EDITOR'S LETTER

Primrose. Even if you’ve never seen it growing in the desert in the springtime, you can guess by its name that it’s probably beautiful. And it is. The humpback chub conjures up something very different. Something unsightly, like Jabba the Hutt or cauliflower ear or hairless cats. Although the silvery minnows aren’t as ugly as any of those things, they’re not pretty, and it’s the namesake hump that makes them so.

No one knows for sure why it’s there, but scientists think it might have something to do with helping the fish maintain balance in the raging waters of the Colorado River. Another theory is that it’s there to keep them from being swallowed by bigger fish. Scientists aren’t sure about the hump, but they have no doubt about the humpback chub’s threatened existence. That’s why Randy Van Haverbeke spends so much time on the river.

Van Haverbeke is a 58-year-old biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and along with a long list of others, he’s working to keep the humpbacks from going extinct — Van Haverbeke alone has been down the Colorado River more than 150 times. On a recent trip into Marble Canyon, which included several other biologists and four technically savvy boat pilots, writer Terry Greene Sterling and photographer Tom Bean tagged along. The science produced by that expedition will be used to help the U.S. Department of the Interior come up with a 20-year plan on how to protect the endangered species by managing water releases from Glen Canyon Dam.

It’s the dam, after all, that created the problem. And it’s complicated. As Terry writes in Go! Fish., the plan has to balance “the needs of dozens of Native American tribes, seven thirsty Colorado River Basin states, trout anglers, farmers, river-rafting companies and hydroelectric power users, as well as honor the Grand Canyon Protection Act, which safeguards the Canyon and the threatened and endangered creatures that live there — like the humpback chub.” At last count, there were only 7,560 humpbacks left below the dam, and maybe 10,000 left on the planet. Ugly or not, the fish, which can live to be 40 years old and grow up to 12 inches long, are worth fighting for. If for no other reason, they’ve been living in the Colorado River for more than 5 million years, which makes them as old as the Grand Canyon itself, and also an integral part of it. The Havasupai people can make a similar claim.

They’ve been living in the Canyon for centuries, and their unique existence downstream of where the humpbacks congregate has been well documented. In fact, if you’re a frequent reader of Arizona Highways, you’ve seen the flamboyant beauty of Havasu Creek and its turquoise-colored waterfalls many times. This month, we focus on the subtle beauty of someone who lives there.

Dianna “Baby Sue” White Dove Uqualla is a medicine woman, of sorts. Her grandfather was one of the last Havasupai medicine people, and Baby Sue inherited an ability to see things that others cannot — to dream things that eventually become reality. She’s guided by an entity she calls Spirit, and at first, those conversations frightened her. But not anymore. As Kelly Vaughn Kramer writes in Wherever the Spirit Moves Her, Uqualla has “embraced what she now considers to be her gifts and travels across Arizona in pursuit of sharing them with others through ceremonial blessings, sweats, prayers and other sacred rituals.” She’s on the road a lot, but Baby Sue is happiest at home. “The canyon calls me back,” she told Kelly for our profile. “I hear and smell Supai when we get near the creek, and my heart cries with joy.” It’s a sentiment that’s understandable to anyone who’s ever seen Havasu. The water, which Kelly describes as “the mingling of absinthe and phthalo blue, lime spilled into sky,” is among the most beautiful — and unlikely — spectacles in the world. Arizona’s annual explosion of spring wildflowers gets the same endorsement. It’s something special, which is why we’ve been featuring it on our March covers for decades.

This year is no exception. Our 2013 portfolio features the incredible work of George Stocking, who is one of the best landscape photographers anywhere. But he’s not just good with a camera. He also wanders the desert looking for flowers in places that few photographers have ever looked. Places like the Rawhide Wilderness, the Gila River bottom and the Eagletail Mountains. And his efforts pay off. I’ve seen every one of our wildflower issues, and this year’s edition might be the best. The larkspurs, lupines, poppies and primrose have never looked better. Especially the primrose. They’re beautiful.