Wanted: 10 Explorers!

The Colorado River, viewed from a cave in Glen Canyon.

During the summer of 1933, a scientific reconnaissance project, “Rainbow Bridge/Monument Valley Expedition” (RBMVE) began in the remote reaches of northeastern Arizona. The idea was conceived by Ansel Franklin Hall of the National Park Service, following a suggestion by U.S. Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes.

Hall’s goals: survey the 3,000 square-mile area of Arizona, including Glen Canyon; assist in the area’s possible designation as a national park and provide an unforgettable adventure for young, college-aged men.

Posters sporting the message: “Wanted: 10 Explorers!” were placed on campuses around the country. Seventy-four students of archeology, biology, ornithology, engineering and geology paid their own way to participate that first year. They were responsible for everything - wrangling, building trails, kitchen duty, river navigation and recording data. Ford Motor Company donated new V-8 “woodie” station wagons and trucks to the project, complementing the personal vehicles, horses and mules the team already had.

Local Native Americans helped locate sites, identify artifacts and explain cultural practices, and scholars served as field experts to the projects. Park plans dissolved after the first year, but expeditions continued until 1938.

Lyndon L. Hargrave, curator of archaeology at Flagstaff’s Museum of Northern Arizona, served as field director for the project in 1933 and 1934. His ornithology interest pioneered the study of prehistoric bird bones and feathers found at archeological sites and led to the ongoing study of possible trade links between Central and South America and the Four Corners area.

Hargrave’s stellar scientific reputation kept the project in good standing with scholars. He developed random pot shard-collection methods, assigned site numbers and added the numbers to the master site list kept by the museum, analyzed pot shards, gathered data from tree-ring work to date structures and developed the idea of “human ecology” that looks at cultural adaptation to the environment. The museum also donated scientific supplies and the use of archeological instruments to the project.

The survey took the students over land, on water and through deep canyons. At least 11 boat trips took place on the waters through Glen Canyon during archeological-reconnaissance surveys.

The first trip in 1933 began at Nakai Canyon on the San Juan River and journeyed downstream to Lee’s Ferry on the Colorado River, with frequent stops to explore side canyons and mesa tops. Subsequent river trips followed this basic route and new sites were added. The 1937 party went to Rock Creek to scramble up slick rock to get to the top of Kaiparowits Plateau, where they recorded nearly 100 small sites in just a few days.

Bohemian Everett Ruess spent a few days cooking for an archaeology crew and moved on, disappearing a couple of years later. His last known campsite was in Glen Canyon, of which he wrote descriptive letters calling it “a maze of narrow winding canyons, many of them blocked at one end or both, and all buried down in the confusing jumble of towers and turrets…” Seventy-five years passed before the mystery of Ruess’ disappearance was solved. A Navajo elder had witnessed the murder of Ruess by Native Americans. The elder’s grandson had been told and was haunted by the story and led officials to the site. The bones, found 60 miles from Escalante, Utah, were positively identified by DNA testing.

The expedition project documented the numerous natural and cultural resources of the previously unknown region. Archeological field techniques were honed, many new sites were added to the Arizona master list, sketches were drawn, cards filled out, photographs and pictographs were taken and random shards and artifacts collections were made. Students found cliff dwellings, storage caches, pictographs and cave shelters. They also found rows of boulders that may have been parts of irrigation canals or garden terraces using water drawn from the creek.

These efforts didn’t lead to creation of a national park, but the Navajo Nation established protection of Betatakin and Keet Seel ruins within the Navajo National Monument. The lovely Glen Canyon was flooded by the construction of Glen Canyon Dam. However, Rainbow Bridge became a national monument. Several of the college students returned for subsequent years on the survey. As the knowledge gained, camaraderie and unique experiences were too hard to pass up.

- S. D. Olberding. Photo by G.F. Foster, courtesy of the Museum of Northern Arizona.

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