Oral History Program Moki Mac Ellingson Eleanor Quist 03 March 1973 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Moki Mac Ellingson Interviewed by Eleanor Quist 03 March 1973 Copyright © 2012 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. 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These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. 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It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Ellingson, Moki Mac, an oral history by Eleanor Quist, 03 March 1973, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Moki Mac Ellingson. The interview was conducted on March 3, 1973, by Eleanor Quist, in Green River, Utah. Ellingson discusses life on the river, and specifically talks about the life of Bert Loper on the river. EQ: Moki Mac, I know you have lived in Southern Utah for most of your life, and you have been on the rivers for many years. You have ran Grand Canyon and you practically knew every spot of Glen Canyon before it became Lake Powell. You know a lot of the history of Southern Utah and you know a lot about the people of early Southern Utah. I was wondering if today we could talk about some of the people I have heard you tell stories about. I was thinking of Bert Loper and Cass Hite. I was wondering if you could tell me their relationship to southern Utah, what they had to with the rivers down here and some of those things. ME: I would be glad to, Eleanor. The history of this country is so fascinating. Bert Loper—let’s start—he was down in pike County Missouri, 1865, 1869 I should say. He lived with his mother after his father passed away. And then his mother remarried and then she passed away, and at the age of 13 or 14, Bert went over into Colorado to work in the mines, just a young man. This wasn't unusual in those days because a good share of the conquest of the west was done by boys and some girls in their teens and alone. He worked in the mines for a long time and for a few years doing odd jobs where he could and in saloons and wording around the mines. And then as he was approaching his late teens, around 19 or maybe 20, he went to work in the mines steady. At that time the labor 1 movements were beginning to come forth. The miners who showed activities in the organization of the labor party for the miners, the company did something to discourage it, namely a bullet through the head for the agitator. So Bert got the word and he took off, came over to Utah down in the San Juan County. EQ: About what time was this, what was the date? ME: This was about 1890-1896. Bert liked the Mormon people and he loved the river, San Juan, and he fell in love with the bishop’s daughter, I’ve forgotten his name, and they were about to be married. But as Burt told me later or as he recorded in his diary he said, "generally as you married one of the Mormon girls and settle down the first thing you know they called you on a mission, go way off in some foreign country and preach." Burt said I wasn't about to do this. So one day I just took off and went on down the San Juan River. He fooled around panning gold until 1906, when he and two others started from Green River Wyoming running down the Green River, panning for gold. Panning for gold, we have found since, is quite discouraging cause there is very little evidence of gold on the Green River. So they came on down to Cataract Canyon, this was about 1906. They came down into Cataract Canyon and after real hardship on the river, on the third day they wrecked their boat and had to walk out. So they started walking out following the river down. Eating what little stuff they had, fish or snakes, you name it, what little stuff they could get to eat. Following the river down where they could, where there were steep cliffs they swam or climbed over. One of the fellows that was with them became so discouraged that he would keep telling Bert and his partner to go ahead and let him go. You go on without me, he would 2 say, because there was a question if they would survive or not. Would they get down to Hite? Burt records in his diary that "that son of a bitch is not going to commit suicide or jump over the cliff or do anything, he is going to live with us until we get to Hite. When we get down there I will buy him the finest rope money can buy and I will fix him up the finest branch of a tree and a box, and I will help him tie the Knot in the rope, and he can hang himself," But he is not going to commit suicide on his trip and have us go into civilization and have people say well, three started out and only two came out. Because there was no law to investigate any murders or anything, if ever two men went out and one came back or three men went out and two came back there was always the stigma on the character of the man who survived. They always said, "Well they rubbed him out." Bert said they weren't going to say that of him. He would bring him in if he had to hog-tie and bring him in. So they came down to Kite. Bert was a great shutterbug, one of the first. And something happened to his camera. So Bert waited in Hite for parts for his camera, because there was a post office there. Cass Hite’s brother was running it. And while he was there he bought Red Canyon. It was about 10 miles down the road. He bought where Red Canyon runs into the Colorado. A man had a cabin there and he was doing a little prospecting. Prospecting was good on the Colorado. This looked like a pretty good prospecting spot so Bert bought it. Then his parts came for his camera so he took off on down the river. He ran into a rock and put a hole in his boat. Now the boat they were using were made out of steal, not wood, but steal. It was hard to put a patch in it. The plan was for the two 3 partners to wait for Bert in Lee’s Ferry and all of them go on down Grand Canyon and prospect there. Where ever they found gold they would return, set up claims, and, of course, go to panning. When Bert put the hole in his boat it took him 4 or 5 days to patch it up so he could go on. And when he got down to Lee’s Ferry it was in December. The people in Lee’s Ferry were very unfriendly towards the prospectors. Well in the first place they would come down there, broke without a grub stake, and no tools or anything. And they would beg or steal from them, tools and food, so they could go on prospecting. So whenever prospectors would show up at Lee’s Ferry, they were very unfriendly and right away they kicked them out. Bert got a very cold reception there. Especially did he feel bad when his partners left word there, because he took so long to come down, that they decided to go on without him, they figured that Bert had chickened out and didn’t dare go on down through Grand Canyon. This was quite a blow to Bert. He had no friends, he had no money, he had no food; all he had were beans. He started back up the river. Christmas day of 1907, walked along the shore and pulled his boat, where he couldn’t he walked in the water. He headed 160 miles up the river, back to the only property he owned, Red Canyon. It took him a month to make it. Bert recorded in his diary, beans will keep forever if you bring them to a boil every day. Beans were all he had to eat. How could a man survive at this time of the year in this country? He said the river was frozen over and he would try to walk on the ice and it would break through. He said he was wet nearly every day. Build a fire and dry out and go again. There was no help, nobody, nothing along the river. He got back up to Red Canyon and started to do 4 some prospecting and panning. Many times I visited the old cabin there; it was partly built when Bert bought it. He finished it and added on a partition to it. Ana of course it’s long since under water with Glen Canyon Dam. He had a friend on down the river, Cass Hite. He and Cass used to visit quite a bit. They were the nearest neighbors within 10 miles. They were of two political faiths and they used to argue loud and lusty for their various political parties. Sometime Bert told me he was hiking up Ticaboo (that’s the little creek Cass Hite lived on) and he heard a voice loud and long telling the virtues of a candidate for the president of the United States. He said, “I Knew it was Cass Hite that was preaching. As I came around a bush he was standing on a stump." How these old time gunmen in the early days that had dead men sitting on their chest, yes Cass had killed a man and he was hiding down in Red Canyon, not so much from the law, because he has fulfilled his payment to the law, but because he, the man had relatives. The thing you didn’t do with these old gunmen is come up behind them and says "I've been looking for you." You probably wouldn't finish the sentence. They had a lot of men looking for them and if anybody ever tapped them on the back he shot first and asked questions afterwards. Bert said he went on down the creek singing and humming and Bert had a beautiful voice. Oh I used to enjoy it so much in Music Temple, when we used to go in there, on our boy scouts trips aria the other trips we used to go on. And Bert was singing and Cass didn't know he had been caught electioneering. Finally they got to the point where they argue so lusty and so hard that one or the other, I don't know which one said it, but one of them said, "you dag gum old fool, 5 if you can't come over to my place and talk about anything but politics, don't come over." One time I remember Bert used to walk from, take his boat and go up stream to Hite and then from Hite over to Hankville, a distance of 50 to 60 miles; walking mostly. While he was there visiting with friends from Hankville, the wife of his friends had bottled some chickens. Boy that tasted good to Bert. So they said to him, Bert, what you should do is take some chickens with you. Bert had someone deliver some chickens and wire to Hite. Bert took them on down to Red Canyon. There the hens laid eggs and they were in the process of hatching out the eggs in the little coop he had made out of wire. He came out one morning and a bobcat had dug underneath the fence and had killed off his chickens. It made Bert so mad that he grabbed a club and went into the cage with the club, and was in the process of beating the bobcat to death when Cass Hite came upon him and yelled at him. Bert said that it was a good thing he yelled after I killed him because if he had yelled before and I had turned my head, probably that would of been the end of me. But in those days things were rough, you fought the frontier with what you had and either the frontier won or you won. Bert stayed down there in Rea Cannon. In February, 1914, Bert said he heard somebody on the other side of the river fire off three shots. Now three shots in the old days meant there was trouble. Bert hadn't spoken with Cass in two years, 10 miles apart, hadn't spoke for two years, oh what hard heads. When he heard those shots he knew something had happened to Cass. So he got in his boat and went across and 6 sure enough when he got across he found Cass dead. He buried him, and Cass Hite is buried there now. Bert said that after Cass passed away there was something missing in the canyon. He said that it seemed like he was all alone, although he and Cass hadn't spoken for two years. But at the same time they always felt that if anything happened to one they would break down their barrier and they would always help each other. Bert said the canyon; the old river seemed kind of sad without Cass. Bert sold Red Canyon and started wording between Tori and Hankville. In 1914, he was over in Tori to a Christmas celebration; whenever they had a Christmas celebration and Bert was around they get him to sing. Bert had a beautiful voice. And one of his favorites was, “When the Silvery Colorado Wends Its Way” and” I’ll take you Home Kathleen.” Oh he loved to sing that. I remember so many times, Eleanor, in Music Temple. Oh that was so beautiful there. It was a huge cavern carved out by the wind and water, about half the size of the tabernacle, with the most perfect acoustics in it. And Bert’s voice was so melodious in there, it was real pleasure to have aim sing some of the old time songs in there. So they asked Bert if he would sing at the celebration. He sang and after he got through singing they said, “Bert, this lassie here, fresh over from the old country, she is intrigued with your voice and she has expressed a desire to meet you.” And so that’s where Bert met Rachel. Bert was 48 at the time Rachel was 24. And so he met Rachel and after quite a brief courtship they were married. And a couple years later Bert decided to go down on California Bar to do some prospecting. He knew the miners who had been in there had had some 7 success. In fact on that bar I have found a small vile one time with a little bit of free gold in the sand that hadn’t been taken out. It was left by some of the miners. California Bar was probably one of the best prospects all along the river. So Bert decided to go down there. They cautioned Rachel, don’t marry Bert. He'll take you down on the river and you will live like hermits. Why they say a lot of those old timers live down there and they don't even wear any clothes. They eat rattlesnakes, and they eat fish, and they eat lizards, and anything they can get ahold of. She is such a wonderful sweet little girl and he will take her down there, that old man will do that. Well sure enough, early in the spring, Bert took Rachel and put her in the boat, tied a team on the boat, that is when the water was still low on the Colorado, and they started down the river with all their worldly possessions in the boat. When they came to Tapestry Wall there were sheer cliffs there, that impossible to get around with a team. So Bert said, you take the boat Rachel. She had never had a pair of oars in her hands, he said when you want to go this way you do this and when you want to go this way you do this, and when you want to go straight ahead you do this. This is the story as Rachel told it to me. She said, “I was terrified,” she said, “I had never felt so all alone in my whole life.” I said, “Rachel how did you feel, did you think it was a dirty deal for Bert to do this and leave you like that?” She said, “No I didn't, if Bert felt it was best for us to leave and go pan gold on California Bar, then it was my job, my obligation, to follow him down there. This was really the typical sprit of the pioneer woman which she displayed. Bert said 8 you go down so many miles to a certain creek that comes in, of course all of this is under water now, and you go down to a certain creek, there will be so many on the left-hand side, and so many on the right hand side, and when you come to the creek furthest up on the right hand side stop. At 11:00 or 12:00 at night you will hear me come down the trail. I ask, “What was your reaction, Rachel, when you saw Bert start up the old trail at warm creek?” Incidentally, warm creek was an old trail that the outlaws used to come down to the river. Up above on this trail was a mailbox that the outlaws used to leave notes for each other. So Bert went up the creek, took his team on around and Rachel went on down the river. She said I went down to the creek where he told me to wait and she said sure enough about 12:00, I could hear Bert singing, “When the Colorado Wends Its Way,” he said later he was singing just for me. I could hear the rattle of the chains on the team as he was coming down. I was so overjoyed. I was never so happy in my life to hear anybody sing; never ever, because, she said, “I had almost despaired that something had happened to him and I would have to spend the rest of my life trying to get out of there, if I could get out alive. So they went on down to California Bar and they built a cabin there. It turned out to be not bad in the summer. They stayed there in the winter making trips out at times to get supplies. Bert said that it was a real hard winter, and between trying to chop wood and keep warm and fight off the rats that had accumulated down there, that they didn’t have much time for prospecting. So he gave that prospect up and came back and lived in Green River for a long time. When he was living in Green River, 9 Bert was always on the river. One time Bert and Rachel were down on the Green doing some prospecting. Bert always insisted some place on the Green there was gold. Some place there would have to be. And so he and Rachel were down prospecting. Something happened to their boat and Rachel took sick. SO Bert started over land by way down what they call Tri Canyon, 60 miles down the river. Bert left the boat, left the river and started to hike out and go back to Green River to get help for Rachel and the boat. How normally Bert's training on the river would have taught him to stay on the river, but panic and thinking for Rachel, he started off cross land. Well, Harry Ellingson and Carl Badger were coming down the river, about 18 hours after Bert left. Rachel was feeling alright and she was trying to fix the boat. Harry and Carl picked her up and brought her back up to Green River. Then they went out on horses and Bert was just a little ways out of Green River when they found him. Sometime after Bert left Red Cannon be developed a pain in his side and they took aim up to the hospital, he had appendicitis, and they say, I don’t know how true this could be, but they say they found sand in his appendix. Could this be? I don’t know, but that was the story around. Bert always did say if you would live healthy and your stomach would perform its work like it should, the chickens ate a little sand with their food and it helped to grind it up and digest it. That wasn't a bad idea for man to do it. I remember on the river trips with Bert, he would just take a cup and scoop it out of the stream, he always said a little of the slit in the river will do you good, it will help clean you out. Bert came to Salt Lake; Bert was a mason, and they said he 10 could recite all of the chairs for their rituals. Which they considered quite an unusual feat. Bert was third degree mason. I met Bert for the first time in 1937 in Salt Lake. He had just completed a trip with Don Harris and Jack Barren, down into Grand Canyon. I didn't see very much of aim until about 1945. And then I got pretty well acquainted with Bert. I used to listen to a lot of his stories. Whenever we could get him to come to a scout meeting or banquets we would get him to come and talk. It was always a delight to hear him, because he had an expressive way of telling about the things that happened in his life. Some of things that had happened to the Indians and so on, and especially the stories of Cass Hite. In 1948, I took my first river trip with Bert. He was the guide on the trip and of course I just lived in his presence, and so did everyone else. We could hardly leave him alone to go to bed. Then in 1949, he made another river trip with us on Glen Canyon. Bert was going on 80, the doctor with us said, “Bert let me check your heart. Will you come into the office after this trip? I would like to give you a physical, you seem to be in very good shape but,” he said, “there is a question about your heart.” Bert told me, “I'm not going to go talk to that doctor because I know if I do he'll tell me that I can't come on the Grand Canyon trip. I want to be on Grand Canyon on my 80th birthday, July 9. I want to be rowing my own boat.” He and Rachel had built a boat and he had worn it out. He and Rachel together had built this boat which he was going to use on Grand Canyon. He was to be down there on his 80th birthday. So he and Don Harris and Jack Pan and some of the others started out. They had made a pact in 1939 that on Bert’s 80th birthday they would be on the 11 Grand Canyon. So they started out at Lee’s Ferry. When they got to mile 25 1/2, the fellow that was with Bert in the boat said, “This rapid looks pretty rough; will you let me run the boat through?” This was the last thing you should say to Bert, because Bert, although for his age and so on, he had the real know how of the river. And more or less to a man of Bert’s day and age of the conquest of the west, to say I will do it for you, was a suggestion that perhaps you weren’t quite able to do it. This was a terrific challenge to his man-hood. So Bert shook his head and said no; the roar of the rapids were in their ears then, but Bert indicated that he would take the boat on through. The roar of the rapids as I indicated before, and it was impossible for anyone to talk. As they come into the first wave of the rapid the boat turned sideways; the man who was in the boat with Bert, of course there was only two of them, knew something was wrong. You never turned sideways. Generally, the way these timers would go through the rapids is, they would look for the longest tongue, the smooth part that goes down in the rapids. Then you always kept your boat headed down stream, if you ever got turned sideways, you had had it, because it would tip the boat. They went into the first wave, he was sideways, the second wave he was sideways, he could tell, at the crest of the third wave it tipped the boat over. Bert had a life jacket on; the man that was with him was able to un-ride the boat to the shore. 10 miles he rode on top of that boat downstream from above mile 25 ½ to mile 49 ½. Just above mile 49 ½ the boat came to a rest. Bert was always in lead, he was always the guide, out of courtesy for Bert, courtesy I say also because of his special skill, special ability to understand and pick his channels in 12 the river. We always let Bert go first. The boat came ashore and they all landed and pulled his boat up at mile 49 ½. If you go down through Grand Canyon you will see Bert’s boat still tied up there. Nothing was seen of Bert from then on. He is buried in the river, that’s where he wanted to be. That’s where he said he always wanted to spend his life, on the river, and then eventually live on the river forever. We never found his body; we never will. Bert told us that if ever people fell into the river, even swimmers, (And this I have found true from my experience) that if anyone falls into the river, after a certain length of time the slit in the river collects inside their clothes. Inside of 26 hours, they will have so much slit in their clothes they will gradually sink to the bottom someplace in a back eddy and the slit from the water will gently but thoroughly cover them up. They will be buried forever. So Bert’s body is somewhere in Grand Canyon. Shortly before his 80 birthday and that’s how he wished it. Let me say this for Rachel, who waited always on the dock to wave goodbye to Bert when he left on a trip, always at the dock when he came off the trips. She said to me, ”Mac, sometimes even now,” (this was 20 years ago) “I find myself listening for his footsteps to come across the threshold from his trips. Somehow I will never get over that, because always Bert came back singing. Each year on Decoration Day and on the day Bert lost his life, Rachel and a few of his friends cast a wreath on the Green River. This is in token, in memory of a man who knew more of the lure of the river, who had the keenest memory of any man I have ever listened to as a story teller, and a man who thoroughly, sincerely, and really loved the desert, the so called waste lands of our Utah. 13