Woman Of The River: Georgie White Clark, Whitewater Pioneer

8. Glen Canyon Dam and a Clash of Personalities, 1957–1958

11 g-ttJi CaxyfJJt :baHt axda C!aJA oj 'PerJf)}{t{iititJ; fJS7-fJSg nn April 1956 President Dwight David Eisenhower signed a bill v that would forever alter the character of the Colorado River between Cataract Canyon and Lake Mead. By that legislation the Bureau of Reclamation was authorized to build Glen Canyon Dam fifteen miles upstream from Lee's Ferry between the dark-stained orange walls of Navajo sandstone. Controlled flows below the dam would eliminate the scouring floods of springtime and the deposition of new sand on the beaches alongside the river, but beautiful Glen Canyon would be buried under a lake. "When completed, the seven-hundred-foot-high dam would create a lake with double the shoreline of Lake Mead and be seventy-six miles longer. Conservationists had pushed for the dam in Glen Canyon as an alternative to one proposed for Dinosaur National Monument, a decision most of them would soon regret. Scaling of canyon walls at the dam site began in August 1956. By the 1957 boating season, a coffer dam and diversion tunnel were in place and boaters had to leave the river at Kane Creek (above the dam site) rather than at Lee's Ferry. This would be the takeout point until 1963 when the dam was completed and the reservoir began to fill. Although Georgie had taken many Sierra Club members through Glen Canyon, their fiery leader, David Brower, had never made the trip. However, his series of trips through the canyon during the construction period left him aghast at what was about to be lost. His experience led him to edit a lavish book entitled The Place No One Knew. This in turn gave further impetus to the environmental movement that 87 had been kicked off with the Echo Park controversy of the late 1940s and early 1950s.' Today the river in Grand Canyon is controlled by Glen Canyon Dam. "Its flow is regulated, usually through power-producing turbines ; its temperature is constantly cold; and its namesake, the reddish -colored silt that once choked its flow, has been replaced by flourishing green algae."2 Construction of the dam had a profound effect on Georgie's trip schedules. When the reservoir began to fill in 1963, Georgie ceased running Glen Canyon. When it reached full pool in 1980, drowning out more than half of the rapids in Cataract Canyon, she abandoned that stretch of river as well. Georgie's attitude toward the dam was rather philosophical, observing in essence that as long as people keep having babies they are going to have to have more water. Dick McCallum sAdventures with Georgie Dick McCallum graduated from North Hollywood High School in 1957. He was seventeen. One night on television he saw a movie of Georgie running the Grand Canyon. It really caught his interest, and he tracked her down in the Los Angeles area. McCallum found out how to get on a trip with her and began saving three hundred dollars, the price of her sixteen-day trip. McCallum was enthralled with the canyon and enjoyed the camaraderie of the group. He rode in the triple rig the entire trip, learned how to row, and jumped at the chance to replace Eddy Gooch as an oarsman when Eddy had to leave at Whitmore Wash. Chet Bundy, one of Georgie's favorite people, was the other boatman on the triple rig. Georgie took a liking to Dick McCallum and asked him to stick around that summer. He stayed with her from then until 1964, when he and Ron Smith went into business for themselves.3 McCallum thought of Georgie as a special person in that she was a collect0r of people-people she could help direct into something else. Many of her passengers and boatmen became her "river family" and went on trips with her over and over. He said that Georgie would put a lot of responsibility on those who worked for her, then sit back and watch how they performed, though she stood by in case they got into something that was too deep for them. McCallum would usually meet Georgie at Moab, Utah, in May to begin the season with trips through Cataract and Glen Canyons. In 88 Moab he'd met Mitch Williams, who had an airplane. Mitch would pick up Georgie's people at Hite and fly them back to the Moab airport , where they would...