Great Divide

STEPHEN GRACE studied novel writing with Stratis Haviaras, founding editor of Harvard Review, while caretaking a house where the poet T.S. Eliot lived. After his first novel was published, Grace moved to a trailer park in Laramie, Wyoming, in the wake of the Matthew Shepard murder, to work with at-risk youth and research a novel. To publish a book about the historical cartography of Colorado, he collaborated with Library of Congress curators and with Vincent Virga, called “America’s foremost picture editor.” To research a narrative nonfiction book about China he sought out experiences as diverse as photographing skyscrapers in Shanghai and trail running in Tibet. To write Dam Nation: How Water Shaped the West and Will Determine Its Future, a Colorado Book Award finalist, he followed rivers west of the 100th meridian and charted currents throughout the region’s history. While writing Grow: Stories from the Urban Food Movement, he worked on a repurposed garbage truck in the alleyways of Denver and volunteered on a farm in Uganda. Grace served as a consultant for the film DamNation, which has won numerous national and international awards. He is an associate producer and the screenwriter for The Great Divide film.JIM HAVEY produces documentary films that reveal important people, places, and stories of the American West. From legacy films preserving the ideals of nonprofit institutions to television programs bringing history to life, the distinctive work of Havey Productions is featured nationwide in publications, museums, theaters, and television. Emmy Award-winning films include Centennial Statehouse: Colorado’s Greatest Treasure and Broomfield: Spirit of the American Dream. Production credits also include award recognition for films on Colfax Avenue, Children’s Hospital Colorado, Hope West Hospice, the Code of the West in Wyoming, and the Cable Television Legacy of Bill Daniels. Jim Havey is producer and director of The Great Divide film. thegreatdividefilm.com

In this companion book to the documentary film The Great Divide, Grace, a Boulder resident, investigates the precarious state of water in Colorado—who owns it and who is entitled to it—and the battles waged over its control. The 'most coveted' water in the U.S. flows from the Centennial State to 18 other states and Mexico: 'Tens of millions of people, billions of dollars of agricultural production, and trillions of dollars of economic activity all depend on rivers born in Colorado’s mountains.' The Continental Divide splits the state into unequal halves; '80 percent of the state’s water originates on the West Slope, but more than 80 percent of Colorado’s population resides on the East Slope.' Grace charts the substantial history of Coloradan water management, discussing pre-Columbian Ancestral Puebloans, gold miners who poured in after 1858, and post–Homestead Act (1862) pioneers who 'found Colorado blessed with fertile soil and abundant sunshine but cursed with dryness.' He also details the construction of several dams in the West. Grace possesses deep insight and a strong sense of place; this presentation, coupled with Havey’s remarkable photos and occasional archival images, is exceptional. Color photos.