"I went down and worked as a grunt down at the dam. A grunt is an electrician's helper, stringing wires to the loaded headings... Most accidents in the drilling was caused by the men tapping the primers too hard. They have a primer, which they don't use anymore... It's pretty touchy. You put your primer in first with a wooden stick, cautiously. You put the dynamite in behind it or in front of it. Then you bring the wires out and tie them together. The men got too rough, and the dynamite went off and killed a man. "41 - Steve Chubbs "From dawn until dark, Black Canyon echoed with the sounds of an all-out assault on its rock walls. The chattering of jackhammers, the roar of air compressors, the clatter and clang of picks and shovels, the grumbling of bulldozers, the shouts and oaths of workmen, the shriek of whistles, and the boom of explosions swelled into a symphony that made earth and air throb with its resounding, insistent chords. "42 Joseph E. Stevens Once the drillers completed a pattern of holes, a truck loaded with dynamite backed into place. Crews gingerly inserted cylindrical cartridges of dynamite into each hole and tamped it into place with wooden powder sticks. The primers, which fired the charge, were tamped in last. Daily blasting at 11:30 a.m. filled the canyon with billowing dust and smoke. The process of drilling, setting the site, and blasting the charge usually took around four and one-half hours, although the crews shortened that time with experience.