"So, by the time you get to the Hohokam, they were skilled hydraulic engineers." Through trial and error, these ancient river people accumulated knowledge that was passed down from generation to generation, Huckleberry notes. The oldest waterways archaeologists have found date to 1500 BCE and diverted water from the Santa Cruz River in Tucson. Native Americans have been building canals in Arizona for at least 3,500 years. Soon after, Swilling began scouring out the debris-clogged ditches to bring agriculture back to the region. He realised that, centuries before, some society had farmed this desert. In 1867, the city's founding father, Jack Swilling – a prospector who had fought on both sides of the Civil War – stood above the Salt River Valley and saw the remnants of irrigation channels squiggling across the landscape like stretchmarks. They are a major reason Phoenix exists, and the city's name hints at their mysterious origins. The canals deliver irrigation and drinking water throughout the metro area, allowing millions of people to live in this sun-baked desert. And I've chatted with long-time residents who fondly recall fashioning water skis from plywood, tying a tow rope to a pickup truck and jetting through their neighbourhoods in a spray of water and dust. ![]() I've joined wildlife watchers strolling the main Arizona Canal on a summer evening to watch Mexican free-tailed bats make a mass fluttering exodus from their roost. ![]() As a native Phoenician, I've spent many hours bicycling their banks alongside joggers and fishermen casting for carp. ![]() Crisscrossing Phoenix, Arizona, are 180 miles of canals – more than twice as many as Venice and Amsterdam combined.
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