canyon

Third in a series of natural history publications presented by the Grand Canyon Natural History Association, this little book introduces several tree species to Canyon visitors and readers alike. The book talks about the park's “deer epidemic” which happened when ranchers got permission allowed kill mountain lions. This caused the deer population to dramatically increase and destroy the aspen trees on the Kaibab plateau. In response, officials introduced the practice of deer hunting and allowed some existence of mountain, hoping to curtail the problem.

In 1871, seventeen-year-old Fred Dellenbaugh, under the lead of Major John Wesley Powell, a Civil War hero and the first director of the Smithsonian’s Bureau of Ethnology, journeyed into the Grand Canyon and its subsidiary canyons and rivers with the intention of exploring, mapping, and recording descriptions of the uncharted territory. The men found themselves battling the great force of the Colorado River, with its fatal, quick rapids and mighty waterfalls. This is Dellenbaugh’s personal story, written thirty years after the great adventure.