Katie Lee has died in Jerome, AZ at 98. Katie was a heroine of mine.
From the NYT: “Eloquent and blissfully profane, Ms. Lee joined conservationists like David Brower, executive director of the Sierra Club, and the writer Edward Abbey to try to stop construction of the 710-foot-high Glen Canyon Dam in Northern Arizona, which opened in 1963. She became part of the chorus of environmentalists that ever since has demanded that the canyon be restored.”
Early on Katie Lee was a protest singer. Her protest songs turned into real protest when plans were being made to dam Glen Canyon for Lake Foul (Lake Powell). For Katie Glen Canyon was a magical place, the singularly special part of the Grand Canyon where all the forces of nature displayed their abilities in infinite variety. In the 1930’s she explored every part of Grand Canyon as she and her compatriots ran the river.
Katie swam and played in every canyon and side canyon in Glen Canyon. Her friends included Ed Abbey the author of “The Monkey Wrench Gang”, the book that awakened me further to the beauty and mystery of the desert where I grew up.
She authored many books and spoke truth to power whenever she had the chance. I was fortunate to speak to her on the phone about 10 years ago. I asked her about the sign in front of her home on the hogback in Jerome. It was a black and white painted sign that said, simply “sing”. I remember when the sign went up back in the 1960’s. We lived in Phoenix, but our families were still in the Verde Valley at the foot of Mingus Mountain below Jerome and a trip over Mingus through Jerome was required every visit.
When asked about the sign she simply said “I found part of a railroad crossing sign that had been snapped off so I brought it home”. Still I found it poetic and peaceful to post one word in front of her little house to remind all of us that we have choices. At least that is what it meant to me. As for the use of such a prosaic note to mark her home; for me it was the perfect touch.
So her spirit is free now to wander the Glen Canyon of our past to remember something we will never have again. Even if the dam were blown up, her fervent wish, the nasty bathtub ring around Lake Foul will remain for thousands of years. There isn’t enough rain in the desert to wash away the scars of man’s inhumanity to the planet on the scale of the destroyed canyon.
So today I will make the choice to sing about the departed Ms Lee and her crusade to save Glen Canyon. And I will spend the day remembering all my own trips into the desert and some of my own contributions to monkey wrenching and the western landscape that we both loved.
Here are her own words about the place she loved so deeply and for so long. She said this after the first dynamite blast in the construction of the damn dam.
“I feel betrayed,” she said. “Homo sapiens! Greedy pathetic fools with a genetic mania to destroy all the sanctuaries that feed their souls. Well, hell, I don’t give a damn if we’re blotted out. I don’t want to be a part of the human race when I see the pimps in government and the whores who do their bidding. I’d rather be a coyote.”
I too would rather be a coyote right about now.