You may remember On the Loose, a book I coauthored with my brother that was published by the Sierra Club in 1971. It made the New York Times Best Seller list and sold over a million copies, which was pretty amazing considering it was written by a couple of goofball brothers. The book took on a life of its own and became an anthem for a generation. Nearly 50 years later (God! has it been that long?) I’m still that kid “On the Loose,” and I have almost completed a new book, Rebel of the Colorado: The Saga of Harry Leroy Aleson—and it needs your help to make the last lap to the finish line. And what a marathon.
Where to begin? For over a decade I’ve followed Harry Aleson’s trail from his birth in Waterville, Iowa, on March 9, 1899, to his last breath in Prescott, Arizona, on March 27, 1971. Fragments of his childhood were nearly nonexistent, but as I dug deeper in the vaults of myriad institutions, I discovered that during WWI he had designed and installed the first ground-to-air radio system. His plane was shot down into a cloud of mustard gas. His health was compromised for the rest of his life in proportion to his deep hatred for the U.S. government.
I tracked him through the Depression while he was living in Seattle, Washington, but couldn’t keep up with his pace as he climbed every major peak in the western United States, until he summitted California’s Mt. Whitney “in preparation for a parachute drop on Mt. Everest.”
After bumming around the West, he surfaced in 1939 when he had his first contact with the lower Colorado River. This began a love affair with the vast river and canyon wilderness of the Colorado Plateau, located in the Four Corners area where Utah, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico meet.
Returning the following year, Aleson nearly perished while hiking up Separation Canyon looking for traces of the men who left explorer John Wesley Powell’s expedition. Aleson also wanted to see whether it was possible to construct a railroad from the north for the purpose of building Bridge Canyon Dam on the Colorado River. He ran out of food and water, got lost, and by pure luck was rescued by a passing boat as he lay semiconscious in the sand by the river.
Recovered, he had a wild hair to motor up the Colorado from Lake Mead (Separation Canyon) some 88 miles to Bright Angel Creek. From 1941 to 1944, “Up Colorado River Expeditions” was one of the most epic and challenging endeavors ever undertaken on the lower Colorado River. Aleson eventually succumbed to the power of the river during a snowstorm after tearing off the lower end of his outboard motor on rocks. Read all about it in Rebel of the Colorado.
I catch up with Aleson again in 1945 on a walk down Diamond Creek to the Colorado River with his girlfriend—the legendary Georgie White—en route to swim 60 miles down to Lake Mead with only meager provisions on their backs—“to see if was possible.” Wanting more thrills, they swam the river again the following year in a maelstrom of spring runoff. I offer the reader a blow-by-blow account taken directly from Aleson’s journal.
In 1943, while Aleson was working for the Bureau of Reclamation delivering supplies to the proposed Bridge Canyon Dam site, he hijacked one of their boats and was promptly fired. He hid out in a cave he called “My Home” and wrote inflammatory letters to Grand Canyon National Park, which was determined to rein him in, resulting in the first river permitting system in Grand Canyon.
Hot on his trail, I get a glimpse of Aleson upstream in the calmer waters of Glen Canyon (now older and haggard looking), where, in 1948, he began a guiding business—Western River Tours—but I lost him when he flew to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to receive an award for Paramount Pictures’ “Unconquered Spirit” contest and to meet with President Truman.
I discover his fresh tracks at the Huntington Library in California while doing research—sifting through silt-stained documents indicating that during the same year Aleson attempted to run the Escalante River (a tributary of the Colorado) at low water but ended up dragging his boat 60 miles to the confluence of the Colorado instead. An oar never touched the water.
I take a deep breath, trying to fathom how during that same year, 1948, he and Georgie White were able to follow a portion of the Dominguez-Escalante Trail from Lees Ferry, Arizona, to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Did they make it? Read about it in Rebel of the Colorado!
With the completion of Glen Canyon Dam in 1963, the life Aleson had known on the river unraveled. He was heartbroken to see the sacred places he had known inundated, and he told his wife, Dottie, that if he were to die on the river to bury him where his spirit could be with the Colorado. Unable to cope with the throngs of newcomers, Aleson headed north to the Peace River in Alberta, Canada. On July 24, 1954, Aleson launched a 10-man surplus boat and rowed 1,966 miles down the Peace and Slave Rivers, across Great Slave Lake, then on down the Mackenzie River to Aklavik on the coast of the Arctic Ocean. It seemed an impossible feat; it had never been done before and has not been done since. His companion Maureen Henderson kept a journal that gives us a fresh and fascinating perspective on Aleson.
But Rebel of the Colorado is more. Though Harry Aleson is the protagonist, the book profiles many of the iconic and eccentric river runners of the Colorado through Grand Canyon during the ‘40s, ‘50s, and ‘60s. In addition, I document Aleson’s 11-year search for artist, misfit, and wanderer Everett Ruess, who disappeared without out a trace in 1934. I also write of my search with Aleson for my brother, Terry, who drowned in Desolation Canyon on the Green River in 1965.
Most Americans are deeply troubled by the current administration’s attack on the last of Wild America. Though much of the wilderness that Aleson knew is gone along with the true feeling of adventure, my book may motivate readers to demand change. Aleson would have been on the front lines with the majority of Americans who feel alienated from what is beautiful and noble in the natural world amid our present culture of rampant cynicism and a media ecosystem that traffics in outrage as its chief currency. Authentic stories about authentic people are rare these days. Will books like Rebel of the Colorado awaken an ancient longing to return to the earth and heal?
Though Aleson’s wanderings may seem extraordinary, he was at times a lost soul in search of the holy grail. He certainly didn’t follow a heroic arc. Like most of us, he stumbled along, with a scattered string of successes and failures, questionable decisions, impulsive flings, dead ends, false starts, and inexplicable passions, mixed with a few glorious dawns that were his life’s blood. Unestionably, he was an anti-hero for our time and the most unrecognized river runner of the Colorado River.
Of course, not meeting my goal and not receiving the books on time due to the Cononavirus which has slowed production at Midas Printing International located in Hong Kong. However I’ve been reassured this is only temporary. With the completion of Rebel of the Colorado, I awake from a dream. I look around and wonder where I’ve been, switch gears, and summon the energy and courage to reach out and ask for your financial help to publish. Many writers sell out in order to publish by relinquishing artistic control; others become a pawn in the mainstream publishing game. Others are so overwhelmed by the daunting task that they give up. I firmly believe that an artist who is honest and up front and has integrity will sooner or later find a way to share their work. I have made the quantum leap to fund my work with Kickstarter because I have faith that you will agree that my book is worthy of your support. Do you believe that the most poignant and enduring stories are of the adventures of those who have gone where no one has ventured before—those who have risked their lives and brought back tales of a world beyond man? Do you agree that people risking their lives in perilous situations constitutes the original definition of what is worth writing about? Do you feel strongly about the importance of following one’s muse? Then I challenge YOU to help make this vital book a reality.