Glen and Bessie Hyde
floated the Green and Colorado rivers on their honeymoon in 1928.
Aboard a two-ton sweep scow made from scrounged wood, and with a
little experience gleaned from rivers in Idaho, the newlyweds made
their way through Labyrinth, Stillwater, Cataract and Glen canyons
before facing the awesome power of the Colorado in Marble and Grand
canyons. They were last seen at Hermit Rapids on Nov. 18; their
empty boat was found upright 142 miles downstream one month
later.
The story of the Hydes struck a chord with
Brad Dimock, author of The Doing of the Thing.
Now he has written Sunk Without a Sound, about
Glen and Bessie Hyde. Dimock is hardly a newcomer to this river
world, having earned his keep for the past quarter-century by
rowing in Grand Canyon as well as on rivers in Utah, Alaska,
Mexico, Guatemala, Chile, Ethiopia and Tanzania. Stories of Glen
and Bessie had swirled around many of his campfires in the Canyon.
With every telling, the myth seemed to grow larger, the
implications darker. Had Glen Hyde really forced his young wife to
endure a brutal trip that she did not want to make? Had Bessie
really shot her new husband and escaped, only to reappear on the
Colorado four decades later?
Dimock felt that he
could tell Glen and Bessie’s story more accurately if he followed
in their footsteps. With his wife, Jeri Ledbetter, he, too, built a
scow and they struggled to guide it through the Grand Canyon. The
trip came close to doing them in, with the scow’s sweep oars
thrashing them daily. They learned to dive cowering into the boat’s
bottom through the worst of the rapids. No points for style; many
points for survival. With each twist and turn of the canyon, Dimock
better understood what motivated Glen and Bessie, what they
experienced, where they were going and why they didn’t get
there.
Dimock could have taken any number of
cheap shots with this book, stirring up waters that have long been
muddy. Instead, he wrote about two real people who gambled and
lost. He writes with poignance about Glen’s honor and Bessie’s
spunk. He draws a remarkable picture of Glen’s father, tenaciously
clinging at first to a thin hope of rescue, then left haunted by
catastrophe. And Dimock does a beautiful job of depicting the
Canyon in which this drama played out. He knows and loves this
country, and it shows. His story-telling runs as high and fast as
the river.
Sunk Without a
Sound will take its place among a handful of books which
have made Grand Canyon’s history come alive.
Copyright © 2001 HCN and Michael
Collier
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Mystery on the Colorado.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
