It's kind of a chicken-and-egg question does hiking the canyon lead to a thirst to know its history, or is it a knowledge of the history that draws people in for deeper exploration?
For participants at last weekend's second Grand Canyon History Symposium, the two were impossible to separate.
"I wonder, there must be a cause and effect here," said park Superintendent Joe Alston in welcoming more than 200 paid registrants from all over the country last Friday. "I can't think of a hike I've taken where I haven't come back without a question. It leads to questions, and questions lead to more questions and pretty soon you're addicted to the whole thing."
Friday's luncheon keynote speaker Scott Thybony used the same theme, likening the gathering to a fix for canyon junkies, who seem unable to resist the wealth of stories starring a cast of characters as wild, colorful and layered as the landscape that they love to explore.
"It's like family to them," noted Arizona State Historian Marshall Trimble, who served as Saturday's keynote speaker. "They feel a kinship that's very deep, whether they've loved the canyon for three or four years, or 40 years."
Randy Rohrer, who traveled here from Anapolis, Md., happily puts himself in the category of Grand Canyon junkie, ever since he took a river trip 15 years ago.
"It changed my life," he said.
Learning more about the area's history keeps him in touch in between his frequent visits and the symposium has given him even more of the kinds of nuggets of information that canyon buffs cherish he learned that his trip from Maryland added up to fewer miles that Maverick Gaudreau logged in his 106 rim-to-rim hikes last year.
As park resource specialist and historian Mike Anderson noted, "History is everything that happened before today."
There were 50 speakers from all backgrounds, not only professional historians, but also archaeologists, biologists and other scientists. Speakers also included authors and avocational historians and at least one yarn spinner in Trimble, who entertained with stories of the irrepressible John Hance and performed humorous songs.
Along with presentations that brought a deeper knowledge of familiar figures like John Wesley Powell, James White and Louis Boucher were programs chronicling the stories of lesser known pioneers such as Hum Woolley and Ray Tankersley.
History was also explored in broader contexts, through biological, geological and archaeological perspectives.
This year's slate also featured a greater diversity of Native American history, something that was lacking in the 2002 symposium, according to Anderson.
Programs included a history of the Havasupai over the past century and a chronicle of the lives of Native American women at Grand Canyon. Friday's keynote speaker was Hopi artist Michael Kabotie, who talked about the cultural challenges between old and new ways.
As he addressed the participants on Friday, Anderson said that their presence and interest represented a fulfillment of a vision that the Park Service's first director Stephen Mather, articulated some 90 years ago.
"He envisioned independent researchers from universities and other scientific institutions, as well as the general public to come to the canyon to learn, write and share their findings with the park and the rest of the country," he said.
Last weekend's symposium improved on the success of the inaugural event in other ways, drawing twice the number of attendees and 20 more speakers.
Anderson said that when he and Grand Canyon Field Institute Director Mike Buchheit put together that first event, they really didn't know what to expect and were unsure they could even attract the 100 people they planned for. Their worries were unfounded. The event quickly sold out and even before it was done, they were thinking in terms of bigger and better for the next one.
"This one is really an improvement," Anderson said "We learned in 2002 and have done better in 2007. We had better space, the sound system worked and the speaker presentations were just as good."
He added that a book from this year's event will come together more quickly than the volume from 2002. "A Gathering of Grand Canyon Historians Ideas, Arguments and First-Person Accounts" was published by Grand Canyon Association in 2005. The monograph for this event is slated for release next year.
"This time, Todd Berger (of GCA) is doing the editing and he asked for completed papers," Anderson said. "When I edited the last book, I was getting presentation notes on envelopes and scraps of paper."
The organizational leadership behind last weekend's event was Lee Albertson, of the Grand Canyon Historical Society.
"This symposium started with an e-mail in September of 2004," he said. "Some 3,000 e-mails later, here we are."
He credited the various committees, as well as support from Xanterra, Grand Canyon Association, Grand Canyon Historical Society and its members and the National Park Service, for the success of the event, which sold out completely.
"They all did an outstanding job organizing and setting up the audio-visual equipment," he said.
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Photos by Jackie Brown/GCN
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