Early on a balmy summer morning, I stopped to gaze upon Great Salt Lake. I wanted to experience this fabled body of water before the crowds came to claim her. In the morning haze, islands in the lake appeared to float ethereally above the water. Placid waters and salt-white beaches blended seamlessly into a softly clouded sky. With no horizon to define the meeting of land, sky, and water, the scene before me seemed wondrous, even mystical.
Great Salt Lake in northern Utah, I’ve learned, is the largest inland body of salt water in the Western Hemisphere. Our rare national treasure creates a home for wildlife, offers an amazing environment for recreation, and yields a queenly bounty of minerals — salt above all, but also potassium and magnesium.
Great Salt Lake lingers as the largest remnant of an enormous freshwater lake called Lake Bonneville. In the Pleistocene Epoch, about 30,000 years ago, Lake Bonneville covered 20,000 square miles in what is now Utah, Nevada, and Idaho. After the last ice age, the lake became cut off from river outlets; evaporation slowly reduced the water level and left behind layers of minerals. The surrounding Great Salt Lake Desert includes a flat twelve-mile strip known as the Bonneville Salt Flats, an auto raceway known for many land-speed records.
Worth Its Weight in Salt
In the area surrounding Great Salt Lake, I saw huge cranes, bulldozers, and salt mills. Commercial ventures have extracted salt and potash, a popular fertilizer, from the Great Salt Lake and Desert since the 19th Century. Magnesium production, a mineral used in pharmaceuticals and to strengthen metal, only began in 1971, but now represents about 15 percent of the world’s output.
Salt played a key role in the settlement of Utah. With a salinity level denser than the ocean, Great Salt Lake remains an invaluable resource for salt. (While the world’s oceans average 3.5 percent salinity, Great Salt Lake ranges from 14 to 27 percent. Only the Dead Sea is saltier with 33.7 percent.) Great Salt Lake contains approximately 4.5 billion tons of salt. Several corporations extract salt using over 80,000 acres of solar evaporation ponds near the lake. They produce about two million tons of salt per year, most of which goes to chemical and metal industries, municipalities for road salt, and ranchers for cattle salt licks.
As an historian, I’m awed by the critical importance of salt to human life and history. Like most, I tend to take this humble mineral for granted. At times, cultures have considered salt more precious than gold. Civilizations, ancient and modern, throughout the world have mined, cultivated, and traded salt. Wars were fought for it. Taxes levied on it. Revolutions inspired by it. In Africa and Asia, people believe salt wards off evil spirits. In Islam and Judaism, salt “seals a bargain” because it is immutable; hence salt is the symbol of covenant. Many cultures offer bread and salt to welcome visitors. Even in our modern American culture, we still consider spilled salt to be bad luck; we throw a pinch over our shoulders to blind the eye of the devil. We think of a valued employee as “worth his or her weight in salt”; an honest, hardworking person as “the salt of the Earth.”
Salt’s esteem lies in its innate value to human life. Biologically, humans as well as most other animals need a small amount of salt to survive. For thousands of years salt served another vital function, food preservation, which enabled humans to withstand harsh winters and to travel long distances with a ready food supply. Pliny the Elder, an early Roman author and naturalist, claimed the Latin word salarium (salary) evolved from salarius (salt) because Roman soldiers received a salt allotment as part of their remittance.
During the American Revolution, British loyalists intercepted patriots salt shipments to prevent them from preserving food. In France, the monarchy’s salt tax became a principal grievance that led to the Revolution. Over a century later, Mahatma Gandhi led a 240-mile march to the sea in protest of Britain’s Salt Act, which prevented Indians from collecting or selling the staple and levied a heavy salt tax on the colony. This act of civil disobedience struck a blow to British imperialism and fanned the flame of independence.
Flat-Out Fast
The Bonneville Salt Flats, considered one of the flattest places on Earth, sits on the bed of ancient Lake Bonneville. I drove down a flat, pot-holed road to get to the famous raceway.
On a hot summer afternoon, only a few other cars ventured out this way. Some drivers tested their skills, zooming across the salt bed. I parked and stared out at that blindingly white expanse of hard, salt crust — in places five feet thick — that distinguishes the twelve- by five-mile strip. It looks for all the world like snow, but I tasted it and can verify that it is, indeed, salt.
Since 1914, racers have challenged the limits of surface travel at Bonneville. On this natural straightaway, racers broke the 300, 400, 500, and 600 mile-per-hour land speed barriers. A British team, called the Bloodhound Project, hopes to one day push the record to 1000 miles per hour.
Sadly, the Bonneville Salt Flats has claimed its share of fatalities. Ten racers have lost their lives attempting to set new world records. Most recently, acclaimed racer Jessi Combs died on August 27, 2019 in her attempt to surpass the women’s and overall land-speed records.
Life on the Lake
From the shore of Great Salt Lake, I watched ducks, geese, and egrets circle overhead and land on the beach. What do these water fowl eat, I wondered? The lake is far too salty to support fish and most other aquatic species. Yet Great Salt Lake has become an important wildlife habitat. Several types of algae live in the lake, I discovered. Brine shrimp and brine flies tolerate the high saline level and feed on the algae. Migratory birds and ducks, as well as resident avian species, feast on brine flies on the coast and marshes. Commercial fishermen harvest brine shrimp eggs to sell as food for farmed fish and prawn.
Larger animals have found a way to subsist at Great Salt Lake as well. Bison, antelope, deer, bobcats, coyotes, and elk roam freely on some of the lake’s islands and along the marshes.
The lake certainly attracts the human species, especially for recreation. Kayakers and swimmers enjoy a wonderful buoyancy on the salty lake. Small sailing vessels ply the waters and dock at two full-service marinas.
On the summer day I spent at Great Salt Lake, handfuls of locals and tourists arrived with the rising sun. In the distance, I spotted a sailboat slowing navigating across the smooth surface. At times, the boat seemed to float above the water. An optical illusion or perhaps a magical mélange of saltwater and sky.
Every Place you go, goes on my bucket list, Thanks for the awesome retirement I’ll have…lol Love you girls ! Barbara
Thanks for sharing the beautiful photos and in depth background of this work of nature’s art.