Nan Seymour and Eli Nixon

Lake-facing poet and activist; Artist and author

Salt Lake City, UT

October 12, 2024

How do you save a place historically deemed as a wasteland? And: celebration as resistance

“This is not normal. If there’s even a normal left,” Nan Seymour declares on the shores of the Great Salt Lake. 

It’s mid-morning and the sun is already blazing hot overhead, shimmering on the horizon of the Kennecott Copper Mine smelter behind us. Water levels in the Great Salt Lake have been on the decline for decades due to climate change and overuse: the lake is a closed basin, meaning it has no outlet. Water and minerals deposited there from the three tributaries: the Jordan, Weber, and Bear rivers, stay in the Great Salt Lake. Or, in recent years, are evaporated en masse causing the salinity of the water to increase as levels drop. 

Like many saline lakes, the Great Salt Lake has been historically seen as useless and a waste of water, making conservation efforts exceedingly difficult. The lake now occupies 950 square miles, a far cry from the 3,300 square miles of 1987. Continued rapid evaporation has led researchers to estimate that if no policy is enacted the lake will dry up completely in 2028 – that’s four years from now – causing a mass die off of endemic brine shrimp, and a loss of migration habitat for the largest populations of Eared Grebes and Wilson’s Phalaropes on the Pacific Flyway. 

The then dry lake basin would begin to stir up toxic dust storms endangering surrounding cities, creating a reality similar to that of communities around the Salton Sea and the Owens Dry Lake in California. Salt Lake City, Utah already ranks 14th in the world for worst air quality. The exponential increase of worsening air quality would contribute to higher cancer and asthma rates, especially on the west side of the lake, one of the lowest income regions in the Great Salt Lake Basin. 

So, how do you save a place historically deemed a wasteland?

This is where Nan Seymour comes in. She calls herself a lake-facing poet, keeping vigil for the quickly evaporating saline body of water. To her, the Great Salt Lake is a relational and ethical crisis, the “culture of disdain” being the driving factor behind the leniency in enacting policy to keep the lake at a habitable level. Nan spent forty days living on Antelope Island through the dead of winter during the 2022 Utah legislative session as an act of resistance, drawing attention to the lake. Her time on the island on the shores of the lake was spent writing and collecting poetry of the Great Salt Lake from community members, eventually compiled into a book, “Irreplaceable,” with over 1,400 lines of poetry from scientists, activists, and community members praising the lake and the life it fosters. Our time with Nan is spent in celebration – sitting and observing the lake life, writing poems and letters, and singing a song of support to the salty waters.

Later, we meet Nan on the Jordan River to assist with a community art build. In 2022, seeing the need for continued political action to protect the Great Salt Lake, Nan with the help of community members and artist Eli Nixon, activist and author of, “BLOODTIDE: A New Holiday in Homage to Horseshoe Crabs,” held the first vigil for the lake at the Utah legislative session. However, this protest looked different than many. Nan felt a call for presence and praise from the lake. So instead of picketing, Nan and her group turned to building puppets of endemic life of the Great Salt Lake. Protesters clad in paper mache brine shrimp and Wilson’s Phalarope costumes held billowing blue fabric in their interconnected hands dancing and singing their praises to the lake. 

It’s an honor to assist the group at the art build: Eli is the ring leader, directing us and other community members to help with cutting fabric for giant puppets, painting orange pelican pouches, and making paper mache pelican heads and hats in various sizes. The atmosphere is excitedly frantic as we work together to complete these art pieces. The hours fly by and with our project nearly complete, we all participate in a gesture of protest – students clad in still drying pelican hats, bedazzled brine shrimp costumes, holding up Wilson’s Phalarope puppets and the rippling blue fabric reminiscent of the salty lake waters circled around a central accordion-playing brine shrimp to sing and dance together. Celebration is the most powerful form of resistance, Eli reminds us, leaving us with the hopeful notion that we will all live to see the Great Salt Lake rise again.

by Gwen Marbet