What You See in Clear Water: Indians, Whites, and a Battle Over Water in the American West

What You See in Clear Water traces the history of the reservation from its beginnings, when the Shoshone Indians signed a treaty entitling them to a region encompassing some 44 million acres, to the present, when a century and a half of cuts and revisions have reduced the reservation to 5 percent of its original size. The Shoshones have been compelled to share what remains with their traditional enemies, the Arapahos, and today, both peoples grapple with the familiar hardships of reservation life: poverty, high suicide rates, persistent health issues, and the hostility and indifference of their non-Indian neighbors. For the past two decades, much of that hostility has centered on a highly charged clash between the Indians and whites over water rights to the river that runs through the reservation.

Although O'Gara's narrative is anchored by the ongoing debate over who will decide the fate of the Wind River--and the lives of the people who depend on it--the story deftly and compassionately illuminates the larger conflict that has persisted ever since the European settlers came to the Americas. "It is the unfinished struggle between Native Americans and the whites who surround and threaten to subsume them--once a military conflict, now a cultural war, complicated after all these years by the fact that neighbors, even antagonistic neighbors, know one another in intimate and sometimes affectionate ways." And it is O'Gara's deep concern and abiding affection for the Wind River's inhabitants that give his book its power and its grace. --Svenja Soldovieri

Product Description
For nearly a century, the Indians on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming have been battling their white farmer neighbors over the rights to the Wind River. What You See in Clear Water tells the story of this epic struggle, shedding light on the ongoing conflict over water rights in the American West, one of the most divisive and essential issues in America today.

While lawyers argued this landmark case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, Geoffrey O’Gara walked the banks of the river with the farmers, ranchers, biologists, and tribal elders who knew it intimately. Reading his account, we come to know the impoverished Shoshone and Arapaho tribes living on the Wind River Reservation, who believe that by treaty they control the water within the reservation. We also meet the farmers who have struggled for decades to scratch a living from the arid soil, and who want to divert the river water to irrigate their lands. O’Gara’s empathetic portrayal of life in the West today, the historical texture he brings to the land and its inhabitants, and the common humanity he finds between hostile neighbors on opposite sides of the river make What You See in Clear Water an unusually rich and rewarding book.

On the one hand are the white farmers who have settled legally within the boundaries of the reservation, "reclaiming" arid land with water provided by federally funded irrigation systems. On the other are the Indians of two tribes, Shoshone and Arapaho, historically antagonistic, reduced by over a century of conquest and together discovering a new-found strength to resist the will of state and federal governments. Among them are the college-educated, the young drop-outs, the old who still remember some of the lost Indian culture -- a wide range of people challenging easy ethnic stereotypes while at the same time representing the social ills that plague the reservations: poverty, unemployment, alcoholism. It is a Dickensian cast of characters.

A third group of key figures in O'Gara's story are the non-Indian professionals whose lives become entwined with reservation residents as the struggle over water rights heats up: engineers, hydrologists, conservationists, bureaucrats, lawyers and judges. The endless legal battles bring to mind Dickens' "Bleak House." Court decisions progressively yield more ground to the Indians, and appeals take the case against them all the way to the Supreme Court, yet after $50 million in legal fees, the issues remain unresolved.

While O'Gara makes an effort to maintain a journalist's objectivity throughout the book, his underlying sympathy is pretty clearly with the Indians, whom he gives the lion's share of the book to. Seeming to acquire privileged information in his interviews, he also points out that as a journalist he is often permitted to know what will best serve the Indians' purposes. He must still question its veracity and speculate about the rest, based on what seems to be extensive research in public records and historical accounts.

I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the American West, its history, cultures, geology, topography. The book is organized as a journey upstream, along the river's two main branches, into its headwaters in mountain glaciers. In fact, it's a good idea to have a map of Wyoming at hand for reference. As a companion to this book, I'd recommend Frank Clifford's "Backbone of the World," which explores some of this same subject matter and introduces readers to many other inhabitants up and down the Continental Divide.


An excellent case study of modern day water politics   June 16, 2001
 9 out of 9 found this review helpful

The author manages to guide the reader though a conflicting set of water resource issues on the most legally confusing of all landscapes... the Wind River Reservation. Lined up across the court-room aisle sit the anglo farmers who tap the river for irrigation and the native residents wanting to restore the "in-stream flows" to support the trout fishery. Its a conflict the author uses to drive the story forward, but is only a single thread of a much richer story. The author interleaves the battle over water rights with the history of both the Shoshone and Arapaho and the opening of land within the reservation for white settlers. The author's love of the Wind River Reservation is evident in his first hand accounts describing the area's geography and natural history. This book succeeds by tying together the story's long and interconnected threads into a comprehensive picture of water politics.


A page-turner for anyone who loves The West   January 31, 2001
 5 out of 5 found this review helpful

O'Gara has masterfully woven together past, present and future in this rich account of the Wind River Basin, its people and their struggle for self preservation. O'Gara's intimate knowlege of the social, political, economic, legal, and geologic issues that converge in this complex and fascinating story is as impressive as it is vast. He describes the land with skillful and clear-eyed detail, and he tells the story with a respect and compassion that must only have come from someone who has lived in and loved the West for many years.


Beautifully human   November 30, 2000
 11 out of 11 found this review helpful

This book is rich with geographical details of Wyoming and history of the Shoshone and Arapahoe people. O'Gara skillfully and lovingly describes the Wind River Valley like a sculptor shapes his beloved work. He is an excellent storyteller. What I loved most was O'Gara's deep attention to human relations, personal histories, and character. He always tells the tale with the human in the center. He never proselytizes or places blame. He doesn't demonize or romanticize. Also, the Native Americans are depicted as people, not political images or symbols. It's easy and fun to read, yet never strays from reality. I loved reading it. I wish more stories about Native Americans were told so warmly and truthfully.