Indiginous Peoples In Grand Canyon

Indigenous Peoples have been in Grand Canyon for many millenia. Here's a pictorial reminder that not only have indigenous peoples been living on the Grand Canyon landscape for thousands of years, but they continue to live here and have been an important presence and workforce in Grand Canyon National park.

#10148: Havasupai basket maker, circa 1900.

#15927: Navajo gentleman, possibly named Manitajah, circa 1900.

#09936: Native artists demonstrating at the Hopi House, circa 1910.

#08307: Portrait of Fred Kabotie, Hopi artist, circa 1932.

#00733: Fred Harvey Hopi employees near Hopi House hogan, 1932.

#05424a: Hopis at the Desert View Watchtower dedication ceremony, May 1933.

#07079: Navajo silversmith demonstrating at the Hopi House, circa 1940.

#00982: Havasupai Tribal Council meeting on the South Rim: L to R: Jim Crook, Council member; GRCA Superintendent Bryant; Tom Dodge, Truxton Canyon Indian Agency; Lemuel Paya, Tribal Council Chairman; Reed Watahomagie, Secretary and interpreter; Dudley Manankach, Supai Tribe Chief; William Zeh, Regional Director of Indian Services; Big Jim, Council member; GRCA Assistant Superintendent Garrison; Foster Marshall, Council member. Circa 1947.

#01911: Hopi Eagle Dance being performed at the Hopi House, circa 1949.

#04578a: Retirement ceremony for Elmer Watahomigie, after 30 years of government service, February 1964.

#11010: Navajo weaver, Jean Mann, at the Visitor Center, circa 1979.
Thanks to Kim Besom for assistance with this post.

The Amazing 1914 River Trip of J. H. Hummel

 

 

Of note during the pioneering days of river running is the run from Green River, Utah, by 33-year-old J. H. Hummel, whose quest was “for nothing but adventure.”

Late in August of 1914 on the river’s bank at Green River, Utah, Hummel and David Miller built a pair of flat-bottomed, fourteen-foot-long, less than four-foot-wide boats. Each was pointed on one end but flat-sterned. Canvas covered the otherwise open top of each boat except for the rower’s position. 

 

Oddly, at the junction of the Green and the Grand rivers Miller’s boat caught fire and burned beyond repair. Miller quit the river and hiked overland to Moab, Utah. 

 

Hummel carried on solo, navigating Cataract, Glen Canyon and upper Grand Canyon, trapping fur-bearing mammals as he went. A month later, in late September, he rowed to shore at the mouth of Pipe Creek at Mile 89, as gawking tourists stared in surprise. 

 

On stepping out of his boat, Hummel asked them, “Where am I?” A mule guide informed him he was at the foot of the Bright Angel Trail. Hummel exclaimed, “Bright Angel, Thank the Lord!” He tied up his boat and hiked to the rim. Upon visiting Emery Kolb, he bequeathed Kolb his boat then walked off, vanishing into the mists of time.

 

Excerpt from "Dock Marston: Grand Canyon's Colorado River Running Historian, Vol 1, by Tom Martin. Photo courtesy The Huntington is of the Stone Party above Boucher Canyon, November 6, 1909.

 

 

Errata

 

Errata.... an error in printing or writing. A list of corrected errors appended to a book or published in a subsequent issue of a journal... Why? Because I do get things wrong and can correct that with an errata update.

2025 March 8 

In the Historic Boats 16 video film series, Chapter 12 (the twelfth video) on the jetboats, I was incorrect to state the boats proposing in the water loosened the decks from the hulls though that did hurt Dock's ribs. Both the Wee Red and Wee Yellow were repeatedly wrecked hitting rocks along the shore at high rates of speed. George Morrison, representing the Turbocraft Corporation, ordered both boats be scuttled. The rest of the crew refused and kept patching them up. You'll notice the DOCK has no such fiberglass holding the deck to the hull. All credit for that goes to Buzzy Belknap's excellent piloting of the DOCK. 

    

A 1967 Walk-away Emergency Landing in the Bottom of the Grand Canyon

 

Wayne Learn flying to the rescue, 1967. Photo courtesy Louis Hudgin

I do oral histories with people who worked or hiked or boated or flew in the Grand Canyon. This is an interesting story so go get some coffee and settle in...

Fifteen years ago, the Grand Canyon High School Coach Dan Lopez had told me that one of the Hudgin Air Service/Grand Canyon Airlines sightseeing planes had made a dead-stick landing on a large sandbar in Grand Canyon. Dan said he helped a pilot named Wayne Learn take that plane apart and Wayne flew the pieces out by helicopter.

During an interview last year with retired Park Engineer Dan Cockrum, he recounted the 1966 construction of the Silver Bridge near Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Dan mentioned taking many flights in and out of the Canyon by helicopter. The pilot was Wayne Learn. Learn and Bob Thurston started helicopter tours at Tusayan, Arizona, in April of 1966, forming Tusayan Helicopter Service, INC. Wayne used a Hiller OH-5A for this operation.

After interviewing Cockrum, I interviewed Ellen Hudgin and her sons Doug and Louis. This story tumbled out and it all came together. 

Ellen’s husband Henry flew several thousand tours in the Grand Canyon with his older brothers Al and Palen. In 1950 they started flying early high wing PIPERs over the canyon from the Red Butte Grand Canyon Airport. When PIPER introduced the low wing Apache and Commanche in the mid 1950's they discovered that the view was much better when flown below the rim and looking up. Another benefit with the low wing was in a turn the wing moved out of sight whereas in a high wing your view was blocked in a turn. They continued to fly low wing tours after moving their operation to the present day Grand Canyon Airport when it opened in the mid-1960s. Two decades later after a midair collision in the Canyon, the FAA required all tours be flown above the canyon rim.

In the late 1950’s, Al introduced a Turbo Charged Bell 47 Helicopter to the flightline and did tours with the helicopter while Henry, Palen and other pilots flew Pipers and a De Havilland Dove during the busy summer season. Tragically, Al died in that helicopter on the San Francisco Peaks on July 11, 1961, but that’s another story. 

On July 11, 1967, Henry’s flying day started in Nogales, AZ, after the funeral for his mother. He’d loaded his wife Ellen and their children into a Piper PA-32-300 Cherokee 6 and flew north across the state of Arizona to the new Grand Canyon Airport at Tusayan. On arriving back at the Canyon, Henry got right to work flying that afternoon’s tours in the same Cherokee 6.

Later in the afternoon he flew a sightseeing tour over the east end of the Park. The tour proceeded as normal up to about Hance Rapids when the diaphragm that controls the fuel/air mixture in the fuel injection failed. At that point the engine was still running but had lost most of its power and was surging badly out of control. With the loss of power, the airplane began to lose altitude with no hope of regaining it back. Running out of altitude and options, Henry knew of a sand bar past the confluence of the Big and Little Colorado Rivers by Kwagunt Rapids. It was perfect for an emergency landing and Henry nursed the airplane there. He arrived with little altitude to spare. Without missing a beat, as he continued to lose altitude, he calmly told his passengers to make sure their seat belts were securely fastened. His passengers thought nothing of it. This was, after all, a tour flight and they assumed they were landing along the river as part of the tour. 

 When Henry touched down on the soft sand and gravel bar, the main landing gear collapsed, quickly followed by the nose gear. He slid the plane to a stop and asked everyone to get out of the plane. It was baking hot in the bottom of the Canyon but at least the plane was not on fire. The plane’s radio worked, and Henry started making a mayday call. 

The Cherokee on the ground 1967 courtesy Louis Hudgin

 

 

The Cherokee on the ground 1967 courtesy Louis Hudgin

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another Hudgin tour plane heard the call, and on returning to the Airport, got word to Wayne Learn that a helicopter rescue was needed. Wayne flew his Hiller into the Canyon, landed nearby, loaded everyone up and flew them out of the Canyon. With approval from the National Park Service, Wayne flew back a few weeks later, took the plane apart with Dan Lopez, and flew the pieces out.

 

Flash forward to January 2025. I’m on a 30-day river trip in the Grand Canyon. I have a few pictures Louis Hudgin let me copy. Those pictures were taken that afternoon in 1967. And I’m at Kwagunt in the morning and the shadows are all wrong! Regardless, the rematch was a lot of fun. The area where the plane landed was scoured by the Colorado River during the highwater of 1983. That may be why I found nothing of the damaged airplane and disassembly. Still, everything lined up and we were at the location where Henry and his passengers walked away from an emergency landing in the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

Rematch photo January 2025 courtesy Tom Martin

 

Rematch photo January 2025 courtesy Tom Martin

 

 

 

 

Thanks to technical advisor Louis Hudgin, his brother Doug, their mother Ellen, NPS Park Engineer Dan Cockrum, and Coach Dan Lopez.

A Photo Rematch at 24.5 Mile...

The photo we are rematching is of Mary Abbott as she stands next to Dock Marston's boats at the foot of 24.5 Mile Rapid in Marble Canyon on the Colorado River on June 10, 1958. The river flow is about 95,000 cubic feet per second. The photo is courtesy The Huntington Library, San Marino, California, and is from Dock Marston Volume 1. pg 449. My rematch is not too far off. The foreground rock on the left is a perfect match. A lot of the sand that was there in 1958 is gone and the person in my photo is lower than where Mary Abbott was standing. But there you have it...