She had asked Norm Nevills whether it, he would be possible, to take a series of horseback trips a. And go down into various spots in the canyon and do collecting of plants. And— Norm felt that that was, an utter impossibility, to do, much of that, very economically. And he said, “the best way to collect plants would be to go down the river.” And so, he and Elzada got to talking about this... a. Ah, the summer of nineteen thirty seven actually, and. Ah, I guess they both thought about it a lot. And along about Christmas time, Elzada wrote a Christmas card to Norm and said, “How's, you know, how's the project coming?”

So, ah, the agreement went that Elzada was to scare up, two other people to go with us. One who could serve as a boatmen. And ah, I don't really know whether it was— Norm's idea that it would be neat to have two women along, or whether Elzada just felt that was, ah, a good thing to do for propriety's sake. And so, time moved along and Elzada talked about this. And I don't know just at which point she asked me whether I would be..., interested. And I said yeah, I would be interested, it depended on whether I could get the money for to pay, my share of the trip. Which meant I borrowed it from my father and mother. , and— ”I borrowed it” in quotation marks because, I never paid it back. But from my mother and father. And so, we then, went on with plans, and mainly, read all the material we could get our hands on, about the trip.
I had done a lot of rowing. But I had no idea what a boat, a boat that went through rapids, should look like.

How had you come to do a lot of rowing?

Oh, [laughs] Because I had been a counselor at summer camps for two or three summers in succession. And they re always wanted somebody to be out in the row boat to..., if a camper had some kind of a problem. We were supposed to be able to maneuver up to the camper, and at least clamp our hands on the, kid's neck or something and then bring him in. So, that I did do a lot of rowing. And then when I was at the Biological Station, which was then known as the Bug camp, from University of Michigan, we rowed both to collect things, but also for recreation. You'd, you finish a day of class work and then you'd go out on the lake and row. And so I did have good rowing muscles at that time.

The first, publicity that came out, about the trip did come from Ann Arbor, and it came because I told a friend of mine what my summer plans were. And her mother looked at me and she said, “Have you seen that river? Do you know what you're doing?” And I lied, and I said, “Yeah, I've seen the river,” knowing that I had seen pictures of it and read all of the accounts of it, and I didn't feel, that I was unaware of the fact that it was a dangerous trip. And that particular friend of mine, happened to mention it to another person, whom I knew who was on the on the Michigan Daily, which was the student newspaper there. I had worked on the Daily in my freshman and sophomore years, as a matter of fact. And so, the Daily—if you're a student newspaper, you love to get in there , and have something that nobody knows about— and that's the first public break of it. So the headline came out, in the student newspaper, which was widely read in Ann Arbor, that said something to the effect, “Women botanists to Collect on the Colorado River.” And the news services picked that up. And— you know, that was really more publicity than— certainly than I wanted.

You said... for propriety's sake that Elzada Clover thought you should come. I don't quite understand that, it would've of been improper for her by herself?

Oh, yeah! Oh, yeah!

Now why..., I don't quite get that.?

Well, I don't think for..., for.., protection sake. But I suspect that in Elzada's generation— she was approximately fifteen years older than I— women didn't go running around in unchaperoned situations with men they didn't know. And Elzie was never prissy , about things like this. But I think... what her feeling was... she wanted to do nothing that would discredit the University of Michigan. And this is what governed all of her activities in, in whatever, whatever she did. She was in essence a very dignified person too. And and I wouldn't have really thought about this much myself. Because if you've been a student in any biology set up, you're used to going on field trips where they may be week long trips, or they may only be overnight trips. And ah, nobody gets particularly excited about exactly what the procedures are going to be. I didn't really credit this sort of thing as being very important, until we got back from the trip. Elzie spoke to a lot of different groups. Lot of different people, and we did have the films to show. And she was a very entertaining speaker. I spoke to fewer groups, but umm, they tended to be oh, Rotarian groups or , civic groups, or people like Sigma Xi and some of the other scientific organizations who were interested in the exciting things about the trip. And on one of these talks, I don't really remember whether it— was a church group— a woman came up afterwards and leaned over close to me and she said, “Tell me, did anyone try to take advantage of you ,on that trip?” And my mouth, I know, dropped open , and I said, “Oh, no. Everybody was very pleasant and very friendly.” And she said, “Well, they're men aren't they?”
Well, in a way, Elzie was doing just what my, father always said to me. That you avoided the appearance... of evil. And this, in a way, is sort of a hypocritical thing. But ah, you know, [it would] get you through a lot of problems. And also, have a lie ready. [laughs]

Well, first we got ready by reading all the literature that we could get a hold of. And talking to a lot of people. And then deciding what to wear. And, ah, and actually, Elzie didn't much like blue jeans. Again, I think because they had a masculine appearance. And she didn't want us to attempt to look as if we were trying to do what all the guys did— because both of us didn't believe there was that much difference. That between the sexes in terms of what your interests were and in terms of what your abilities were. And one of our pet peeves, was when people would ask us,. “Do you think you could do everything as well as men can?” And of course, the answer always was, in terms of strength, that probably we could not. But certainly in terms of endurance I think we thought we could hold up pretty well. So, we made lists and lists and list of stuff, and I don't remember any great omissions of things that would make us comfortable on the trip. I don't even remember that we were far off on lots of things. People didn't use sunscreen then— we didn't worry about that. And I don't recall, that we even worried greatly about drinking water, as we have on this trip. Which I think makes a great deal of sense in how well you feel, as to whether you are drinking enough. We just drank whenever we felt thirsty. And sometimes we even drank out of our sun helmets when we were on the river. Usually we tried to let the water settle overnight. But that was all that happened to the water. Course it was vastly different circumstances then too, in terms of use of the canyon.
And all this stuff like the plant presses, and even newspapers that you use to put plants between in the presses, were set up. And we had an awful lot of junk, I thought, to carry. Elzie I think did not have a regular bed roll. I had a makeshift one, where you alternate folds of ah, blankets. I think I probably had three blankets, and slept under whichever layer appealed to me. And I did..., the idea of an air mattress appealed to me greatly. My father and mother sprang for that. And it was so much more bulky than anything that you see now, of course. All of this stuff got collected in one place, or another. And the department of botany was very supportive. Cause after all, three of it's members were involved. And the Department head gave us a great— we went to what we thought was the departmental spring picnic— and it turned out to be in honor of the travelers, who were leaving.

Now it was you and, Elzada and who was the third?

Gene Atkinson was the third one. He was in an anomalous position because he was, being paid by the botany department, to do, actually, sixteen hours of work a week was what his assistantship, involved at that time. But his interest was primarily zoological. So, it was a kind of a strange, situation. And we stacked up all of this stuff and left, as a matter of fact, from the Natural Science Building.

How much did that trip cost, if you don't mind my asking?

We each, as far as I know, we each put up four hundred dollars.

A lot of money then.

Then there were transportation costs. What we did was, do it the cheapest way. We drove out in Gene Atkinson's car. And, didn't spend a lot of time, driving out.
So, essentially that paid for the supplies and the materials for the boats. Which Don Harris was helping build. And of course, that was a tremendous job. Because there was no electricity at that point in time at at Mexican Hat. And so, all the tools, all the drilling of holes, for the hundreds of screws, was done with the hand, hand drill.
We drove down to Norm's place first. He was still working on the boats. And we...our, are job then was to sort the stacks of canned food into the..., we had supposedly two days' provisions in each gunny sack. Elzie and I did that. And also, we labeled the top of the cans in case the labels soaked off. There were a few odd surprises that came up, when we opened something…
Norman and Don were busy— when I say they were not ready, they were putting the last touches on it. As I recall, we stayed over at least a couple of days at Mexican Hat and met Norm's mother and father. And greatly admired that lodge that Norm's father had built,. which I'm told now has burned down. But, then we finally got started in a, sort of a caravan and went up through Bluff and on up to Green River, Utah. And on that section of the trip is where, usually, older men would come up to us and say, “Do you really know what you're getting into? That's a bad place, and many people have been lost in many places.” And ah, there were was even one gentlemen who had had too much beer, who had came over and kissed us both good-bye, to our great surprise. [laughs] And so, we were pretty..., I think probably..., flippant about, the whole thing, cause it seemed like the easiest way, to handle being warned that you were..., were probably not going to come back, was what they were saying.
And I think it was probably Elzie, who said first, “Well, if we don't come back just toss a rose over into the canyon for us.” And this really bothered people. I guess, again, because, it sounded too flippant.
Anyhow we got to Green River, and there were..., there was a little attention from news people,. I don't remember that there was a great mob of people until we, got started the next day, and then there was quite a group of people that gathered. I think Don had family there, a girlfriend, and the Nevills of course were there. And when we got into the boats, I wasn't even sure that they were going to float. Because— I don't think either Elzada or I expressed this opinion— but we didn't know—they'd never been in the water. And it was a comparatively new design. And so I, was really quite relieved. I thought:, all's we'd need would be to have one boat sink before we ever really took off.
So we got started and, ah, and in fact, had some of these friends and relatives in the boats with us until we went down to a spot they called the Geyser; two or three miles I guess, down the river. And that was the final, farewell. And the start of the, trip. Of course that whole first stretch down to the confluence was a very quiet one. There were some little riffles and things to practice in, and I think we all took turns rowing the boats. because Norm perceived no danger. I had done more rowing then Elzie had so Norm pretty soon took her off that particular duty. [laughs] So, we had, had a good time, going down that section. Norm occasionally, lectured us about doing things. About being careful, particularly.
My first mistake was to toss a bucket from the boat, toward the shore, and it didn't make it. And sank and we didn't ever recover that bucket. This was the first... bad example number one. And as we went on down towards the confluence, I don't know that, most of us felt any more apprehensive until we got to just above the place where the Green and the Colorado joined to become the Colorado. And you could hear the noise of the first series of rapids. And we knew there were several in a row, very shortly after the joining of the two rivers. And that was a sort of a, not ominous exactly, but we were all pretty serious.
So, the four fellows went down to, scout the rapids. And Elzie and I sort of poked around by the places where we had, tied the boats on the right hand shore. And we were... Elzie was taking pictures and I think I was just generally milling around, and. I heard Don shout . He came, breathlessly, running, as well as he could, over the rocks. And he said, “The Hat is loose. We've got to go after it. Come on. Grab your lifejacket and jump in.” And so, we did. And as I recall, we picked..., I don't really remember, which of the other two boats we leaped into. And started off. We could see the Mexican Hat bobbing on around ahead of us, on top of all of the waves. We thought we probably had gone through one rapid and possibly two when Don said, “I'm going to pull over and, an, take a brief rest here. “ Because he was out of breath when he jumped into the boat.
I'm almost sure those were the, first big rapids that he had run. He'd been on the San Juan. But because of the high water, the rapids had coalesced as it were, and we had actually had run, I think, three of them in that first chase without recognizing that they were all one big rapid instead of three. So we, went on. I remember bailing furiously with a coffee can. We had buckets too, but I don't think there were any free in the cockpits of the boat. I think there were seven rapids in all. And when we got through that mess and it looked like quiet water ahead,. Don pulled over on the left bank. And we didn't see any sign of the boat. It was a big stretch of sand more extensive than this place that we have..., where we are here. And finally, way down at the end of it, I thought I saw a little bit of white. And so, Don and I progressed down there and indeed it was the boat. Sort of, in a minor eddy near the shore. So we pulled it up on shore. And probably tied it. Don had said the other day, that he thought what he had done was to tie it, the original tie, at the confluence,. on several willow stems. And the water had risen . and, so the boat had pulled free, from them. I was relieved when he said that, because I really didn't really remember... And I hoped I hadn't been the one that had tied it.
So, we decided, or I guess, Don decided, that the best thing to do was for him to walk back up on the left side of the river, where we were then. We knew the other people we'd left were on the right bank of the river. And then, indeed Don did start out walking. Well, my bedroll was in that boat, so we probably dragged that up to a, place where he decided would be a good camp. Not too different from where we are here Except that there were only willows growing in the sand. And then it got dark.
Don went on back up and when Gene saw the movement across the river, it was getting fairly dark, by that time. He was collecting specimens, and he thought for a little while that Don was a deer, but fortunately obeyed the rule about not shooting at anything until you really had identified it. But Don was relieved that he didn't get shot at.
So then they had the business, with one boat, of getting the four people who were on the wrong side of the river, across, to the left side. And, Norm did that, running across the rapids. Which seemed like, like at the time, when I thought about it, a tremendous feet. But watching you guys, handle the boats, yesterday, maybe it wasn't as…of you choose your place, I think that's not an impossible sort of feet. So, what happened was that they— Norm and Elzie and Bill Gibson— stayed at that particular place over night. And, Don and Gene started back towards me, thinking that I would feel stranded, and also wanting to inform me that everybody was all gathered on the same side of the river and everybody was all right. They got about half way, down— I believe they did have a flashlight—but the rocks were pretty big and it was difficult for them to maneuver. So they stopped, and slept. Don had— his pants, of course, were wet and he had no shirt on— so he spent the night. As soon as his legs got slightly warmed up, he'd move the trousers to around his neck. So, it was a pretty uncomfortable, situation for him.
They started out again the next morning and got down before the boat did. And I was delighted to see them. But I don't recall being— I felt lonesome there by myself, but not particularly frightened— because I didn't think there was anything that was going to damage me greatly.in the area. Certainly, I didn't anticipate any other people around. And even then there was no reason to be particularly, afraid of them. Cause anyone who would penetrate down to that point in the canyon, would have to be sort of a hearty soul anyway.
I don't remember what we did about cooking breakfast or anything. We probably had coffee, and hauled out the Grapenuts. And that was about it at that particular point. We had a wonderful reunion, when the other people came down. Norm had a good reason for saying, “You see, I said we should all be careful.” We were reunited and started out again.
Two bad things about the whole Cataract section—we did come to some rapids that Norm felt had to be lined. And eventually to a place where the hole was right close to all the rocks along the shore . We pretty much stayed to the left shore as we, went down. And, that was really, back breaking work for, for everyone. Because there's one place where we had to pull those three boats on— we picked up enough logs to use as skids, or rollers or whatever you want to call them—and did, of course, one boat at a time. And everybody was working, pretty hard. I remember Norm said, “You're just as good as any man on the river.” Because Elzie was , as tall— almost as tall as I— and certainly was used to doing, not manual labor, but I think we probably wouldn't have been able to do it if the two of us hadn't really pitched in.
And of course, we portaged all the junk. Including, a carcass of a deer that, Gene had shot, up a little further up the river, which we did utilize for meat. I think for only a day; certainly, no more than two days, because it was extremely ripe by the time we finally buried it. And that was difficult, at that particular point.
I guess I had no regrets about going on the trip because I remember thinking to myself: well, you got yourself into this, you might as well, just, carry on through. And the only way to do it was to, just go on out. I think that bad place took us two days to get through, and we had had some discussions— I remember, Bill and Elzie and I talking at one point, about if something happened to the boats what we would do. And Bill opted for climbing up and walking out over the desert, and that didn't appeal to me at all. I thought it would just be the best thing to work along the shore until I came to someplace where there were people. I suppose it would've of been Hite if anything. But I thought sticking by the water was a better move than trying to climb out without water. Fortunately that was unnecessary.
Then the other bad point, was going through a rapid and I think— I don't even remember who was rowing the Botany. At any rate, Don was in the middle of the river and we saw the other boat close to the right hand wall and really going up. It, was the wrong place to be, and I don't know exactly why they were over there— whether they misunderstood directions or just didn't move fast enough— but the boat capsized. There was no problem to pick up Bill Gibson in the water, floating along. And Gene had sort of crawled out, by the shore at that point and he was talking about hearing rocks move under water— this is something that he had mentioned, when he came up— and he got a little tossed around underneath the water and had a pretty bad cut on one lower leg, and was a little bit— ah, maybe disoriented is too strong a word. And Bill certainly was happy— they were both happy— to be out of the water.
Then there was a series of things that have been better described in one of the books. Four of us with two boats, Elzie and Norm— not knowing what had happened to the rest of us— down river someplace. Gene was on top of the boat and had the rope in his hand— he really didn't rejoin us, we just talked with one another. I was trying to figure out why it was that we went floating down with an upside-down boat, and we never did get it over to shore at that point in the game.
Eventually, we caught up with Norm and Elzie . They climbed aboard, the Wen. Still with the tie rope in his hand. If you could imagine anything more awkward than trying to go through a rapid, under those circumstances, with somebody sitting loose on the bottom of a boat, holding in his hand— although he may of cinched it around something, I don't know— but it was a very awkward thing, and they couldn't, get it, landed, right. Maybe Norm thought he could handle the upside down boat better than Gene could. But at any rate, they exchanged positions.
So, here's Gene and Elzie in the boat. Norm with the other boat. And somehow, I guess they were going to get it to shore, and they couldn't quite make it. So, they ended with Norm on shore, and the other two still towing this dumb, boat. And they went through several other rapids, in this shape.
So we came along, and here's Norm, so we stop and pick him up, and that left four of us in the remaining boat to go down. Don, ran the next two rapids and the rest of us were just passengers. We finally did get all together again and stayed over, I think, one day, drying out equipment.
Bill Gibson's camera had been in the hatch, of the overturned boat and unfortunately it did leak to some degree. The camera and the Grapenuts, and anything that was in there was pretty well soaked. And this was how my dislike of Grapenuts originated. Because, we spread them out on a rock to dry, but they dried in aggregates, like great big marbles. Even when we tried to pound these apart, they still didn't dry out in the center. And of course, they molded. I don't like Grapenuts until this day. [laughs]

So, how'd they finally get that boat to shore?

That's why. Elzie's first hand account is better than mine. Because, we heard this narrative, while we were sitting around recouping our spirits. I don't really, remember the details of that clearly. But it was wild.

Was that somehow a point of departure for... between Don and Norm?

That was certainly a part of it. I think just as on any river trip, somebody has to be in charge. And certainly in this case, it was Norm. And I think for maybe the first time, he felt that maybe he started something that he didn't control. Couldn't control. At any rate he did ask Don to take that boat through the rapids.when we the four of us were all together. And it may have been simply because he was fatigued. I don't know. But I think that maybe was one... and they didn't always agree about how to run rapids, either.The fact that the following year, when Don went down and he ran everything, to me meant that he had more confidence in his skills, than, perhaps, Norm did at that moment. Norm was ah, a very decided soul. And I think a leader has to be a leader. But he was abrasive at times.

It's funny, you look at a lot of pressure situations like that. First trips, and stuff... The Powell expedition. When people are under pressure, I think we tend to show the worst sides of ourselves.

That's right. Of course, what happens too... Is here were all these situations, we were tired, when we were doing all of this business of, pushing the boats around. Both Don and I, whether it was from drinking unsettled water, or just stress, both of us, had digestive problems. Certainly, Gene, his leg hurt him and he'd been knocked around, so that he wasn't his normal self, too. And Bill was really remorseful about his camera. So here we were in that kind of a situation. And then we go out of that part of the canyon, no more rapids to run. A beautiful place, Glen Canyon, but you just drift along and... I think the relief of the pressure, makes you do things that you might not otherwise have done. Because, the four of us did sort of..., I don't know that you would call it, ganging up, but we made a tight community, and e. Excluded Norm and Elzada. I don't know whether—I don't feel particularly guilty about that.— but it was unfortunate. So we tied up together, the two boats, and drifted down, and ignored the others. So, this was the genesis of Norm calling me a trouble maker. I think I was not anymore so than any of the other three. We were equally culpable, I believe, and equally…impatient with Norm.
We did call ourselves the Gripers, as a matter of fact. The four of us. Don was the one who noticed that the birds in the bushes were saying, “Gripe, gripe, gripe,” Because we were complaining about this and that. [laughs] I don't know what birds those were. We didn't work very hard rowing. We just flowed with the current. We just enjoyed ourselves. It was in that section, I think, in which a plane flew over and dropped some notes to us on little parachute things. They wanted us to identify ourselves and asked us, if we needed help, and there were these prescribed gymnastics we were to go through,. which I don't, really quite remember, except that one of them was that if we needed help we were to do one thing. And one of those things was lying down, all of us in a row. And then we would do other things, if we needed food. So we got through that. It was really ridiculous, this plane circling above us. We were simply, going through these maneuvers. I thought it was probably a good thing that somebody was checking up on us, at that time, (and we were not that far from Lee's Ferry),. because my family didn't know that we had been found, as it were. I think the department head, had a lot of connections with Washington. Because he had done a lot of plant introductions stuff. And I think he had raised a sufficient outcry about, at his missing botanists, so, that, somebody went into action. Because it was a Coast Guard plane, that flew up, and that kind've, surprised me.

* * *
I was thinking today, how can we prolong this trip?. Well, it wasn't really a serious question. But I thoroughly enjoy it.

No, I, think it's amazing how fast they go. The funny thing is, the longer ones are easier. The faster you go, kinda the more you have to push. You have less time to just kinda, go slow.

The compromise between moving on through the rapids, through the trip, and the time available, is always a hard thing.
This was one of the things— that you couldn't stop every place that you wanted to collect, and still expect to maintain any kind of a schedule. And we all knew how painful it was when we got behind the schedule. And, people didn't have any means of communicating. with us. And all the stuff about “Botanists Lost in the Canyon.” And so forth. That was picked up by Associated Press. And just went on, an just magnified itself.

Yeah, was that a set-up?

I never thought of Norm as being devious— and I think he wanted us to see Rainbow Bridge and certainly had he asked Elzada about it she would have wanted to take the day to see so interesting a formation— but she wouldn't have wanted to deliberately delay our arrival when she knew our families and friends would be concerned. At the time I was not aware of any dilly-dallying.
But we did, then, pull into Lee's Ferry. And I think that great picture, [see pages 38&39] that you redid was probably, one of the things that, we had to go through, because the essential Pathé newsman wasn't there when we first landed. So we had to do a landing all over again. And there was a welcoming committee. Somebody came in with watermelon, some other goodies. I just remember the watermelon,. cause that, was so, refreshing.

[At Lees Ferry Don Harris, running late as they were, felt he had to return to his USGS job or lose it. Gene Atkinson returned to Michigan.]
You guys laid over there for a while...

We had to because, Norm needed to get two more boatmen. We were not really certain that the trip would continue, at that point. It really depended on whether he could just, out of the blue, pick up two more people to replace Don and Gene.

What did you think about that? Were you wanting to go?

I wanted to go if the trip continued. I wouldn't've of been mad at anybody if we hadn't. Because it, it looked very chancy when we were there. But we obviously didn't feel sure that the trip was going to continue, because Bill and I were supposed to've of gone down and repainted the boats in the time that we were, there; and I think—two things: As you've probably have discovered, I don't like to expend a great deal of effort, if I'm not sure it's going to be worth anything, and . it was what? It's seven miles isn't it? From Marble Canyon Lodge, where we were staying, down to the landing, at Lee's Ferry. It's a distance anyway. We knew it was, they had brought us up from there in cars. So, we debated some.
Some of our time went, when Buzz came up. Buzz Holmstrom, came up to talk to us. And the first thing we knew, it was mid-day, and I think we decided it just wasn't, worth, walking all that way down to paint boats that we didn't know whether it was going to be any use, to us or not.

So, Buzz Holmstrom came up and met you guys at Lee's Ferry?

He never got down to the Ferry, he only, we talked on the bridge and in the motel lodge. That's where those pictures are taken, with us standing on Navajo Bridge. He trailered his boat up. He brought his boat because— and, he, this is the neat thing about Buzz— he said to us, “I came up with this boat because I had some idea of putting in and going hunting for you.” And he said, “Course, I thought it would be good publicity too.” [laughs] Not many men— excuse me, I'm sounding like a feminist— not many people would admit it, the first time they met some people. He was very ingenuous. Very modest really. And I think a little embarrassed when he met us too, because he was the one who had said, “The river is no place for a woman.” And when he came up— I don't think he met Elzie until Boulder Dam— but we talked a long time. I don't remember whether it was the whole afternoon, or what.

What did you think of him?

I thought he was great! I really thought he was..., you know, people..., people talk about Don Harris... and I think Don was great too. But I really, if one could be a hero worshipper at twenty-four, Buzz. This was the one that appealed to me. Greatly! He— one of the things in the picture that doesn't show up, is that he's handing me his match case, that he carried on his original trip. Has a compass at one end, and it's about so long. And a black tube, he even, it even had matches in it. And we tried them out later, and they lit fine. He was giving it to me, to take down the rest, of the canyon. As a matter of fact I still have that. I still have that thing, and I wouldn't've of kept it unless I really thought he was neat.

He put in all by himself. And he came all the way down through here. And, I don't know, did he go clear to Hoover Dam?

I seem to remember him saying that he touched the dam. That, to me was really something, to go, through here. I don't know what maps he had. , I don't remember that he, he may've of mentioned that; but to start out all by yourself, and to have a degree of— well he said, “I didn't know if I'd get through or not. But I just thought I'd try.” In Oregon I know he had done a lot of boating. I think he had probably run the Snake and some other, rivers b. Before he got involved in this. Someone in the USGS party that Maxson was with—they ran into him someplace, a. And somebody said to him, “Well, Buzz were you ever scared on the trip?” He said, “Gee, I was scared all the time!” He never bragged on anything. He might've of really meant, more accurately, that he was not, fully comfortable all the time. But I can't imagine him being really frightened. But ah...

Sounds like really somethin. So, he stood out from the crowd.

Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

He wrote to you several times?

Oh, yeah. I had letters. At least seven or eight letters from him. Some of them were written that summer— he did go down later in nineteen-thirty-eight. There was a letter from Phantom Ranch— he had some complaint about... the people were charging him too much for supplies. And then he said, “I have to take that back because they gave us a lot of stuff.” Which was typical I think, too, of Buzz. He wanted the record to be straight.

Seems like he was a guy that didn't quite fit in. In the normal...

Well, I'm sure that, well, that wasn't the usual sort of thing that anybody did.

Hard thing to follow up. Well, were you scared? And what did he tell you about coming down here?

There were plenty of times that I was scared, in the sense that if you leap into a boat and you go through your first rapids, that's scary, And besides we didn't know where we were going. We didn't know exactly what we were doing. And we had lost a boat. Well, yeah, I was scared. But it was quite exhilarating. I remember only once thinking it was pretty dumb to've of come down there, and that was when we were trying to do the bit of portaging a boat in Cataract. And then I thought, well this, you got yourself into this. You know, nobody made me come.

So there at Lee's Ferry, getting ready to run the Grand Canyon, with these boatmen who had gone... Did Buzz encourage you, or did he tell you he didn't think you ought to go? Or did the subject even come up?

He was very sympathetic, listening to—and we did, we unloaded many, many complaints. But I don't recall that he said, “Don't do it.” At the end of the trip, when he met us— with many other people a. At Boulder, he said, he wrote on my sun helmet, “To the girl who proved me badly, wrong.”. Referring to the fact, that [he'd said] the canyon was no place for a woman. I don't know what he'd think now, about me stumbling over the rocks, and falling down at Deer Creek and whatnot. But I wasn't..., well, maybe it's a question of not bright enough, being bright enough to be really afraid. I certainly wasn't terrorized a. Anytime on the trip. After I saw the one go through the rapids all by itself... I may have even thought “who needs a boatman?”. [laughter]

So, finally, here comes Norman, and he's got these two new guys for boatmen and off you go, and what was that like?

That was a strange feeling. Because Lorin [Bell] was such a very charming guy but it, that doesn't register immediately. When we pulled out, I really did feel very sad saying good-bye. In my diary I think I wrote that I almost wept, when I said good-bye.
But as I say, pretty soon, it was such fun to talk to Lorin,. and he had been so many different places and he was a good— I don't know how much boating he had done. He'd done a lot of surfing. He was a very strong swimmer, and had a great deal of charm. So very shortly, I didn't really, miss anybody. And Dell Reed, who came in, was just a nice fellow, and did things like, getting up early and making coffee, so that, Elzada or I didn't have to. So that part, the second part of the trip, was very smooth and without any real problems. We lined a lot.; we also walked around, a lot of rapids. Again, some of which I had forgotten. I know, Elzada would rather have gone down in the boats than walk over them.

How about you?

I would rather be in the boats anytime. I hated having to walk around. It seemed like a demotion. But I think Norm was being very cautious. He never wanted anybody to get hurt. You know, that can make you pretty cautious too. After Emery Kolb joined us, I'm sure that, Norm didn't want anything to…

How come Norm cared what Emery Kolb thought of him?

Oh, cause he cared what anybody thought about him, in terms of being a safe boatmen. I think that was the key. He simply didn't want, to have any kind of a mess up with, someone who was a river expert, as Emery was.

Did you sleep out in the open, in ‘38?

Yes, yes. We cut down on equipment to carry, and expense. It's ‘quite different from the sort of trip today where the company supplies so many, things. Course they're paid for it, and I recognize that. But we really operated, or Norm operated that trip on a shoestring.
Well, you know the nights here, I think, are just gorgeous. I was just looking at the moon coming up over there. And this is one of the reasons I don't want to sleep in a tent. It's just so great to..., to watch everything that's going on. And the changes of the light particularly. I don't know any other place I've ever been, where as the sun rises or sets, you see so many different effects.
Or if you go around a bend in the river, as far as that's concerned. I did again today, in one of the places where we were today, w.here the walls, come in, where you do feel a quite enclosed. In the inner gorge, I believe it's one of the places that some of the early, people began to feel very..., very morose. And I can see why. Dark colored walls coming right— not straight down to the water but— doesn't look like an easy way out of there, anywhere. Somber is the other word. That I could certainly see how people felt that way. I didn't feel really somber myself. But I had that same feeling today, of enclosure.

Do you remember the distinct phases of the canyon? Did they hit you in a certain way?

This is unfortunately like trying to remember the various layers as you go down. I tried at first, on the first trip, to be very, sure that I could distinguish them all. And then there were so many different ones that came in, that I just gave up. It's the same way, thinking of Marble Canyon, and the others. I think I, enjoyed the section that includes Sockdolager and Grapevine as much as any, but chiefly because there was no way in the world we could walk around them. We had to run those. Also, Grapevine I think, was a worst rapid then, t.than it is now. But that's again maybe because I was in awe of it then, and it was a very exciting ride. Elzie told us afterwards that— and this may be an exaggeration— that as we went up on a wave she saw the whole bottom of the boat.
We did have some nice campfires— don't think we had any marshmallows to roast but Elzada did make some panache fudge out of what we happened to have in camp. Our food was pretty spartan in terms of fruits and vegetables. Most of it was canned. And monotonous. I got tired of Rye Krisps for a lunch. And Underwood Deviled ham. I don't remember what we alternated with. But I do remember that was one very constant lunch. Convenient, and we'd just pull up to some spot and open a few cans.

Did you guys line Lava Falls?

Yeah, we did. We did line Lava Falls. I don't think Lorin wanted to line Lava. There was a lot of discussion about running it or lining it. But my memory is that indeed we did, line it.

* * *
Well, did this trip change you in any way?

Oh, lots of ways. The way I think it how changed me the most, was that having had all of this attention— and there was a lot— you know, people who would come up and say, “May I take your picture?” or “Will you sign this for me?” and I had always been, pretty much of a goody-goody; I had always been very, serious about studying and so forth and so on. So I think people got an image of someone like that, that is sorta humdrum and not very exciting, and to go back to Ann Arbor and feel very much more, self assured, for whatever reason; to feel at least for a while like a minor celebrity and have other graduate students want me to talk to Phi Sigma meetings. and generally to have people impressed, with me... gave me quite a different sense of self- confidence. I don't think I ever lacked self-confidence in doing things. But in meeting groups of people,. I was not as retiring as I had, been before; that is, meeting groups where I didn't know anyone. I don't think I was ever retiring once I knew people. But—so yes, that I think was a, tremendous change.

So, when you left, you got married and became a teacher...

I didn't get married immediately, because I didn't meet my husband until..., nineteen-forty, I think. But I did get started trying to catch up on the work, that I hadn't done, on growing the plants that I was supposed to be analyzing for my thesis. I suspect that was one reason why, I never had a great impulse to come back to the Canyon. The focus had changed on what I was doing. And obviously, after one gets married, especially to a beginning college professor, you don't have the financial— I suppose if I'd really wanted to, that there's always a way of doing things. But we started a family. And it didn't seem that critical a part of my life.
There are many people who have known me quite well, and that didn't realize that I'd ever made the trip. One of the first students that I had, after I went back into teaching didn't know this until , this past year when some reference, came up to Bill Cook's book. She said, “What's this book people are talking about?” Then it was, mentioned, and she was astounded. I don't know just why.
I didn't tell my bridge club people about this trip. I have no idea what, when I get home, I will tell those people.

How did that go? So, what was it your bridge club asked?

Oh, these are people who in general, are... I guess the nearest person to my age is probably seventy or something like this. And they're already treating me as, you know, wanting to help me up and down steps and stuff. And um, I don't really like that. And they sorta look at me strangely. They read Bill Cook's book. And, it's not as bad as those early, groups. But they still can't see why anyone would do that.
I said, “Okay, I won't be here, two weeks from today.” This is a group, that, you know, if you're a bridge player, you know how sinful it is to louse up, tables of bridge. And we play two tables, so there've got to be eight people. And so, “Oh, ok, you going on another trip?” Because I'd just been out to California. And I said, “Yeah, I'm going to Arizona.” And they said, “Where in Arizona?.” And I wasn't going to say Grand Canyon.” So, I said, “Flagstaff.” And they looked at me straight, “Well, what are you going to do?.” “I'm going to go on a camping trip, with some friends of mine.” And only one of those people, probably the sharpest one of them said, “Are you going to your old haunts out there?” And I said, “Oh, no not really.” Because it isn't my old haunts. [laughs] I was there one summer, and that was it. And besides, I'm afraid this is where the business about the mischievousness comes in. I thought well, I could fall and break a leg, I could have a heart attack and none of this would take place. And then I would really feel pretty foolish. And besides it was kind of a fun. [laughs]

So, they're probably playing bridge right now and they don't even know you're down here.

And when I go home, eventually, they'll ask me why my lip is all scraped up? And I'll say, “Oh I did that on my vacation.” And I'll be honest about it.

interview by Lew Steiger
edited by Brad Dimock