Lehi’s family “exceedingly rejoiced when [they] came to the seashore” at Bountiful (1 Nephi 17:6). Bountiful must have been a fertile area. Following are 12 conditions that existed in the land of Bountiful (identified in Warren P. and Michaela Knoth Aston, In the Footsteps of Lehi: New Evidence for Lehi’s Journey across Arabia to Bountiful [1994], 28–29):
- Fresh water available year round
- “Much fruit and also wild honey” (1 Nephi 17:5–6; 18:6)
- Fertile ground in both the general area (17:5, 8) and the specific location (17:6) where Lehi’s family camped
- Reasonable access from the interior desert to the coast
- A mountain prominent enough to justify Nephi’s reference to “the mount” and close enough that he could go there to “pray oft” (18:3; see also 17:7)
- Cliffs from which Nephi’s brothers could have thrown him “into the depths of the sea” (17:48)
- Shoreline (17:5) suitable for the construction and launching of a ship (18:8)
- Ore and flint for Nephi’s tools (17:9–11, 16)
- Enough large timber to build a seaworthy ship (18:1–2, 6)
- Suitable winds and ocean currents to take the ship out into the ocean (18:8–9)
- No population residing in the area
- “Nearly eastward” of Nahom (17:1; see also 16:34)
