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"Les Voyageurs sans Trace" - The DeColmont-DeSeyne Kayak Party of 1938
"Les VOyageurs sans Trace:-The DeColmont-DeSeyne Kayak Party of 1938
BY ROY WEBB
SEPTEMBER 1938. The minds of most Frenchmen were on the events of recent weeks, as Europe teetered and finally backed away slightly from the brink of war. At least three Frenchmen, though, had no thoughts of war or even of Europe. Bernard DeColmont, his wife Genevieve, and his friend Antoine DeSeyne were in southwestern Wyoming, camped just below the railroad town of Green River, preparing their small boats and equipment for a run down the Green and Colorado rivers. Their minds were on the unknown dangers that lay ahead in the deep canyons and on the muddy waters swirling by their riverside camp. Bernard, the leader, was on assignment from the Paris Museum of Natural History to descend the Colorado River and film and photograph the canyons. He came well equipped for such a task, having already been on two expeditions to film the Indians of southern Guatemala. He had his own reasons for wanting to go as well. Bernard hoped to prove that small, collapsible kayaks could be used for descending wild rivers, instead of the heavy wooden boats still favored by most explorers.
A wide variety of craft had been used in the previous attempts to descend the turbulent Green and Colorado rivers. The first explorers, forty-niners, and trappers used whatever was available, including abandoned ferryboats, bull boats made of buffalo skins, and even dugout canoes. Maj. John Wesley Powell, who led scientific exploring expeditions down the rivers in 1869 and 1871, was the first to give serious thought to the proper type of craft for running rapids. Powell had had some experience with boats and rivers, having been down the Illinois and Mississippi. He drew on that experience when it came to designing boats for his Colorado River exploring expedition; unfortunately for his long-suffering crews, he chose narrow, round-bottomed freight boats made of oak and double ribbed for strength. They proved to be sturdy enough, but they were extraordinarily heavy and all but unmaneuverable in rapids. Much to the crew's disgust, they portaged and lined the boats more often than they ran them through rapids.
Wooden boat design improved considerably with the flatbottomed skiffs built by Nathaniel Galloway in the late 1800s, but a wooden boat was still a wooden boat: heavy, hard to handle, and prone to splintering if banged on rocks too often. Besides, Galloway was a trapper and prospector, not an explorer. His design did not gain wide acceptance until after the turn of the century. Most expeditions after Powell used the major's awkward design.
Bernard DeColmont wanted to prove that collapsible kayaks, a rubberized canvas skin stretched over a folding wooden frame, which he had already used on rivers in France, would work as well or better than the heavy craft used by most previous expeditions. They had many advantages: they were much more maneuverable, so that rapids could be run more often than portaged; they were lighter and therefore much easier to portage or line when that was necessary; and finally they broke down into two bags that could be easily packed into a starting point.
Bernard's expedition almost failed before getting started, however, through no fault of his or his boats. When he conceived the idea for the trip in the spring of 1938, he wrote to the director of Grand Canyon National Park to formally seek permission. The reply was hardly encouraging:
Undeterred, Bernard wrote to the U.S. State Department, and after several exchanges, received assurance that he could go ahead. Then, at almost the last minute, his other crew member (besides his young wife, Genevieve, whom he had just married on August 1) had to back out of the expedition. He then turned to his friend, Antoine DeSeyne, whom he had met while ski touring in the Pyrennes near their homes. Described by himself as "a good Frenchman who has no knowledge of geography," Antoine had one other problem: he did not know how to kayak. But he was willing to learn, and after Bernard subjected him to an "intensive apprenticeship" in a kayak on the rivers of southern France, he was ready to go.
The trio arrived in New York on August 28, 1938. Because of the warning Bernard had received from the Park Service, they feared that the government might still interfere with their plans; so they told no one their intentions. They bought a big 1934 Lincoln (Antoine noted ruefully in his diary that the car got only 7.5 miles per gallon) to carry them and all of their gear across the country. On September 8, after an uneventful drive across America, they crossed the Wyoming border, and "arrived in the land of the cowboys." In Green River, Wyoming, they learned about an abandoned ranch some ten miles below the town. This was the perfect place to ready their equipment and themselves for the voyage without the prying eyes of government officials or reporters. A week later, shopping and last-minute preparations completed, there was nothing left to do but get into their boats and go.
Just before leaving, their plans finally became public. A correspondent from the Salt Lake Tribune sought them out and got their story. So when they arrived at the Holmes Ranch, some forty miles below the town of Green River, Mr. Holmes was waiting for them. The Holmeses had seen many river expeditions come and go since settling the area soon after the turn of the century. Julius Stone and Nathaniel Galloway had passed there in 1909, the Kolb brothers two years later. Holmes insisted that they stay the night at the ranch. From him and his wife the Frenchmen learned that as they got closer to the canyons the unreasonable fear of the rapids they had noted in town gave way to a reasonable respect for the rapids and the power of the river.
In their first sixty miles on the Green, the river ran slow and flat between arid clay hills. Before reaching Flaming Gorge, the first of the canyons they would encounter, the trio had time to get used to their boats, to balance their heavy loads of canned goods and camera equipment, and to steel themselves for the rapids they knew lay ahead. On September 17 they had their first glimpse of the canyons they would soon enter:
The calm water that so entranced Antoine was the last they would see for some time, for the next day they entered Flaming Gorge and the rapids began — small at first, and easy to run. But two days after entering the canyons they came to Ashley Falls in the middle of Red Canyon. It was the first major rapid they encountered. After studying it, Bernard decided to run all three boats through himself, while Antoine and Genevieve took photos and made films from the shore. After the successful passage Genevieve added their names to the "river register" where river runners have left their names ever since General Ashley passed that way in 1825.
The rapids came hard and fast after that, although that same afternoon they easily ran what they thought was Red Creek Rapid and were surprised that it had such a reputation. The next day, though, they came to the real Red Creek. Bernard, seeing that it was indeed much worse than even Ashley Falls, decided to line two of the boats past the waves and rocks and run the third himself. Just when they thought they were safely past, Antoine's boat broached on a rock and broke in half. It was a long walk back to Green River, and there was no way they could carry themselves and all the equipment and supplies in two boats. Nothing to do but try to repair the broken boat. It took them most of that night and part of the next morning, but they were able to rebuild the broken frame with driftwood and resew the torn canvas. Antoine's boat was seaworthy again.
While they were finishing the repairs to the boat, another river party arrived at the head of the rapid. Seeing "Utah Fish and Game Department and Utah Wild Life Research Unit" painted on the side of one of the two boats, the Frenchmen were suspicious of the strangers, fearing that they were official inspectors, coming to order them to leave the river. Antoine recalled "I deliberately abstain [from greeting the Americans] and stay very absorbed in sewing the canvas of the boat." They soon learned, however, that the party, led by Lee Kay of the Utah Department of Fish and Game, was going down the Green to look for and hopefully film bighorn sheep that lived in the canyons. Kay and the other members of the crew—Earl Clyde, Wes Eddington, Dr. Rasmussen, and Roy DeSpain (who built the two wooden boats) — were "frank, open, friendly from the start. . . . They visited with us for a long time, lingering to take many pictures. They offer us whiskey, leave us two loaves of bread, a dozen eggs and some apples." The Americans were fascinated by the safety gear used by the Europeans — protective helmets and life vests, and spray skirts on their boats—as well as by their folding boats, lightweight tents, down sleeping bags, and Primus gas stoves.
The next day, the French trio paddled through Browns Park. The calm water was a welcome respite from the rapids and dangers of Red Canyon and gave them a chance to rest and repack their loads for their greatest challenge so far—the Canyon of Lodore. Lodore, with its difficult rapids and narrow walls, had the most fearsome reputation of any of the canyons of the Green, and, as the French adventurers soon found out, it was well earned. After lining their boats past upper Disaster Falls, they portaged the boats and gear along the slippery boulders past the lower section, the more difficult part of the rapid. Just above Triplet Falls, the next big rapid, Bernard and Genevieve both capsized on a submerged rock. As they dried out that night in front of a big fire, Antoine wrote in his diary: "Hard day. Bad rapids. Is it fatigue which prevents me this evening from recording more details in my logbook?"
After running a "whole set of lively, fun rapids" the next day, they came to Triplet Falls. There they encountered the Fish and Wildlife men, who had just rescued one of their boats from a rock in the middle of the rapid. That night, the two parties camped together at the head of Hell's Half Mile, the most feared of Lodore's cataracts. The Americans, in the interest of good international relations (or perhaps because attractive young Frenchwomen were a rarity in eastern Utah), invited the trio to dinner. The Frenchmen, in their small kayaks, could not carry much fresh food—in fact, their main load seemed to be canned beer. The French group was greatly impressed by the feast laid out by the Fish and Wildlife crew. When the latter found out that it was Genevieve's twenty-second birthday, "that [made] the camp move." All sang "Happy Birthday" to the young woman, and the celebration continued long into the night.
The Frenchmen decided not to risk their frail boats and loads of camera gear in Hell's Half Mile, a raging maelstrom of rocks and waves. After portaging two of the kayaks, however, Bernard decided that it was too much work; he would run the last boat while the others filmed the attempt. For his pains, he capsized, losing his French flag and a small gear bag (which the other party recovered downriver), and was physically bruised on the rocks. Gamp that night was just below the rapid; they had made only about a mile and a half the whole day. The next morning they floated down to Echo Park, around Steamboat Rock, and into Whirlpool Canyon. Although the rapids in Whirlpool are nothing like Lodore, at the low water of early fall the canyon is not without its dangers. Bernard hung his boat on a submerged boulder and freed it only with difficulty; Antoine scraped by a rock in the same rapid and tore a sixteen-inch slit in the canvas hull of his boat "so fine and so regular that one might think it were done with a knife. ..."
Nor were their troubles over. After being towed through Island and Rainbow parks by Wes Eddington, who had an outboard motor, they came to the mouth of Split Mountain Canyon and the last rapids before the Uinta Basin:
The constant danger, the rapids, the labor of portaging and lining, was beginning to tell on all of them by this point, but especially on the young Frenchwoman. Antoine noted that "Genevieve is almost at the end of her nerves. We lose a little time waiting until she recomposes herself."
They were soon out of Split Mountain, though, and faced nothing more serious than sandbars and mosquitos for the next hundred river miles. While the French trio drifted the last few miles before Jensen, Utah, where they would store their boats and replenish their supplies, they were hailed from the shore by a horseman. A rancher, Robert Thorne, had heard of their voyage and invited them to have dinner with him. After days of canned food they were glad to accept his invitation. The next day, a few miles downstream, another hall, this time from a woman in a car alongside the river. She turned out to be Mrs. Hatch, wife of pioneer commercial riverman Bus Hatch, and she insisted that they accompany her to Vernal and stay with her family. The Frenchmen were at first hesitant to accept but were won over by her warm hospitality. They spent four days with the Hatch family and only learned after they left that the family had moved into the basement so that the French kayakers could have bedrooms.
Finally, though, on October 3 it was time to tear themselves away from the friendly people of Vernal and Jensen and resume their journey. For the hundred miles of flat water to the head of Desolation Canyon, Wes Eddington loaned them his outboard motor. They rigged a frame between two of the boats and towing the other behind were able to make good time through the slow current. By now the weather was starting to turn cold; winter was approaching, and the Frenchmen began to worry about the chances of finishing their trip before the cold weather really set in. On October 10 they ran into the first rapids in Desolation Canyon—"pretty bad but very photogenic," Antoine commented—and Bernard and Genevieve, hiking away from camp, encountered a wolf. They passed through Desolation and Gray canyons without mishap.
The French voyageurs found Green River, Utah, the last town before the confluence of the Green and Colorado, to be a "typical American town. Train Station. Bank. 2 gas stations. 2 drugstores." Awaiting their arrival, however, was another pioneer in commercial river outfitting—Norman Nevills of Mexican Hat, Utah, who had begun taking passengers down the San Juan River in 1934 and was already planning to try his hand on the upper Green. Anxious to meet the kayakers and get their impressions of the upper canyons, he took them to dinner at the Midland Hotel where they swapped river stories until late into the night.
When Major Powell floated through Labyrinth Canyon, below Green River, Utah, in 1869, he recorded the following description:
The French kayakers felt the same; they were enchanted by the beautifully arched walls and the mysterious side canyons. There was another factor to consider, however—it was getting colder every day. Each morning they had to break ice out of the bucket in which they settled their drinking water. Still, the sun was warm enough during the day, and they were making good time, aided by the outboard motor. On October 21 they reached the confluence of the Green and the Colorado, which they called "Grand Junction."
Below the confluence lay only a few miles before the start of Cataract Canyon, still known as the "Graveyard of the Colorado." Today, with Lake Powell backed up into the canyon, there are eleven miles of difficult rapids; in 1938, there were over forty miles of some of the wildest Whitewater in North America. The Frenchmen had to face Dark Canyon, Gypsum Canyon, and the lower Big Drop rapids, all of which are unknown to modern boatmen. Antoine DeSeyne described running rapids in his frail kayak:
Running rapids was not the only danger to be faced in Cataract Canyon. While lining one of the boats past a particularly bad cataract, Antoine was dragged from the shore and forced to swim the rapid without his life vest. The boat was recovered later but not before it had crashed against a rock that broke its wooden frame.
The end of Cataract Canyon also marked the end of any warm weather, and in fact the last few rapids were made even more difficult by large blocks of ice floating down the river. The Frenchmen were unable to appreciate the beauties of Glen Canyon because of the race against the advent of winter. They did not want to get caught in Glen Canyon if the river froze over, forcing them to abandon their boats. It was a long walk to civilization. Each day they battled their way down the shallow, icy river, dragging their boats off sandbars, sleeping each night huddled by a fire. Their thoughts constantly turned to the dangers they would face in the Grand Canyon. Finally, on November 9 they reached Lee's Ferry. After waiting three weeks for the cold weather to moderate, they were finally forced to admit that they could not continue into the Grand Canyon. The French kayak expedition of 1938 was over.
The "French Trio," as they were dubbed by American newspapers, returned to Europe justly proud of their achievements. They had proven that folding kayaks could be used for exploration of wild rivers by taking them down some of the roughest water in the world. Genevieve had been the first woman ever to pilot her own boat through
the rapids of the Colorado. And they had taken thousands of feet of film and hundreds of photographs. Bernard DeColmont published a small book of their photos and wrote several articles for French magazines. Antoine DeSeyne also wrote some newspaper articles and a long poem titled "Les Voyageurs sans Trace" — the voyagers without trace. Both men continued to run rivers in France, until World War II put a stop to such pleasant pastimes.
Perhaps the item of greatest value they took home with them, however, was what still motivates river runners today — a sense of having done something that few others will dare to do, a sense of pride in a shared accomplishment that nothing can ever erase. Antoine DeSeyne later wrote:
Striking a note that no doubt expressed the feelings of the DeColmonts as well, he concluded simply: "It was a team that had gotten that far, a French team, and that was enough."
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