would.

Pete 59:56

Yeah, it I think it was probably one of the favorite things of the whole project is and it was married to the hardest thing. Um so the hardest thing, and it sounds crazy because we're following a river that we've been talking about, but was finding water. We would often be 3,000 feet above the Colorado River, and it's it's it's there's no just there's no route down to the river. So you're talking huge geologic benches and and and beds and layers. So um we had to find little potholes of water from rainwater, snow melt, um, seep springs. Um I can it I can give you vivid detail of some of the worst spots. Um, we never got it from a cactus. We did have to sort of squeegee out of cow manure in one spot. Um, did not get sick. So the that is the that was the hardest part um psychologically, physically, mentally, just across the board. Because you don't find water, you're kind of starting the clock. And we had a few camps, quite a few, where we didn't have water, we call them dry camps. And so you're just sort of looking at your water bottles and you're you're sort of looking at distance. Um you always have to know where your last water source is because you may have to return. So if you've come 25 miles, you're like, oh my god, I can't believe I gotta go back. So that just paints the picture of that, and in that process, um and being out there and maybe away from the screens and the phones, um, I think I just became hyper aware. Um, I was also maybe because it's partially fasting, I wasn't fasting, fasting, but I was eating a lot less calories for weight purposes. Of I didn't want to couldn't carry that much weight. So we're on burning about 2,000 calories a day. I'm sure uh eating and consuming, and we're burning about 5,000.

AJ 1:01:52

Yeah.

Pete 1:01:52

So we were in this deficit, got very skinny, I lost 40 pounds, but I I had a mental clarity, and I it's like these ancient senses kind of woke up. Scent was one. It's felt like my vision got better to a degree, but the my hearing, the auditory, it it was like it just came to life. It like woke up, and I heard things. I'd be like, all right, those are I can hear the the buzz of of winged insects over there. That's a good likelihood there's water there. And you also had kind of this, I don't know, you had intuitions that I didn't normally feel. Intuitions, both good and bad. Good vibes, bad vibes. And yeah, that was um that didn't happen overnight. It happened more towards the end. It was when um we broke the trip up into chunks and had a lot of amazing friends again help us and community member kind of hold our hands through the tough sections, and then we went out in some tough sections on our own. I did one stretch totally alone, which was lonely and hard and scary. But it was towards the end, I think, um where I felt this sense of um heightened awareness, and I'm not sure I'll ever get that again. And um but a lot of it is based around being in a landscape that has such a deep blanket of silence. It doesn't mean that there's no sound, it's not void of sound. There's rich natural music around you all the time, but but it doesn't just like a m amazing classical piece of music, there's there's spaces, there's moments of pause. And that's so in those pauses you can listen for other things. And yeah, I'm I'm I'm going, I'm diving deep into the woo-woo here, but I was um I was felt like I was able to follow and Kevin felt the same way. Um we really kind of became enamored in it. And I think, frankly, you know, there's we live in a world today that's divided and conflicted, and a lot of it around religion. Every religion in the world reveres silence. Yes. So there's something there.

AJ 1:04:12

Yep, it's funny you say that because there's a prominent uh broadcaster in Australia, Richard Feidler, who's written, travelled and written up a lot of the places in in old Europe. And he said to one of his guests one day, I can't remember who the guest was, I just remember the statement. It was talking about medieval towns and villages through Europe, and that the loudest thing you would have heard would have been the cathedral bell. And it's sort of emblematic of the point you make. But also that, as he was suspecting, that if that's a benchmark for where we're healthier, and I'll bring this into the fray at the moment. I wondered if I would. A friend Claire Vanderplank here in Perth founded the West Australia Water Alliance, and she just put a post out saying that the World Health Organization has called noise pollution a modern plague because of the chronic exposure that is linked to heart disease, depression, anxiety, and so forth from sustained stress response. It reminds me too of the research that was done on whales, for example, after 9-11, when it all went quiet, all the, in this case, the ships stopped. And the research on the on the whales, perhaps you came across this, showed that their communication had gone down an

Listening To Orcas And Soundscapes

AJ 1:05:23

octave.

Pete 1:05:23

Yeah, I did a whole story uh for Smithsonian. Um I went and swam with the Orca in northern Norway to document the sound. You did. The the whole Grand Canyon silence thing, and I'm not trying to like pre promote books, I'm just it's it's um it led me to do a whole book on silence called Seeing Silence. And so it's my photographs around silence, and then I pitched these stories to go listen to the whale species, the orca, were not their their their decibel levels came down and they were using different languages. It's like they left the din of the cocktail party and they were like, Oh, thank god. I can finally have a conversation with you, AJ, about who's he watsel or whatever. And um so I I I had a glimmer into that by pursuing, you know, a book around that concept and some stories, and had this amazing spiritual spiritual kind of moment where a male orca swam towards me was underwater in the polar night, dark water, and we're we're monitoring sound. I got special permission to be there with scientists, and um, and I was trying to take photographs, and he comes right at me and and he hits me with a noiseless pulse of of sonar, which like about blew my heart out of my my my top of my head, and I was like, Oh my goodness, okay, you're in charge, you're the boss. So you know, but it was yeah, it was it was magical. It was like, I mean, so just a quick aside, orca use sonar to hunt. They also use a lot of different calls and sounds, and there's never been an incident of violence with human beings and um orca in the wild, in the water. It is somewhat controversial to be in the water in their fishing territory that's you know, may maybe getting too much traffic. I don't know, it's up for debate. Um, we were there with us during lockdown, um, that's why we were there. So small numbers. But the fascinating thing is you quickly talk about humbling. Um they're 25 feet long, eight, nine tons. There's you know, the male dorsal fin is six feet long, taller than I am tall. I'm in the water with them 38 degree water, whatever that is, um, two degrees, wondering what the hell I'm doing. But I'm getting pinged by sonar, and I'm hearing their sounds and their clicks and their audible. And and then you start to learn about them and you realize that their brains are 33% larger than ours. Their frontal cortex is developed in a way that is you live near the ocean, you probably know all this, and your guys are more connected to the ocean, but it um yeah, it's just an amazing most of the species on the planet have this ability to hear and connect with their surroundings. Hearing is so important, and it I think it used to be more so for us. So that's why it was fun to be reconnected with with that through that walk.

AJ 1:08:24

Yeah, you're right. Being by the ocean, it's it's you know, my water, quote unquote, and common encounters out here with certainly dolphins very commonly, and whales when they migrate. And I was just talking the other day, it must be soon, that they'll head north. And you know, I have been just paddling kayak with a southern right and a calf, like right there, that some dude had a drone at the time and happened to capture it, and so we got an image of it. Otherwise, I'm just out there and you know, nobody ever knows. But it is amazing, and through those experiences, and I guess a lot of freediving too and and other things in the ocean, feeling their uh cousinhood, if you like, you know, as as mammals. Yeah. And so I think I agree, there's a lot to it and a and a lot um that we could draw. And and imagine what they're perceiving with a brain that much bigger and a body, and yeah, it it it blows your mind. You know what else it makes me think of? And I I was just in our journey across the States, we were, I mean, in truth, I've been moved by this, these cultures for decades from afar. Uh, the ancient Pueblaan civilizations, and of course, their descendants now uh still there. And I I imagine them, I mean, in many respects, and their extraordinary cliff-dwelling structures and so forth, and astronomically aligned construction and and how they farmed, and of course, the connection that you've been uh lucky to be um close to with the river today, with some of those descendants. But I think about this too. I think about the silence that must have, you know, the silence, quote unquote, the in the way you described it, the alive silence that they would have experienced and built a civilization within. Yeah. Any wonder their sacred connection endures through layers of obstruction if it was that deep.

Native Wisdom And Uranium Mine Risk

Pete 1:10:18

So I met with a lot of native people during the Grand Canyon hike, and I have since, and um, and they're they're not all monolithic, they have different views and some want more development and because they they've been kicked out of their lands and they want to, you know, have the lifestyle we do. I so it's it's not black or white, it's um they're all individual, and it's important to be reminded of that. But there's been some amazing, amazing friends through it, um and and wisdom and leaders, and a lot of them have been women, grandmothers. Um so in the Grand Canyon hike, we shadowed um a lot of these Navajo um, and there was one who was part Hopi. Um they were fighting a big tram gondola development in the Grand Canyon that was proposed to be built on native land, Navajo Nation land, to bring a lot of economic vitality. But it was right in this spot of this where these fish live that I mentioned earlier, the humpback chub. Huh. And it was gonna bring a bunch of people down there, um, 10,000 a day, and and nobody expected these. There was 10 grandmothers basically, only four of them spoke English. Um, so all very traditional native um Native America. They've been there for generations, 14, 15 generations. And they put up this big fight, and they they got 80,000 signatures. They used the back room of a fast food joint called Denny's as their office. I mean, they all grew up with dirt floors, um, and they went in front of this council and and pushed back on this this billion-dollar development, and they won. Um, the power of women, the power of the native voice, the power of matriarchs, the power of our you know, grannies. All of it shined through. It was great. And more than one of them said to me, as you go in there and you do this walk, remember to listen to the canyon. And at first I was like, well, sure, I yeah, I'll listen to it, but what what do you really mean? And they said, You'll understand. And by the end, I felt like that heightened sense of awareness, intuition, whatever, more more active engagement with my hearing, maybe not listening to music or being on screens, maybe it all just sort of flushed and cleaned. But I felt like I could hear things in the canyon in a way that wasn't just it wasn't just here the the wind or the or the insects or the water or the rock fall. It was there I felt like I was hearing a little more of like go that way. So that goes a little more woo-woo again. But um something there. So yeah, I think the you know, there's ancient wisdom surrounding us, and um we're we're obviously at so much of modern society's attracted by the bright and shiny that we we ignore it, but they may be the ones that lead us back to some balance on this planet.

AJ 1:13:18

Well said, and uh personally we've got this dormant capacity. I'm interested. Yeah, I want to hear that. Um the you know, the other thing that I love that you go and hear is is from the people who want a gondola in the canyon. Or I think of the uranium mine and the bloke that spoke to you. I think about him from two fronts that are really fascinating to me. One is because you felt he genuinely loved the place. So this speaks back to you know who we could get in boats on rivers because to talk to each other. Because if he genuinely loves it, then he genuinely believes what he's telling you, that there's no risk to it through this uranium mine. And yet what a test that was done with the blue dye that just showed how fragile his certainty was.

Pete 1:14:13

Uh, the blue dye. So the there the water table around the Grand Canyon has different layers, and then it connects into these side tributaries and springs, and it it come it burbles up out of the ground in some areas, and others it goes subterranean under the rock, depending on what geologic rock layer is there. And they were curious how the water table is connected. So they put some blue dye on the rim of the Grand Canyon on the north rim, um, and they put some radioactive isotopes in the blue dye, so they could come find it with a fancy device that would pick up the sound wave on the isotope wave. And they everyone sort of expected, okay, it'll come in here and it'll go downstream, you know, it'll drop at 6,000 feet, but it'll end up somewhere downstream. It showed up downstream as predicted, way downstream, middle area, and then upstream in a place that was like 18 miles to the east, upriver. So the water table is moving like a spider web in ways we have no comprehension of. Extraordinary. And I mean, I had a I had a an amazing visit with the uranium miners. They were generous and kind with their time. They were open and they, you know, they believe what they believe. And I was trying to get make myself educated and understand. I'd never been to one. What and then, you know, see these guys going underground in total darkness for 12 hours. Uh, they believe they're, you know, bringing out energy that's the bridge for the future for climate was their argument. They think they're doing it safely. There's been evidence that they've hit groundwater and that's problematic and it's flooded the mineshaft. And so I do believe in storytelling with conversation of all voices and sh, you know, show versus tell, you know, what what's the evidence here?

AJ 1:16:04

Yeah.

Pete 1:16:05

And so I think my takeaway at the end of that, though, is that we don't know enough about the complexity of the water situation. And if we have 40 million Americans relying on that for drinking water, and there's already creeks in the Grand Canyon from prior uranium mines that contaminated it that are radioactive, and we can't touch it to this day.

AJ 1:16:27

Yeah, that you nearly went to drink, right?

Pete 1:16:29

Yeah, I would have it looks perfect. You you you would love to dunk your head in it on and they're like, whatever you do, do not touch that water to drink. So if we have that legacy history, we have that knowledge, and we have a lack of knowledge of how complicated our water table in that situation is, it's a very risky gamble to risk one of our greatest, most iconic national parks and natural world parks, landscapes, and water supply. Not to mention that water, once you move past the the drinking of basically America's salad bowl is um five million acres of farmland. So if you eat salad and if you come from Australia and go to New York City and you have a salad, most likely it's grown with Colorado River water. So we're very connected to this river, whether we like it or not, and it runs more than 10% of the America's GDP responsible for it.

AJ 1:17:28

Yeah. And I think about then the different walks of folks and then different loves of a place that it comes back again. There has to be a place where they can talk to each other. Yeah. And with with that, if you like, spirit of river. I mean, these are all the rivers where these are all the reasons why we're started to do this traveling and see if there's more merit to be had, hey. But I mean your experiences and your experiences are um affirming that, uh sort of emphasizing that opportunity and possibility, and knowing too that you know the love farmers have for these rivers and the lands. And indeed the way many farmers are showing more of these glimpses of um regeneration as well on these rivers. So it doesn't need it feels like it doesn't need. I mean, used to talk about Las Vegas, the demonized bad boy of the going to extraordinary lengths to minimize its water use, or leading the pack in a way. It doesn't have to be so dividing.

Pete 1:18:26

No, it doesn't. I think everyone does more for for the most part care about water and rivers if you give them a chance. I think we just gotta get a few more folks back to the river. Back in a boat, maybe they don't even have to go on a boat, they just gotta get back to the river shore and take it in for a minute and be reminded.

AJ 1:18:45

Yeah.

Parenthood And The Future Of Water

AJ 1:18:46

Your book ends with becoming husband and as you mentioned just briefly during our conversation, becoming father just now. At a time when your parents are aging and you're indeed turning your lens and your recording to them and their stories. How's that life cycle work playing out?

Pete 1:19:08

Yeah, that's um that you know what that was that part, oddly enough, once I got you know Heidi's blessing, um, Heidi's my partner's name. Once I got her blessing, then it was it was kind of the easiest part to do. Um just wrote from the heart. And um, yeah, it was nice because part of the book kind of goes into my dad giving me a hard time throughout my entire life about when am I gonna come home and settle down. And and Heidi is the one who kind of brought me home and became my writer back to settling down. And so that part is has been fun. And it's um and in in life, we we just had a baby girl that's you know six weeks only now, and her name's Maggie. And um, she's um she's small and tiny, came out early, and but she's she's uh healthy and we're grateful and and um makes you think about things in a different way, makes you think about where your water comes from and what our future's gonna hold, and how can we have more conversations like this? How can we engage more people? Um, how can we get more music, the magic of music and the magic of silence and nature to others? Yeah, and I feel lucky that my parents are still alive and we're able to to have to have met her. So that's all been and it hasn't been easy. I mean, it seems easy to have children when you're when you're young um and you're not planning on it. But um, when you're older and um it's not always as easy and straightforward. So it's been a bit of a journey for us, and I'm very grateful that we um given the gift.

AJ 1:20:45

Yeah, and I guess you're conscious as you as you interview your parents now that there's part of that story that's gonna pass through your your craft.

Pete 1:20:54

Yeah, it's um and I wonder, you know, I wonder if one day Maggie would would ever read this book. Who knows? But um yeah, I guess the nice thing about books is you know, even if this was fun because I don't I'm not doing it to like try to make a a dime on it. I did it because I had to tell the story. So hopefully it'll outlive me and it'll something she can cherish.

AJ 1:21:17

Right. I think the same with the podcast, is it? Yeah, totally. My boy doesn't listen, he's 12 now, he's he doesn't listen to me on on the podcast in real life, sure, but on the podcast. But there will be these stories. His name is Yeshi. Yeshi.

Pete 1:21:32

Well, hopefully I gotta meet Yeshi one day.

AJ 1:21:34

Here's to that, mate. Yeah. Well, mate, I can't thank you enough for this conversation.

Live Music And Final Reflections

AJ 1:21:39

It's been absolutely wonderful, and you've been kind enough to agree to bring some music to end it with, huh?

Pete 1:21:46

This is the nerve-wracking part. I'll do it for you, AJ.

AJ 1:21:51

Thank you, mate. No, it's hats off. I mean, I'm so glad that you're up for it. It's I mean, others would say, Oh, I'll record something for you and send it through once I know it's come out all right. But no, you're up for the live.

Pete 1:22:01

Uh we're no, we're going live. Yes. We're going in my in my office live. Um, anyway, you're you're a good man to do to take the interest and read the book, and I appreciate it. So I what am I supposed to? I'm gonna play you something um original.

AJ 1:22:20

Yeah. You can find Witness to Water and the rest of Pete's books and films on his website. I'll link to a few other things too, including the recent op head Pete mentioned that appeared in Time magazine.

Pete 1:22:59

This is right, sing about rivers here. Really?

AJ 1:23:03

Cut loose. Hell no. Sweet. Yeah, it's a great length. I just had to let that last note ring out. That's beautiful, mate. Thank you.

Pete 1:23:45

Thank you. I nobody nobody ever asked me to play my my music, so that's an honor. I'm very glad. Including my fiance. I don't Is that right? I had to love you if you hear this, but uh yeah. She she likes my music, but she puts up with it more than more than she requests.

AJ 1:24:03

Give her time, give her time to come to see. Well, mate, it's been an absolute pleasure, Pete. Terrific to have come across your work, thanks to Ed, and uh at just the right time, I might say.

Pete 1:24:16

Thanks for the patience. Um getting me in the schedule, and it's been a real treat and honor. And um go ride that surfboard behind you for me, please.

AJ 1:24:24

Yes, stand by for your invitation to the river next year, my friend.

Pete 1:24:28

I will. Well, stay in touch. We'll I'll send you some stuff. Let me know when this goes. That'd be brilliant. All right, Pete. All right, good night, mate. Cool. Thanks. Great to meet you. See ya.

Support The Show And Farewell

AJ 1:24:46

If you like what you hear, please become a paid subscriber on Patreon or Substack if you like some writing with that. This podcast is made possible with thanks to listeners like Jason Watts and another romantic couple on a farm, Jeff Pow and Michelle McManus. Thanks so much for your very generous support over four and five years respectively. And thank you all for sharing, rating, reviewing, and telling your friends and others about it. The music you're hearing now and at the top is by Pete McBride. My name's Anthony James. Thanks for listening.