Who are the characters in The Control of Nature?

Characters in The Control of Nature include the narrator and the people he meets as he explores various ways mankind has tried to control nature in America and Iceland. 

John McPheeis the author and narrator. He travels in America to various places, including Louisiana, Hawaii, and California—as well as outside America to Iceland—to explore the ways in which mankind tries to control nature. According to his Macmillan author profile, McPhee is a writer who...

Characters in The Control of Nature include the narrator and the people he meets as he explores various ways mankind has tried to control nature in America and Iceland. 

John McPhee is the author and narrator. He travels in America to various places, including Louisiana, Hawaii, and California—as well as outside America to Iceland—to explore the ways in which mankind tries to control nature. According to his Macmillan author profile, McPhee is a writer who was educated at Princeton and Cambridge and has worked for Time magazine and The New Yorker. He has received several awards, including a Pulitzer Prize for his book Annals of the Former World.

Norris F. Rabalais is a man from Louisiana who works for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He guides McPhee through his travels in Louisiana as he explores their attempts to reroute the river. McPhee says Rabalais "was in on the action from the beginning, working as a construction inspector." Rabalais has a deep understanding of the project. 

LeRoy Dugas also works for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He works upstream from Rabalais. McPhee says, "Like Rabalais, he was Acadian and of the country. . . . Dugie—as he is universally called—had worked at Old River Control since 1963."

Thorbjorn Sigurgeirsson is a physicist who suggests cooling the lava after the eruption in Heimaey. The lava was headed toward a town where many people lived and where many ships docked. 

Sigurdur Steinthorsson monitors volcanic gas in Iceland. He is married to a woman named Helga. She tells McPhee about what it was like when the volcano exploded. 

Dennis and Susan McNamara are two people who live near the San Gabriel Mountains. The debris that comes down from the mountains creates problems for them at home. 

John Burroughs is a naturalist who lives in Pasadena Glen. McPhee discusses how the people who live in that house have seen the mudslides ruin the local real estate and the effect it has had on their neighbors.

Miner Harkness works for Sierra Madre Search and Rescue. He explains to McPhee that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers caused the erosions of the canyons, which have created more problems with debris and mudslides.