Remembering Art Greene's Tseh Na-ni-ah-go Atin'

 

Remembering Art Greene's Tseh Na-ni-ah-go Atin' 

The Esmeralda II wasn’t the only motorboat ascending Grand Canyon's Colorado River in 1949 and 1950. Having taken more than a year to construct and de-bug, a different new boat left Lees Ferry July 3, 1948, and headed upriver into Glen Canyon. The boat was called Tseh Na-ni-ah-go Atin’, a Navajo phrase that meant “trail to the rock that goes over.” 

 

Built by Phoenix boat builder Seth Smith, the twenty-foot-long steel hull had an unusual power plant: a 450-horsepower Pratt and Whitney Wasp Junior radial aircraft engine and aviation propeller. 

This airboat was the brainchild of Art Greene and fueled by his desire to run boat tours up the Colorado River to Forbidding Canyon where passengers could then walk six miles up a twisting sandstone canyon to Rainbow Bridge. The Atin’ attained a downstream cruising speed close to 50 miles per hour, making it the fastest watercraft ever on the river up to that time. 

 

For sheer novelty, the blue smoke and flames shooting out the exhaust on startup couldn’t be beat. The craft, however, proved deafeningly loud, challenging to steer, and it consumed up to 500 gallons of 100-octane fuel on each roundtrip. The excessive gasoline use required special fuel caching. 

 

The three-day trip cost $250 per person plus a pair of earplugs borrowed from pencil erasers. According to Greene, everyone who took the Atin’ ride became deaf for two days afterward despite the earplugs. Those who refused the earplugs were deaf for at least a week, if not forever. 

 

In all my years of searching for film of Art Greene's airboat, this short clip is all I have. This clip is from a film of a 1950 river trip through Glen Canyon. Art ran this craft from Lees Ferry to Forbidding Canyon. He'd park there and walk his passengers the 6 miles up to Rainbow Bridge and back. The film is from the Utah State Historical Archives. Someone out there has more film of this craft in action... If that's you, please let me know. Thank you. 

 

Cite Dock Marston: Grand Canyon's Colorado River Running Historian Vol 1 by Tom Martin.