In The Canyon

Larabee & Aleson Western River Tours took clients Harold Bradley, Ruth Bradley, Lilian "Eggie" Egleston, and Homer Kesten on a tour of the river and the canyon from March 31 to April 9, 1959. The Bradley-Egleston-Kesten party met in Flagstaff, Arizona on March 30, 1959 and stayed overnight at Wahweap Lodge. Page Aviation flew them to a landing strip at Hite, where they met their guides and began the tour.

This 16mm film from April 2, 1959 includes footage from the river and canyon tours of Larabee & Aleson. Prehistoric Fremont pictographs can be found 5 minutes and 30 seconds into the film.

Bert Loper standing in front of his cabin in Red Canyon on the Colorado River.

A rectangular metal plaque that marked the spot of Bert Loper's cabin in Glen Canyon, placed by the Boy Scouts of America.

Albert A. “Bert” Loper, born July 30th, 1869 (the year of John Wesley Powell's first Colorado River expedition), became a pioneer of river running in the West, especially the Colorado. Loper boated Glen Canyon many times and grew to love it. He died on July 8th, 1949 while running 24 1/2 Mile Rapid in Grand Canyon a few weeks short of his 80th birthday. He may have suffered a heart attack before his boat flipped.

"I belong to the wonderous West and the West belongs to me."

- Bert Loper

A flight record of a flight to Glen Canyon by P. T. Reilly.

Plez Talmadge Reilly was born June 9th, 1911 in Dallas, Texas. He surveyed for the U.S. General Land Office in the late 1930’s and became a passionate conservationist. He was particularly involved with Glen Canyon and did various river trips and flights in this area. He documented his discoveries on the Colorado River and kept a long and detailed log. He discovered Keyhole Bridge in 1956. His flight logs detail the areas he surveyed and include a log of when and where he flew as well as quick journal entries into what he was doing and who he was with. More information can be found in the collection of the P. T. Reilly papers at the Utah State Historical Society.

A selection from an account of a series of archaeological excavations in Glen Canyon.

This book includes images and descriptions of Native American art and culture from the Glen Canyon area. It includes art, pottery, and petroglyphs that were lost with the construction of the dam. The dam lies on the Navajo reservation, and the dambuilders gave little consideration to the impacts on Navajo culture and landscape. The government and the Navajos concluded a land-labor exchange, which ended up exploiting the Navajos. The construction of the dam also harmed the Colorado River ecosystem which was a resource that many indigenous people depended on for their livelihood. The Navajos also claimed that Rainbow Bridge, a sacred site to them, was being desecrated by tourism. They sued on First Amendment grounds, but lost the case Badoni v. Higginson in 1974.