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Show WHITE CANYON—1959 Remembering the Little Town at the Bottom of Lake Powell By Tom McCourt My last trip to White Canyon was in December 1959. It was just a few days after my thirteenth birthday. Grandpa was going to the desert again to do assessment work on his uranium claims, and he asked if Reed and I would like to go along. I was thrilled. I had been given a little box camera for my birthday, and I was excited by the opportunity to take some pictures before Lake Powell covered my favorite place forever. Before we even started, I had a feeling about that trip; a premonition I suppose. Somehow I knew that this would be my last visit to that special place of my childhood. I was going to White Canyon to say goodbye. With my new camera, I had one roll of black and white film - twelve exposures. That single roll of film was my only chance to capture the image and the essence of Glen Canyon before Lake Powell swallowed it up. I knew it was a daunting task, and I wished I had better equipment and a bucket full of film, but I had to make do with what I had. I spent each frame as dearly as I knew how. ... The Hite ferry was still just as I remembered it. Grandpa stopped at the house to visit with the ferryboat operator and his wife. They were delighted to have company at their lonely duty station. I excused myself and walked over to where the ferryboat was moored. I took the first of my twelve precious pictures. truck. The second day we were there ... We climbed up to the old Indian fort that guarded river canyon - good old Fort Moki. She watched us climb the hill to her, and she was hat to see us again. She didn’t get many visits from little boys anymore. That dark, winter day was our final chance to say goodbye to the Garden of Eden of youth. It was quiet there that day, and we had the fort and the river valley all to ourselh Our voices echoed from inside the ruin, and we stood on that crumpled north wall a looked out over the valley for a long time. The reality of the Glen Canyon Dam hung heavy like a dark cloud on the south horizon. There was a feeling of sadness in the air that day, a hurtful knowing that the rt the valley, and the river, would soon be gone. Things were very different from what we remembered as little boys. We were look down on emptiness. The mill was gone, the town was gone, and there were no shadow: cotton ball clouds in the valley. The day was cold, quiet, and nothing moved. Even the didn’t shine. The ruined fort had a strange feeling of emptiness about it too. It was the same feel: Grandma’s house had held, and I was amazed. At other times the ruin had been warm ¢ The Hite Ferry (L) and the White Canyon Store...1959 While Grandpa drank coffee and visited with the ferryboat people, Reed and I climbed a rocky hill above the ferry site. We found some good petroglyph panels (Indian writings to Grandpa) incised into the sandstone. One panel was a row of five handsome warriors with what appeared to be feathers protruding from their heads. The panel was carved on alow rock wall, but hidden behind some large boulders. The warriors were hiding there out of sight like a war party waiting to ambush the stagecoach. With some distress, I looked at the big river nearby and knew that the dark water would soon find their hiding place. I wanted to save those handsome warriors, and so I carefully took another of my twelve ictures. D And then, as we got closer to the crest of the hill, we found the signature of old Cass Hite himself. The inscription was fairly large and in an antique cursive style. It was on a discrete rock face and not visible until a person stood right in front of it. It was chiseled into the everlasting stone with a bold hand ... Cass Hite 1883. From the inscription, we could look down on the farm, the ferryboat landing, and the entire little corner of wilderness that Cass Hite had claimed as his own. I held the little camera in my hands and agonized about taking a picture of the inscription. I only had nine frames left, and we weren’t even on the White Canyon side of the river yet. I decided to save the film and take pictures of more interesting things later on. I don’t know if the ferryboat people ever saw the inscription, or if anyone ever recorded the site before the water covered it. Today, that bold pioneer signature lies in the mud at the bottom of the lake, and what I wouldn’t give to have that picture now. We crossed the river on the ferryboat. The water was low and the ferry cables hung high overhead. We left the boat and drove the short distance to the old town site. I knew the town was gone. ButI was not prepared for what I saw that winter’s day. Not only was the town gone, but her very foundations had been plowed under. Only the purplegray tailings pile remained where the mill, the company buildings, and the boarding house had stood. Across the White Canyon wash, the store was gone, and so were all of the other buildings. The bare ground had been scraped and bladed smooth and even the weeds and bushes were gone. Only the schoolhouse remained, alone and empty. It was the gutted shell of a once-happy building, echoing the wind, and full of drifting red dirt and the tracks of vermin. The ground was scarred with old truck and bulldozer tracks preserved in frozen mud. The refuse and rubble of a once thriving little community had been pushed into piles and burned. There were several large, black, burned spots on the ground where odd pieces of wire and metal reached up from the ashes like the limbs of dead and dying creatures. The town site was eerily quiet, and for the first time in the canyon, I noticed that when we slammed the door of the pickup truck we could hear the echo in the ledges. Grandma’s house was still there, filled with dust, cobwebs, and packrat poop. It had been standing alone in the desert for over three years by then. The two houses were vacant shells, empty of furniture and warmth. Our voices echoed in the bare rooms in the same way the truck door echoed in the ledges. The feel and the love of my grandmother wasn’t there anymore, and without her the place was only a shed on the cold desert floor. The buildings were so empty and depressing that I didn’t even take a picture of them - a decision I have since regretted. We camped in the yard and slept in the back of the pickup Before we even started, | had a feeling about that trip, a premonition I suppose. Somehow I knew this would be my last visit to that special place of my childhood. I was going to White Canyon to say goodbye. friendly and the feel of the Anasazi had been very close and personal. Strangely, on dark winter's day, the old fort was an empty shell, an open stone box ona hill. The Ana didn’t live there anymore. Grandpa had told us that the water would be deep enough to cover the fort, but I c scarcely bring myself to believe it. The fort was high in the air, far above the river chan I looked out over that river valley and could not imagine water being that deep. I trie: visualize what the canyon would look like covered with water, but my imagination fa me. My mind rebelled at the thought, and refused to form the image. Ihad nine frames left in my little box camera and I willingly spent at least four of th on the old Indian fort. I photographed her from different angles, trying to get her good : and preserve a portrait for the ages. She was wonderfully photogenic, but my equipr was crude, the light was bad, and my fingers trembled. I took another of my photographs while standing on the crumpled north wall of the j Iaimed my little camera up the valley, over the empty spot where the town had been, toward where a long, thin shaft of sunlight spilled down through the clouds and fell ac the red hills near where Grandma’s empty house still stood. It broke my heart when we finally said goodbye to that magnificent ruin and sta down the steep hill toward the canyon bottom. I felt like a traitor. 1 was walking away leaving her to her fate, just as the Anasazi had done so many years before. As we descended the rocky slope below the ruin, the ground was covered \ fragments of the most magnificent of Anasazi pottery, and the ragged shards begged reached up to me. I went from piece to piece, lifting them reverently from the dirt wiping away the dust of centuries. Each fragment was a treasure, and each treasureas all by itself. I marveled at the beauty, the symmetry of design, and the brilliant hues o! colors after so many long years in the dirt. Each fragment was a precious, parting giftf the Anasazi, a ceramic teardrop from the very heart of native culture. They were prec pearls to me, and I wanted to save every one. Like tiny starfish, stranded and doomed on the shores of the sea, I wish I could } saved them all. I filled my pockets and my hat, desperate to rescue as many as I coul was an impossible task. There were just too many, and I was so small. I tried anys knowing it was hopeless, and my heart hurt. PAGEI8 |