n 1950, I had met a woman in California who was making film for television. It was relatively new then, and she had heard about the San Juan River and wanted a cameraman to go with her to help her film the San Juan adventure, and through Glen Canyon, so I went. We were with Frank Wright, Jim Rigg, Bob Rigg—
the Rigg brothers, in San Juan boats. Once they got down into Glen Canyon and those canyons of the San Juan River, boy, I saw scenery that I just couldn't believe, it was so beautiful—particularly Glen Canyon. I got to know the Mexican Hat Expeditions crew very well.
They said, “Well, why don't you come with us next spring in the Grand Canyon?”
I said, “Sounds interesting (chuckles) maybe I will.”
The next spring came around, they called me up and said, “We're leaving July 1, with four cataract boats. This is our trip of the year, come along.” And so I did. That's how I got started in the Grand Canyon.
…I took the upper half in 1950 and 1951, the lower half in 1952. And then the whole river, I think it was, in 1954. Then when Jim and Bob Rigg built these ChrisCraft lake boats—kit boats—designed for sporting on lakes and rivers, they called me up and said, “We've just built a couple of boats. We're gonna go through the Grand Canyon, do you want to come?” I said, “Bob, do you really think you can make it?” He said, “Well, we're gonna give it a good try, man.” I said, “Alright, I'll take a chance.” He said, “All the rest of the old boat people are going, like various of our friends who were with us in previous years: John Mull and Evie Mull from Virginia—people like that.” I helped to bring one of the boats down to Lees Ferry and launched it. We launched both of the boats there. They'd never been in the water before—they'd never even tested them out. We made an upstream run into Glen Canyon to pick up Frank Wright, who was coming down on one of his San Juan trips. Frank said, “Sure, I'll get aboard.” So we picked him up. He left his trip. We picked him up in the ChrisCraft, started through and went through in about three days, maybe four. We were much impressed with the boat, it rode like a cork through the waves. We had no trouble, except we broke a rudder and bent a prop. But let me tell you, it was the skill of the boatmen who got us through so well. They knew the rapids and how to run them, and that was a really fun trip…. Getting with a bunch of people like that—I mean, I felt they were friends, I felt great, and I felt safe. So the following year—maybe it was two years later—Jim said, “I've got a crew together, I've got passengers together for another trip through the Canyon.” “Alright, I'll go with you.” And we took the two ChrisCrafts through that time. Then he turned around and went back to Lees Ferry. We had a group of scientists that time: Bugsy, whom we met along the river, an ornithologist and archaeologist—two or three others like that. Made it in about ten days, studying various things along the way, and that was fun—something like this trip. Then my wife wanted to go, and in 1967 we went with Don Harris, Jack Brennan, two rubber boats. Had a fine trip with a bunch of people from Tucson—a great trip. And in 1968, the year before the Powell Centennial, Eddie McKee from Denver called up and said, “We're making a film for the Powell Centennial, a little story of Powell's trip. Would you like to be one of the photographers?” and I said “Sure.” So in order to get pictures in the Canyon, I joined up with Gene Shoemaker and his crew and four or five [army ten-man] rubber boats…
But that was a fun trip. I like working trips. Pleasure trips are fun too, but I also like something with an objective, and this trip has it, that trip had it. So my last trip was in 1968, shooting Powell pictures.
***
Edward Tatnall Nichols is 89 now. We recorded this interview in 1994, on his last Grand Canyon trip: the same one that Gene Shoemaker, Lois Jotter Cutter, Buckethead Jones, Kent Frost, the Nevills sisters, Martin Litton, the Crosses, the Marstons, and so many others were on. It was an illustrious bunch, and a great time was had by all. One thing made Tad stand out… the whole deal had been his idea to begin with.
Tad was buddies with Diane Boyer, who was married to Kenton Grua then, and Tad told Kenton he really wanted to go down the river again but not just to go, he wanted to do something useful. Kenton got Bob Webb, the photo-match guy, on the case. Bob cooked up a scheme to get a bunch of oldtimers who knew the Canyon before the dams down there and make a comparison, then handed the details off to Diane and next thing we knew the trip was off and running. It was typical of Tad that it wouldn't work just to go—there had to be a product involved.
Tad has reappeared on the radar screen again these days with— again thanks to the help of Diane Boyer and some other truly talented folk —the publication of a stunning book of photographs and journal excerpts devoted to the late Glen Canyon.
***
I grew up in New England, Cambridge, Massachusetts. It's a nice place to be brought up, nice surroundings. I liked it. The winters didn't like me, or rather, I didn't like the winters, and I was sick all the time—bronchitis and asthma. So in 1931, my folks sent me out to Arizona to a boys ranch school—not a corrective school, but just a school where boys had horses. Your own horse, you learned to pack mules, make camping trips and just learn the outdoors. We studied geology and archaeology and my whole life changed coming to Arizona from Boston. I picked up an interest in life, an interest in many subjects which I didn't have back there. I date my life as starting when I came to Arizona. The early years were just not so pleasant.
Anyway, I graduated from the University of Arizona in geology and archaeology. And when I was in the Geology Department as a student, I noticed that the geology textbooks' illustrations weren't very clear, not very good. And having had a study course in photography, I decided to see if I could do better than that. Having a knowledge of what the geology textbooks wanted, I set out to make photographs for them, and it turned out to be very successful, and I'm still getting orders from textbooks for photographs of geological subjects. And one thing led to another, and I got an experience in photography during World War II as a cameraman for the Air Force. We were making training films.
After the war, I started in making films for myself on Indian life of the Southwest, such as how to weave a Navajo rug, how to weave an Apache basket—making films like that. That led to a job with the us Indian Service in which we were making films for health education for the Indians of the Southwest [on] tuberculosis, trichoma, which was like that…
***
That first trip with Frank Wright down San Juan River and into Glen Canyon, I was so intrigued with Glen Canyon and the beauty of it, that for the next at least seven or eight years, I borrowed, begged, or stole a boat of some kind, and almost every summer went down through Glen Canyon, each year exploring a different side canyon. Each one was different and each one was extraordinary. I had just never really thought
such a place in the world existed.
We took as many photographs as we could, we took a lot of color stereo pictures, which turned out to be invaluable and simply marvelous, and you look at those now and it almost brings tears to your eyes to see this stuff. And even when the lake started to fill up, we got a power boat and went in every place that we could, where we had not been able to get very far in previous years along the river. So we got added footage, added pictures. I took no movies, just black and white still prints and color slides.
I was so busy with movies for Frank Wright in the years 1951 and 1952, that I didn't have too much chance to enjoy the Canyon. This trip, I sat back and really looked and just soaked the place up. I've enjoyed it immensely, just watching these beautiful rock formations come by. Almost mind-blowing, these cliffs: tier after tier and buttresses and terraces like the old Inca terraces in Peru where they would make agricultural terraces. I saw similar ones down here. This is grand, this is magnificent, and I've been able to enjoy the country much more than I ever have on any other trip before. So that's why I appreciate this so much, and all the great people on it….. It's a real privilege to come along on this trip.
I wanted to go on this so badly. I'd had some bad asthma, which has recurred. For years and years I had none, but there were certain pollens or something in Tucson that triggered it off again. Plus the hot weather in Tucson, mornings—you had to get up and walk at 5:30 or else it was too damned hot to walk otherwise. So I didn't get in enough exercise for this trip. Really, I should have gotten up in the mountains and done some hiking. And that's why I was a bit out of shape when we started. But I'm getting back in shape now, though, and enjoying it much more, thanks to the help. Everybody has helped me on this trip—I just can't believe it! I wish I could give it….
They're wonderful!
***
…As I say, in his 1951 and 1952 trips in cataract boats, Frank Wright and Jim wanted a film that they could use to publicize the trips and show to audiences during the winter. There again, I had to do filming. So I never made any observations of the rapids themselves. I wasn't really interested, that wasn't my focus. But I do remember some of the sand banks, some of the places we camped. And I took still pictures along with the movies, so the only thing I really could contribute on this trip, not having any memory of exactly how the rapids looked, was the conditions of where we camped. That seems to be all that I can recall…
The main change is the lack of beautiful sandbars. The one there at Elves Chasm, when we stopped in 1967, we had two big boats, ten, twelve, maybe fifteen people. Got them all spread out there on that bar, even downriver a ways. Now there's no sand there even for—you can't even camp there. Changes like that.
Tapeats Creek had a much bigger bar. I think, to me, I see that [loss of sandbars] as the principal change…
I have some [photographic evidence of all that], which I haven't given to Bob Webb yet. The ones we took at Elves Chasm, people all camped out along the beach there. And some others which I found before I came on the trip. My filing system was not the best. When I visited Ansel Adams one time in California—I took his photographic workshop—he invited me up to his house, and he went into a closet, looking for some negatives, and he came out with a shoebox. And here he had negatives in a shoebox. I said, “Well, I feel right at home (chuckles), ‘cause I sure do [the same thing] myself.” And that's part of me—I'm disorganized, I'm not really organized like I should be at home. You know, you have too much to do, you haven't got time to file it properly and label it. Just that way—that's my nature, I guess. I'm trying to reform, I may do better from now on. So I haven't taken many pictures on this trip—I've enjoyed it.
***
No, I wasn't involved in the politics [of Glen Canyon Dam]. I kept track of it to a certain extent. At the time there was quite a controversy over building a dam. And it would flood out Dinosaur National Park. You're flooding out an existing park. And that, to me, and to a lot of people, of course, was unthinkable and tragic destruction. And the fight over the Dinosaur resulted in crashing the bill to build a dam that would flood Dinosaur. [But] the momentum for dam building was growing and growing. Reclamation, of course, was pushing it. Reclamation had to stay in business, their business of building dams. We gained Dinosaur Park, but we lost Glen Canyon, and Glen Canyon was a dozen Dinosaurs. The most unique place I've ever seen, and probably the most unique place in the world, and if it had been any place else, it would have been saved and been a monument or a park. But the stupidity…I won't say the stupidity of people, I'll say just a lack of knowledge, and the greediness of the Bureau of Reclamation to build a dam as high as they possibly could, which resulted in the flooding of an existing national monument, which was Rainbow Bridge. And if they hadn't been so greedy, they could have kept the dam down twenty feet. What's twenty feet in 800?! Kept the water out of Rainbow Bridge. I think that alone was inexcusable.
Why was there such a thrust? Why did the building of the dams go over so well then? Why was it so acceptable?
To tell you the truth, I don't know, really, why it was so acceptable, but it just suddenly seemed that…I mean, to me, it just seemed to suddenly happen, quickly, without much discussion, without much information that the public could react upon. And possibly because I was traveling overseas at that time, I couldn't follow the process of what happened. When we got back from some trip, all of a sudden the Glen Canyon Dam Bill had been signed. I don't think there was enough opposition to it. The opposition wasn't strong enough, not enough people were behind it, and as Brower said, it was a place that few people knew, and who cared? They were building another dam. They didn't realize what they were losing. I couldn't do anything about it, very few people could. There were only a handful of people at that time who really had gone through there, knew about it. They knew the beauty, but they couldn't speak up. Don't get me started on this. I don't know any more than that…
But I think the public opinion now is such that the Bureau of Reclamation couldn't get away with building dams in Glen and Grand Canyons, or possibly anyplace else that would flood out anything significant. I don't think today it could be done. I think at that time, there wasn't enough public sentiment, and people who knew very much about what was going to happen. That's just a real amateur's viewpoint, my viewpoint, from a person who didn't follow it too closely. So all of a sudden, the thing happened. I felt pretty bad about it, along with a lot of other people. But I decided that as long as they were building it, I was going to see as much as I could before the lake filled up. And I've had some enjoyable times on the lake as the lake was filling. I have to admit that. I had my own boat and went everywhere each year. Now I don't go back, because there's nothing more to see. Places like Cathedral of the Desert, Cathedral Canyon, Twilight Canyon—one of the biggest amphitheaters in there you could possibly imagine, that would seat thousands of people. It even had a podium where you could put a whole orchestra in this place. There were many spots in Glen Canyon, that if alone had been any place else, would have been some kind of a preserved monument—many of them. Glen Canyon had many. But that's my feeling, that's what I saw. I don't know really much more. I'm not politically oriented on this.
***
Gosh, I'd love to hear about those ChrisCraft trips. You know, Katie Lee talks about you a lot. I wish we had time to visit about that. You said they built those boats?

Yes, they were kit boats. And since the Rigg boys can do anything, in my opinion…. Jim Rigg was a natural born airplane pilot. He had the same natural reactions when he was a boatman. And when we caught a piece of driftwood in the propeller at the head of the rapid, I didn't know what had happened. The engine just suddenly stopped. We were a couple hundred yards from the head of a rapid. Before I knew it, Jim was over the back of the boat, in the water. He removed the piece of driftwood that had jammed in the propeller, and he was back on board just as we hit the head of the rapid and went through beautifully. He was that kind of a person. And he loved the Canyon so much. I have a movie of him, standing up in the cockpit, one foot on the steering wheel, steering with his foot, holding onto the windshield, singing to the top of his voice as we went down through some of the rapids. He was just with it. You could see his enjoyment in what he was doing. (laughs) I think I can remember some of the songs he was singing…
One, I think, was a religious hymn. I'm trying to remember it right now, but I can't quite do it. There was one that was called “With Arms Wide Open, Lord, Be With Us”…or something like that…“As We Go Along”. I'll think of it in a minute. Anyhow, he had a beautiful voice and he liked to sing. Jim and Bob and their brother Jack, who was with us on that first ChrisCraft run, they sang the Nevills river song, beautifully together, the three of them. And the tune, somebody told me what the tune was. I've forgotten. It's a western tune…
Ghost Riders in the Sky, that's it. I don't know who composed the words, but that song just seemed to fit the canyons. And I remember they sang it at the dedication of the plaque to Norm and Doris [Nevills]. There at the bridge in Marble Canyon. Barry Goldwater dedicated the plaque. Frank Masland was down there to comfort the girls. The boys sang that song there, and it just brought tears to your eyes, it was just so beautiful. I don't remember what year that was, but I have a photograph of it. Little things like that I remember.
Yeah, Joanie said that that brought tears to their eyes too.
Oh yeah, they were really sobbing. Fisheyes Masland was comforting them, and other people. It was quite an emotional experience.
And you have movies of Jim Rigg standing up and singing?
I have, but I didn't have time to get ‘em together. But I want to assemble—I took one whole film of the ChrisCraft run, as much as I could. Then we have a whole film on the upper half, 1951, which I was taking for Mexican Hat Expeditions. Then we filmed some on the lower half, but I don't know how much footage I've got on that. But I wanted to get those two together, at least, and get it on tape so that Brother Webb could do what he wants to with it. Some people want a duplicate…
I rode with Bob in the cataract boat on my first trip in 1951. The trips always left on July 1, to take advantage of spring runoff. And Frank Wright, Jim, and Pat Reilly were the other boatmen. They told me I'd like to ride with Bob, and that turned out very well. He sort of followed, in a way, in his big brother's footsteps. He once told me, “I've learned so much from Brother Jim. He taught me to fly a plane, he taught me everything I knew about the river, he taught me things about life, philosophy, and subjects in general which have benefitted me.” And he just adored Jim and they both got along so well together. And Bob's been a life-long friend ever since. He wasn't the, shall we say, outgoing character that Jim was, but he was a little more quiet but just as capable, I'm sure. And he's turned out to be a very good pal for me. And I remember him, I remember Jim with him. I keep telling Bob I miss Jim so much. He says, “Well how about me? Nobody misses him more than I do.” Jim was such a wonderful character, so capable in everything. And I think Bob is too. The whole bunch was that way. Frank Wright was a good river man. He could do anything, repair anything, make anything. All these guys were so extraordinarily resourceful. You just counted on them of being able to do anything, in case something went wrong. And they were there and they knew how to handle it. That's a bunch of guys…. And we respect them very highly. I respect Jim, Bob, Frank—the whole bunch. How could you find any better guys?