Richard Westwood - Woman of the River: Georgie White Clark White-Water Pioneer

Georgie White Clark
White-Water Pioneer

Even butterflies were attracted to Georgie. Courtesy of Teresa Yates.

Georgie White Clark
White-Water Pioneer

Richard E. Westwood

Foreword by
Roy Webb

Utah State University Press
Logan, Utah
1997

Copyright 1997 Utah State University Press
All rights reserved

Utah State University Press
Logan, Utah 84322-7800

Typography by WolfPack

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Westwood, Dick, 1921
Woman of the river : Georgie White Clark, white water pioneer /
Richard E. Westwood ; foreword by Roy Webb,
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-87421-234-0
1. Clark, Georgie White. 2. West (U.S.)Biography. 3. Adventure
and adventurersWest (U.S.)Biography. 4. Rafting (Sports)West
(U.S.) I. Title.
CT275.C6265W47 1997
917.80433dc21 97-21169
CIP

Even butterflies were attracted to Georgie

Colorado River Basin (map)

Georgie White and Harry Aleson ready for 1945 swim

Georgie White and Harry Aleson demonstrate wrist lock

Grand Canyon (map)

Georgie and Whitey at their marriage in 1938

Georgies daughter, Somtnona Rose Clark

Georgie and daughter, Sommona Rose

Harry Aleson and Georgie White on Lake Mead

Cataract Canyon (map)

Glen Canyon and the Escalante River (map)

Georgie as boatman and chaperon

Elgin Pierce and Georgie at Paria Riffle

The Bundy family at Lake Mead

End of Grand Canyon trip, July 26, 1955

Salmon and Snake Rivers (map)

Royal River Rats certificate

Lunchtime along the Colorado

Green River (map)

Copper and Chitina Rivers, Alaska (map)

Georgies big G-rig in Lava Falls

Reverend Shine Smith blessing Georgies boats

Visit by Sambo at Virgin Canyon

Columbia River through Big Bend (map)

Fraser River (map)

Nahanni River (map)

Georgie looks over her favorite domain

Georgie holds on while operating motor

Rio Usumacinta (map)

Santa Rosa Dam and spillway

Aerial view of Santa Rosa Reservoir and spillway

First catastrophe on Rio Grande de Santiago

Undoing the boats after flip on Rio Grande de Santiago

Mexican posse looking for los banditos

Boat death and grave on the Rio Grande de Santiago

Ron Mclntyres boat flips in Crystal

Georgie White with her big boat at Lees Ferry

Initiation into Royal River Rats

Georgie fixing Asha Jirges hair

Camp in Marble Canyon

Georgie calling in the troops

Georgie with boatman Bob Setterberg

Thrill boat in Granite Falls Rapid

Thrill boat at Emery Falls

Thrill boat in the Big Hole in Crystal Rapid

Georgie in riffle below Vaseys Paradise

Georgie still helps de-rig the heavy rafts

Georgie still the chief cook

Georgie dancing with Ted Hatch at birthday party

Victim of Georgies kangaroo court

Georgie with Dave Toeppen at Outdoor Show

Georgie laughing in motor well

The first time I met Georgie was in 1986 on my first Grand Canyon trip. I had heard of her, of course, having been a student of river history for a couple of years by then, but I didnt know her to see her. Not knowing what to do, and not wanting to get in the way as the crew rigged our boat, I walked down the ramp to where a huge pontoon raft was moored. I walked around it, marveling at the intricate lacework of ropes. Then I noticed, standing in the water on the other side, a little, wiry, gnome-like figure in a shapeless hat and leopard tights. She looked at me sharply and asked me my business. Just looking around, I told her; by now, even a first-trip canyon swamper could guess who she was. I said I was a historian interested in the river, and she warmed instantly. I spent the rest of the morning listening to yarn after yarn and finally had to tear myself away when my boat was ready to leave.

After that first meeting I saw her almost every trip, either rigging her boat at Lees Ferry (a three-day event that other boatmen would gather to watch) or holding court on the end of her boat while her passengers hiked the popular trail at Deer Creek Falls. I was even lucky enough to catch her a couple of times with an empty spot in the motor well of her boatusually crowded with other boatmen who wanted to meet herwhere she would offer me one of her trademark Coors and give me cause to reflect that of such moments was a river historians life made. The apotheosis of my experiences with Georgie, though, had to be at her eightieth birthday party at Hatchlandthe Hatch River Expeditions warehouse near Lees Ferryin 1990. It was a night to be remembered; more fun, I reflected later, than anyone should have while a Republican is in the White House. The river community came together (a rare enough event in what is perforce a trade practiced by individuals and iconoclasts) and finally honored her as one of their own. There were those who worshiped her, those who abhorred herall joined to celebrate her success, or at least to admit that she had endured in what they knew was a difficult but rewarding life.

Georgie obviously made an impression on me; how much more so, then, did she impress those who came to know her well, for good or ill. For it would be disingenuous to say that being well known meant that she was equally well liked. Georgie was one of those Colorado River characters who, like her predecessor John Wesley Powell and her contemporary Otis Dock Marston, aroused great passions in the hearts of those who knew her. Thousands, from one-time passengers to long-term boatmen, loved her and are warmed by their memories of her. Many others, some guests, but more river professionals, felt equally strongly that her contribution was not positivethat she was indifferent to environmental concerns and passengers safety. Suffice it to say all who met her can hardly fail to remember her, and mostly for doing what she was best at, being utterly and indubitably Georgie, the Woman of the River.

And if the impression she made on her fellow river rats was indelible, so too is her place in the history of the Colorado River, for Georgie not only made history, she changed it. Before her, women went down the river solely as passengers and even, in those less enlightened times, were made to walk around rapids since they were the weaker sex. Georgie would have none of that; she wanted to run her own boat, and the opinions of the men on the river be damned. At the time she made her famous swim down the Grand Canyon with Harry Aleson, wooden boats patterned after Norm Nevillss cataract boats were the standard river craft in the Grand Canyon. They were stable and manueverable and all-around good boats but could only carry three passengers at most. Georgie, like many others just after World War II, took advantage of cheap surplus boats and createdafter a number of experiments, some more successful than othersher big boat, a mammoth contraption that could carry up to forty passengers at a time and plow through virtually any rapid. During the winters, Georgie began touring the country promoting her share-the-expense river trips, which were the forerunner to modern mass tourism in the Grand Canyon. By 1950 less than one hundred people had run the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon; by the end of that decade, in no small part due to Georgies efforts, that number had jumped into the thousands, and it continued to climb until the Park Service put a ceiling on the number of people who could run the canyon every year. Those who were able to share in her excitement at running the wild rapids flocked to her trips in droves; those who abhorred the idea of thousands of tourists in their canyon called her that woman or other, less printable names.