To Bring Back Again
Benjamin W. Abbott
“… is the meaning of the word restoration to take a thing of a natural state and place it in an unnatural state, or to place it in a state opposite to its nature? O, my son, this is not the case; but the meaning of the word restoration is to bring back again… For that which ye do send out shall return unto you again, and be restored …”
— Alma 41
It’s right in the book. The instructions. But people don’t read anymore. I hear.
Utah Lake seems out of place and out of time. A fragment of freshwater cupped by the 200,000-square-mile Great Basin. A remnant of the Pleistocene that has witnessed some of the most dramatic events in geologic and human history. The explosive draining of Lake Bonneville. The rise and fall of dozens of Indigenous and immigrant peoples. Natural and artificial changes in climate.
A watery steppingstone for ten million winged migrants. An expansive humid home for ten million finned tenants.
The lake is a living thing, and numbers do a poor job describing living things. But here are a few numbers about small things (often the most important). At the height of summer, the lake’s phytoplankton biomass can reach one hundred thousand tons, producing enough oxygen for the human population of Utah County to breathe for a year. These algae and cyanobacteria feed a three-thousand-ton jungle of zooplankton grazers and predators, who are eaten in turn by insects, fish, and fowl. Before the midges emerge, there are perhaps four trillion invertebrates in lakebed—1,500 in a square foot.
An island of water in a vast sea of land. Waves of frozen stone lap at both shores.
My ancestors broke their promise to protect the lake and respect its peoples. Even so, when their crops failed, the suckers and trout swam into our boxes and nets, flowing to hungry households throughout the Mormon colonies. Before they learned to live off the land, the water showed mercy. The lake showed grace. But there are consequences when covenants are cracked.
Eyes that see dimly trust in arms of flesh. Dirty mirrors lead to misplaced vanity.
Without fish captains, we consumed the spawning mothers and fathers. In arrogant ignorance, we diked the shores and plowed the wetlands. When the food web collapsed, we set about building another one: catfish and carp, salt cedar and phragmites. We diverted the lake’s tributaries and dammed its outlet. Instead of learning from its structure and shape—a reflection of the creator—we tried to remake the lake in our own image. But there was no substitute for water when the lake dried up.
The chief source of problems is solutions. Dodging silver bullets.
In a burst of humility and wisdom, we appointed water captains, and the lake began to refill. When the men came to drill for underwater oil, our judges and schoolteachers told them no. Two out of the three times someone proposed to slice off Goshen and Provo Bays, to crisscross the lake with highways, and build artificial islands—all in the name of comprehensive restoration and enhancement—our legislators said no. Two out of three ain’t bad. By the third time, more of us had become captains. More of us were watching. More of us were listening. We helped them say no again.
Repentance. Relationship. Good medicine.
The first rule of ecological restoration is to do no harm. But retroactive forbearance looks a lot like walking away. It’s not enough to just say no after inflicting so many wounds. What should we say yes to? We have started making space for healing and reconciliation. We are studying the lake and learning from those with longer experience. Unlike the Great Salt Lake, with its piercings, plugs, and causeways, Utah Lake is at least whole—not healthy, but intact. Many indications are good. Declining algal blooms, rebounding native species, a rekindling of relationship. A recognition that our lakes are part of the same organism—a watershed that includes all of us. We depend on lakes for water, air, and food. No amount of ecological work can replace the need to rehabilitate our relationship.
Once and for all? Seven generations of ancestors and descendants.
The lake isn’t an underutilized asset or a problem to solve. The lake is a patient and self-confident parent waiting for us to come around. Consequences and rewards at the ready. Perspective and depth we can only imagine. We the children are still fighting. There is still bad blood. Disagreement between engineers and researchers. Disputes between Timpanogos and Ute. Hobby politicians and professional merchants of doubt question if anything is wrong and whether restoration or transmogrification should be our goal. Some believe the lake is too windy, too wild, too wavy, or even too wet. There will be a fourth proposal to mutilate it. And a fifth. Our descendants will get used to whatever we leave. What kind of people do we want them to become? People on the lake? People in the lake? People of the lake?
Will we be good ancestors?
Ben Abbott grew up in Orem Utah, minutes away from Utah Lake. As a child and teenager, he swam, fished, and rowed in the lake. Now he studies aquatic ecosystems around the world. His research focuses on understanding how human policy and management influence ecosystem and public health.
The Lake That Was an Ocean
Anne W.
My sister insisted on calling Utah Lake “the ocean.” She, along with my mom and youngest sister, were recent transplants from the Pacific Northwest to Utah Valley. Finding herself in an unfamiliar climate and landscape and missing the Puget Sound and the seaside, my sister needed a way to cope, so Utah Lake became the ocean.
She would look for the warm glow of the sunset over its glittering surface from the window of our car and say “look at the ocean!”
She would ask to walk from our neighborhood in Pleasant View, down Stadium Avenue, and along the hillside next to the LaVell Edwards Stadium “so we could see the ocean.” To her, the pointed white peaks of Miller Park’s roof were otherworldly, rising like a castle in front of the lake ocean and distant mountains in the west.
…
Because Utah Lake was an ocean, it was a place of imagination, where unknown and unfathomable mysteries dwelt in its depths, and where diverse peoples from afar gathered to its shores, bringing curious wares and exciting stories. Through my sister’s imagination, Utah Lake transformed into a myriad of possibilities.
I, on the other hand, was not new to the valley, having completed my bachelor’s degree in biology at Brigham Young University. I was especially familiar with Utah Lake – and the natural features and ecology of Utah Valley – through field research and visits to the water with friends. With my inclination for facts, I responded to my sister’s insistent imagination with some exasperation. “That water out there is no ocean–it’s Utah Lake. It’s freshwater, fully land-locked, and quite shallow. The opposite of an ocean. Both home to the endangered June Sucker and the unfortunate site of heavy pollution and persistent algal blooms.”
It didn’t make sense to me to call this place an ocean.
Shortly after graduating, I left on a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, only to return early because of severe anxiety and depression. Having lost much of my certainty in what I believed about myself and God, I was now the one who needed a way to cope. Despite seeing my sister’s method of imagination, I needed certainty and clung to the things I thought I still knew. As romantic as it was to imagine Utah Lake as an ocean, it simply wasn’t true. To me it felt like a delusion, and not a helpful one. A lake is a lake, a desert is a desert, Utah is Utah and there’s no use in pretending anything different. Only pain awaits us when everything we hoped, imagined, and believed finally reveals itself to be in vain.
…
With time, however, I began to see the brilliance of my sister’s imagination. One evening in early February, we mustered the energy to take a family drive to Utah Lake State Park. From the dike at the harbor, we saw thin sheets of ice broken into triangles, trapezoids, and other geometric shapes, floating on the surface of the lake as far as we could see. Among the boulders at the base of the dike, we saw snow that had partially melted and then refrozen into swooping, pointed waves. In all the times I had visited Utah Lake while a university student, this was the first time I had seen the lake look like this, and I thrummed with an energy and excitement my emotionally-dulled mind hadn’t felt in ages.
This time, I joined my sister in imagining we were in the Arctic Circle (not the burger joint). The thin shards of ice, beautiful and mysterious, transported our minds to a different place while also grounding us in the physical awesomeness of the landscape of our new home. Utah Lake was more than I had assumed, even after five years in Utah Valley.
…
Years passed, and I visited Utah Lake many more times as my mind healed from trauma and got re-acquainted with joy. I took many evening walks along the Provo Airport dike with my sister, while I excitedly pointed out red-winged and yellow-headed blackbirds. Watching geese and ducks fly over the vast expanse of Utah Lake, we felt we could breathe a little easier. The future felt a little more hopeful and full of possibility.
It occurs to me now we were able to imagine Utah Lake as distant places and find possibility in our own futures because Utah Lake itself contains multitudes. It’s not that we used our imaginations to try to escape reality, but that the reality of Utah Lake is so incredibly diverse, magnificent, mysterious, and full of natural vitality it inspired our imaginations. Utah Lake transformed us.
Facts matter when it comes to Utah Lake, and scientific and historical facts alone make a convincing argument for cherishing and preserving its ecosystem and cultural heritage. However, facts are not the only things that are true. The narratives we tell about the lake determine how we perceive the lake, which in turn affects the management and policy actions we take towards the lake and its ecosystem. Many of the narratives we have told about Utah Lake for decades have made it possible to pollute its waters and harm its ecosystem, to ignore the elephant in the valley as we have turned our backs to the lake and gazed at the Wasatch Mountains in awe. These narratives also allow some to believe the lake requires drastic transformation and development to justify its continued existence.
We owe Utah Lake some better narratives, stories that celebrate its dynamism and diversity. We can honor and learn from vibrant pre-settler narratives, and we can create new ones. Utah Lake is a lake. It is also an ocean. It’s a giant puddle. It’s a victim of the continuing impact of pollution. It’s a vital ecosystem for fish, birds, humans, and other animals alike. It’s murky. It’s glittering. It’s shallow. It’s unfathomable. It’s landlocked. It’s limitless. It’s otherworldly. For me and thousands of others, both human and non-human, Utah Lake is home.
Anne Whitehouse studied Biology at Brigham Young University and has a master’s degree in Environmental Humanities from the University of Utah. She has lived in Utah County for most of the last decade. For her, Utah Lake is the site of cherished memories with roommates, friends, lovers, and family as well as a place of ecological and imaginative wonder. Anne writes about the relationships between humans and the natural world, especially in urban spaces. She is currently studying the literature and culture of Cheonggye Stream in Seoul, South Korea.
Reflections On Our Galilee
Doug W. Evans
In broad Utah Valley life still flows
into a reflecting heart, a modest
drifting sea of miracles
dampened in soft grey shadows
of verdant mountains.
Pulsing into the Jordan River, she carries
nurseries of life toward timeless
mirrors of a receding salt sea, captive
beneath the fiery edges
of its peculiar horizon.
Vaporous spirits wait to return to her.
As Utah Lake’s troubled waters pray
for untainted tributaries,
we should reflect upon another master
who restores living waters
to histories that churn in turbid ignorance.
He was born with passion,
nurtured by loving parents in Nazareth,
west of the coasts of Galilee.
He was baptized in the River Jordan
and transformed its deep
waters into wine. He walked
on the water’s troubled waves.
Along the shores of fear
and self-doubt, he beckoned
his first disciples. He taught
a sermon upon a gentle mount
overlooking azure reflections
of a heaven few could comprehend.
He calmed her ferocious storms
and fed five thousand faithful
in her vale. With the water
of forgiveness, he filled empty nets
and hearts, overflowing
with enduring hope.
These patterns in Galilee
reflect our sacred responsibilities
as Mother Nature labors
to mend the misdeeds of “progress”
with the slower passions of fresh life.
Tampering is desecration.
If we fill the nets of redemption
with our faux manmade islands
bagged in filthy speculation,
we lose our integration
with the spirit of divine creation.
We will dwell in an abomination
of desolation, disrupting all the lives
we cannot see and all the lives we can.
We are blessed to live within
her arms, the water’s obscure but emerald calm
that washes us toward better shores.
We are echoes of this gift of Utah Lake
a natural temple and irreplaceable sea –
our own Galilee.
Doug W. Evans and his wife Diane live near the Weber River in Oakley, Utah. Doug is a retired water and energy sustainability director of Mountain Regional Water District. Doug has spent his life in the environmental science industry, focusing on water resource protection, efficiency, and sustainability. Doug currently serves on the Summit County Board of Health, Oakley City Planning Commission, and is a South Summit Trails Foundation board member. An avid hiker and naturalist, Doug has spent much of his life writing about water.
Black and White Photo on the Shore of Utah Lake 1958
Steven L. Peck
(as I write a yellow warbler
sits above me chirping
a short call from an apple tree)
I have a black and white photo of my mom
and me on the shore of Utah
Lake my mom’s dark hair
contrasts with the towhead she holds
in her arms we both
wear white sweaters white shoes
small light gray wavelets caress the edge
between the land and water
marking this gorgeous landlocked
freshwater mere—small boats blurry
in the distance
She is smiling into the camera
the shore scattered
with gray logs of driftwood beached
and bleached in a tangle of tossed timber
I think of the birds although
they make no presence in this picture
In 1958 when this photo was snapped there was more
space for birds, more slots for their
existence
a flock of niches
a gaggle of habitat
spanning America north and south
marshes sloughs swamps
lacustrine
shores riverine
places to hide forage and nest
Most now dredged and drained
Here Utah Lake—a remnant
of Pleistocene Lake Bonneville once as large
as one of the Great Lakes—remains
an arm of the Great Pacific Flyway
a path
a jewel in the desert
a chance
to eat and recover
a rest
for birds on their way to nest
in higher latitudes
Some will stay like the warbler
calling above me
but all winged creatures found reasons
to rejoice that at this lake
they could repose
and forage on their journey from Southern
overwintering grounds—an oasis
in this Great Basin stretch of arid lands
Night radar caesura
Spring Migration
On the nights of March 11-20, 2022, 63,400 birds migrated over Utah County including:
snow geese; canvasback; red-breasted merganser; bufflehead; hooded merganser; lesser scaup; long-billed dowitcher; blue-winged teal; tundra swan
Through the flyway dash
avian travelers: thirty percent of all early
migrating shore birds moving
up this arm
stop at the habitat
afforded by Utah Lake and the drying Great
Salt Lake in their passage
north in low spring sun—bodies rich
with fat for the long flight
to northern lands where they will find
mates brood eggs and feed
their nestlings until fledged and ready
for their journey south as generations
of such creatures have done
Night radar caesura
On the nights of April 1-11, 2022, 236,800 birds migrated over Utah County including:
black-necked stilt; bufflehead; willet; lesser scaup; snowy egret; long-billed curlew; marbled godwit; Caspian tern; vesper sparrow
The waters of this well stocked eutrophic
lake provide an abundance of food
and places to rest—year-round
white pelicans, various
gulls, herons, cranes
and cormorants
Personal observation and count caesura
During the day on April 15th 2022, driving around the south end of Utah Lake in the late afternoon I saw these:
On Lincoln Beach Rd
26 cormorants; 21 pelicans; 3 blue herons; 1 cattle egret; 1 black-crowned night heron; 1 osprey on a nest; 2 sandhill cranes
Genola
21 avocets; 2 cinnamon teal; 2 black-necked stilt
Lincoln Beach Boat Launch
2 cinnamon teal; 7 northern shoveler; 2 mallard; 1 Caspian tern; 2 osprey; 2 meadow larks; 1 Harrier hawk; 1 gazillion pelicans (Tally Count); 1 Clark’s grebe; 1 western grebe; 4 killdeer; 1 sparrow species unknown; 1 great egret
When my mother and I were
by the shore of Utah Lake
radar operators revealed
birds—bright green
clouds on a screen
—migrating from the Gulf
of Mexico to the USA
twenty years later in 1970
they found forty percent fewer birds
It has gotten worse between 1970
and now three billion
birds have disappeared
from North America
three billion birds three billion
missing from the migrant pool
3,000,000,000 birds
gone in fifty years
Night radar caesura
On the nights of April 21-30, 2022, 363,400 birds migrated over Utah County including:
Caspian tern; willet; snowy egret; lesser yellowlegs; western kingbird; western sandpiper; spotted sandpiper; lazuli bunting; Wilson's phalarope; long-billed dowitcher; yellow warbler (and once stayed to visit me in my apple tree); Bullock's oriole; chipping sparrow
Another billion killed by window
lights on buildings
How many birds crash as they fly into light
streaming from windows? Another billion
(confused they fall to the ground
feathers, beaks, and bones
askew)
another billion another billion birds die
confused by our well-lit buildings
Another 1,000,000,000
Birds gone what are these billions of birds
worth?
Night radar caesura
On the nights of May 11-20, 2022, 1,218,200 birds migrated over Utah County including:
yellow warbler (there is my backyard bird again!); Bullock's oriole; black-headed grosbeak; western tanager; long-billed dowitcher; marbled godwit; black-necked stilt; Wilson's phalarope; warbling vireo; eastern kingbird; western wood-pewee; willow flycatcher
What are birds worth?
How many billions of our winged
and rare earthlings
are worth the billons snatched
by greed to destroy their habitat?
There are those who would dredge the lake stirring
its accumulated toxins
take the dredge and stack it
as islands and build high-rises requiring
sewage pumped from a sprawl
of development writ large stealing
a vital migration corridor
north to south
and back again
making it wormwood
filling the night with light that thwarts
night migrants
of so many species to fill
the pockets of greed-ridden
destroyers who would steal
from a thousand generations these creatures
of earth, water, and sky
Steven L. Peck is an ecologist who has published over fifty scientific papers. His mother used to take him to Utah Lake as a child and he loves it still – especially its birds. He is a novelist, essayist, and poet, winning an AML Award three times: The Scholar of Moab; Gilda Trillim, and “Two-Dog Dose.” King Leere: Goatherd of the La Sals was a semifinalist in the Black Lawrence Press early novel prize. His poetry has appeared in Cold Mountain Review, Flyway, New Myths, Pedestal Magazine, Penumbra, Prairie Schooner, Red Rock Review, and elsewhere. His latest novel is Heike’s Void.
A Lake!
Wayne Leavitt
What Utah lake?
Lake Timpanogos
Queen of the Valley!
You mean a peak?
No, a lake –
Daughter of Bonneville.
Her shores take in all,
Breathe out fresh life
For her sister Ti’sa-pa.
What golden shores?
Her black halo
Bares life bearing life.
What crystalline waters?
A green-gray cloud
Wears her well.
What bottom feeders?
Utah and June sucker
Serve her kingdom.
What diving depths?
She lies low,
Then rages in wind.
What inconvenience
Is so great
To despise her,
Break her bedrock,
Cut her with causeways?
We have no right
To pock and mar,
Pawn sloppy scars of
Lake Timpanogos!
Wayne Leavitt grew up spending weekends and major holidays in Lake View at his grandparents’ farm. The announcement “goin’ down t’ the farm” or “goin’ down t’ the lake” is still the fastest way to get him to put his shoes on.
Acrostic Lifeboat
Maureen Clark
Take words with you and return to God
Hosea 14:3
The bug zapper flashes Morse code,
A spark for each dot and dash - saying - pay attention. Words are being
Kindled from these fried insects. The rise and fall of empires depends on
Each death. Our elliptical orbit brings another year of language.
Why would you take words to return to God? Why not bundles of wheat?
Oil in clay jars? Fresh baked bread. Why not take salt?
Red wine, purple cloth, things more like worship?
Depending on the alphabet is risky with its creation of ambiguity
Scratched onto vellum, paint on papyrus, so much lost in translation. Poems
Written on napkins and grocery receipts.
I can’t deny that I’m compelled, enticed even,
To thrust my fingers into a bowl of letters and return
Holding on for dear life, writing ‘lifeboat’ just in time,
Yielding to the possible safety of the right word.
Only language can tell our stories. Some letters generate echoes of the
Utterly haunting past, mistakes, the resonance of the earth.
Any word can be a talisman. I’ve always wanted to
Nail down how civilization evolved to destroy itself. I want to write the word
Dromedary because the cadence mirrors the way it moves.
Ridiculous of course, but I’d ride that one-hump camel to the oasis any day.
Even the unvoiced desire can eventually be put into words, and spells
To cure warts, whip up a tempest, make a magic potion.
Unless words carry different weights like numbers and can be
Rounded up or down. Someone show me the text made of water!
Never mind, I’ve wandered off again,
Too full of questions that can’t be answered
Overwhelmed with finding a word to rhyme with orange,
Grappling with the alphabet, the number of syllables in a perfect line,
One too many or needing one less. It’s futile. Please take my words God,
I can’t speak for the lakebed or the land until you return to me.
Maureen Clark lives and writes in Bountiful, UT. She recently retired from teaching writing at the University of Utah and was the director of the University Writing Center. She was a past president of Writers @ Work. The lakes and rivers of Utah often find their way into her poetry which has appeared in Bellingham Review, Colorado Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Gettysburg Review and The Southeast Review, among others.