Fountain Creek: Big Lessons from a Little River - Paperback

by Jim O'Donnell (Author)

Jim O'Donnell sets off from his childhood home in Pueblo, Colorado exploring the history, ecology, and commodification of Fountain Creek--challenging us to reexamine how we relate to the world around us and how we might break free to a brighter future.

"Every stream in the American West deserves a biographer as affectionate, thorough, and lyrical as Jim O'Donnell."
--BEN GOLDFARB, Crossings

From its headwaters high up Colorado's legendary Pike's Peak to suburban concrete-lined canals, Fountain Creek has endured nearly everything humans could do to a single watershed. It has been dammed, diverted, drained, poisoned, restored, exploited, ignored--and yet it has survived.

Journalist and archaeologist Jim O'Donnell grew up exploring among the beavers and discarded beer bottles that have long populated Fountain Creek. Irreverent, deeply knowledgeable, and endlessly curious, O'Donnell guides us through the contradictions and complexities of one of the most heavily urbanized areas in one of the fastest-growing states in the nation.

Fountain Creek is at once a reflection of our ever-changing relationship to the natural world and a challenge for each of us to reexamine the many ways we are connected to the world around us, to water, and to each other.

Author Biography

Jim O'Donnell is the author of Notes for the Aurora Society: 1500 Miles on Foot Across Finland, Rise and Go, and a collection of travel stories. Born and raised in southern Colorado, O'Donnell holds a BA in Anthropology and a Masters in Community and Regional Planning both from the University of New Mexico. After a career in archaeology, O'Donnell continues to work as a community conservation activist and wilderness advocate in the American Southwest where he fights to protect and restore wetlands and watersheds.