1 Fiege's history treats the development of irrigated agriculture in Idaho's Snake River valley during the early years of the twentieth century. Fiege's purpose is less to describe the engineering and politics that built the system than it is to scrutinize the effort to control nature and the ideology that grew up around that elusive goal. 2 Control is fleeting. Dams and levees leak. Burrowing animals undermine embankments.
Irrigated fields become oversaturated.
New watercourses bring fruit to barren land just as they also bring unanticipated weeds and pests. Plant and animal life return to canals, drawing them back into the ecological system. Conventional distinctions between the natural and man-made landscapes dissolve. Again we try to arrange land and water to suit our objectives. And again nature circumvents our plans. . . .