The People: The Missing Piece of John Wesley Powell's Expeditions

It took over 1000 pounds of photographic equipment hauled halfway across the continent by horse boat and sweat for John Wesley Powells 1872 Expedition (including his photographer John Hillers) to document the story of a people who should have never survived there in North Americas desert southwest - the Southern Paiute Tribes.Now the untold story of how the Paiutes helped insure Powells success comes to life in this new one-of-a-kind book (including all 116 original photographs - 90% never seen before outside the exhibit).If you are one of the 215 million people from all over the world who have visited the Grand Canyon since February 26 1919 when it was established as a National Park you will understand my feelings standing for the first time on the North Rims trail to Bright Angel Point. Seeing the canyon walls fall away 5000 feet on either side of the trail I felt as I might when jumping out of an airplane. It is a view so overwhelmingly enormous that my fear of heights overcame me and I never made it all the way out to the point itself. I felt as small insignificant and exposed as if I had been in a life raft in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.I had no idea that two days later I would be standing in front of nearly 150-year-old photographs of a people who had successfully lived in this Plateau Province for hundreds of years-a people the Southern Paiute tribes I had never heard of a photographic history I had never seen a collection that needed to be preserved and a story that needed to be told.Just as a chance encounter with John Wesley Powell gave John K. Hillers the opportunity to become Powells expedition photographer and take the 116 photos my chance encounter with Paul and Susan Bingham led to my opportunity to preserve them in this book.Numerous books articles and scholarly studies have been made of John Wesley Powell and to some extent photographer John K. Hillers. This book draws upon some of those studies and on Powell and Hillers observations. The scope is confined to the period in which the photographs were taken and is meant to provide context for the photographs.Some of the photographs in this book have been used to illustrate other books. All of them are in the public domain. But the Binghams estimate that 90% have not been seen outside the museum and the entire collection has never been seen in book form. The only other complete collection of these photographs is owned by the Smithsonian Institution.If you are someone who has had the good fortune to discover this collection and personally view it this book gives you a chance to dig deeper explore more completely and discover more fully the stories behind the people in the photographs. If you are someone for whom Mount Carmel Utah is as remote now as the Grand Canyon was in 1872 this book gives you that same opportunity.I invite you to become an explorer an adventurer and a traveler into the unknown and to discover the resilience adaptability and resourcefulness of the Southern Paiutes as Powell and Hillers experienced them in the 1870s. You will discover a people with a highly developed environmental knowledge and a way of life perfectly adapted to their environment. -Carol Ormond