Buenaventura River

Okay, cool

... had worked briefly in kind of the western water policy world just before going to grad school, and one of the things I stumbled across was this, this legend of a river called the Buenaventura River.

Never actually existed, but it appeared on maps of the American Southwest for something like 70 years on old, old maps.

And I was really fascinated by that, that story, the historical aspect of it, but also it struck me as a really good metaphor for the way we think and talk about water in the Southwest.

Injuns say there's a heap more of the same kind up above for three hundred mile.

But did you ever hear anything about the Buenaventura River flowing west instead of south, across the Great Basin and emptying into the Pacific Ocean? "Heard about it.

Never saw it," stated Kit.

"Never knew a trapper did see it.

The Reverend Mr. Perkins had suggested to the lieutenant that he could reach Washington quickest and easiest by chartering a small brig, which was anchored in the river below Fort Vancouver, and sailing down the coast to the Isthmus of Panama, there to cross and charter another vessel for the United States.

Consequently, with this in prospect, and with the return by way of the sources of the Missouri in prospect, the future looked bright.

Besides, or else, remarked Kit, thar's the southern trail to find that Buenaventura River emptying from the desert into the ocean, and to strike the Spanish trail for the mountains and the states.

The lieutenant has been mightily interested in the Buenaventura.