‘Headwaters,’ A Book Celebrating Alabama’s Rivers, to be Subject of Talk, Signing at UA’s Natural History Museum

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – “Headwaters: A Journey on Alabama Rivers,” a new book from The University of Alabama Press presenting one photographer’s exploration of Alabama’s waterways, will be the subject of a talk, signing and reception from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, April 23, at the Alabama Museum of Natural History in Smith Hall on The University of Alabama campus.

The event is free and open to the public.

Beth Maynor Young, a conservation photographer who has spent much of her life chronicling the natural beauty and remnant wild places of the contemporary South, has filled the book with 155 photographs displaying the native beauty and com­plexity of these Alabama watercourses that carry 20 percent of the nation’s fresh water to the sea.

From the primal seepages in the Appalachian highlands or along the broad Chunnenuggee Hills, Alabama’s riv­ers carve through the rocky uplands and down the Fall Line rapids, then ease across the coastal plain to the Gulf of Mexico.

Accompanying the photos is text by John C. Hall, curator of the Black Belt Museum at the University of West Alabama in Livingston and former director of interpretation at the Alabama Museum of Natural History. The forward is by Rick Middleton, founder and executive director of the Southern Environmental Law Center. Hall and Young will speak at the event.

For more information, contact the museum at 205/348-7550 or at museum.programs@ua.edu.

The mission of the Alabama Museum of Natural History is to broaden the knowledge of natural sciences and human culture through collections and quality programs of research, instruction and service.