A poet is keeping vigil at the Great Salt Lake during Utah’s legislative session

The salty, eggy stink of the Great Salt Lake smacks you right in the face on the drive to Antelope Island. Along the nearly seven-mile-long causeway to the island, there are hundreds, maybe thousands of birds. Past the birds is a dried up marina, where water should be. Out on the island, communing with nature, is Nan Seymour. She’s been camping just off the shores of the lake since mid-January.

“When the life of someone you love is at stake, you stay with them,” said Seymour, a local poet and founder of the River Writing Collective.

She described the community of writers as people who “care an awful lot about the world and, in particular, the Great Salt Lake.” After last summer’s historic drought and years of diverting water from it for public use, the lake’s water level reached an all-time low.

To read more about Nan Seymour and her vigil at the Great Salt Lake, visit KUER.org.

This article is published through the Utah News Collaborative, a partnership of news organizations in Utah that aim to inform readers across the state.