Indian Canals in Deer Canyon

A myth has been growing during the past couple of decades among canyoneers concerning the presence of Indian irrigation canals along the west side of Deer Valley above the Patio. There is also speculation that the canals were extended by placer miners to workings along the Colorado River. Both are intriguing ideas because there are obvious rock walls present, so the idea deserves serious examination.
Field work reveals that the notion of the canals isn’t plausible based on the positions of the so called canals, and the locations of the springs that served as the source for the water and the plots that were supposed to be irrigated. The following are primary considerations.
(1) The rock wall is on the west side of Deer Creek meaning: (a) it is at the bottom or downstream end of all the plots that were supposed to have been irrigated by the Indians, and (b) it is in a position where the Indians would have had to divert water across Deer Creek to reach those plots! The present position of Deer Creek has not changed since the Cogswell landslides to the east based on the morphology of the west sloping bedrock and debris fans off Cogswell Butte that occupy the valley floor. Thus the canals would have had to deliver water uphill to the irrigated plots.
(2) The actual construction of the wall is observed to be a series of cribs that utilize a common east wall or closely aligned series of east walls. Each crib is subdivided on its north and south sides from adjacent cribs by secondary walls. The cribs were then infilled with course rock and leveled off, each having a different elevation. Some downstream platforms are higher than those upstream.
(3) There is no hint of a buried canal within the cribs, or any through-going channel interior to the wall that parallels the creek. Also, there is no impermeable material in the construction to prevent leakage of water. To the contrary, the crib infills are course rocks that are highly permeable and would not allow water to move more than a few feet along their length.
(4) The springs in Deer canyon are on the east side of the valley. If anyone were going to build a canal irrigation system in the valley, they would have contoured the canals along the east side of the valley from the springs to positions above the plots to be irrigated. This would have allowed for a traditional gravity feed system. This was never done.

(5) The extension of the preexisting Indian canal by gold placer miners during the 1870 rush was supposed to have exited the valley over the landslide debris immediately to the west of the Tapeats Sandstone outcrop at the Patio, not through the narrows. There are no constructed walls or canals along the toe of the slide west of the narrows or along the slopes facing the Colorado River. Furthermore, the elevation of the toe of the slide debris next to the Tapeats outcrops at the Deer Narrows is above the elevation of the walls in Deer Creek making this a second example where water in the canals would have had to move uphill.
There is plenty of evidence that Indians utilized Deer Valley. They even constructed rock buildings there.
E. O. Beaman, the photographer on Powell’s second expedition, described how people helping Powell reconnoiter Kanab Canyon discovered gold in the sands in the lower part of the canyon in December 1871. This set off an intense gold rush that focused on placer deposits along the Colorado River near and upstream of the mouth of Kanab Canyon. When Beaman visited the area in 1872, by coming up from Kanab Canyon, some miners were probing as far east as Deer Canyon, but at that time they had not done much there or occupied the place.
Clarence Dutton visited Tapeats Amphitheater in 1880, and found that the miners had built a forerunner of the Thunder River trail into Deer Canyon. It is obvious that the miners had gotten into Deer Canyon and done a considerable amount of work in the area after Beaman’s trip. It is also likely that the miners built structures on abandoned Indian structures. I infer that the miners who occupied Deer Valley built the cribs along the west side of the valley to get out of the humidity, heat, brush and bugs that go with the bottoms next to the creek.
The occupation of the area by the miners was brief, and the location sufficiently remote, that it doesn’t appear they imported any wood to build more permanent dwelling structures. It is likely that the cribs they built were little more than platforms to sleep on or to pitch a tent on. These platforms with pretty much a common east wall are the mythical Indian canals.
The reality appears to be very different than the myth, but no less interesting as canyon lore!

Peter Huntoon