Rebel of the Colorado: The Saga of Harry Leroy Aleson - A Book Review by Pete Warzel
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Rebel of the Colorado: The Saga of Harry Leroy Aleson, Written and Illustrated by Renny Russell, Foreword by Roy Webb, Animist Press, Hard cover, 304 pages. (Order at bottom of this page).
Animist Press is a book binding, publishing, and restoration venture located in Questa, New Mexico, started in 2007. A homegrown press of “real books about real people.” So is their latest publication, a large format, substantial, well-produced book, about a man unknown to me previously, with a fascinating story. My sense of the desert Southwest was informed early on by Edward Abbey and his marvelous works and outsized personality. River running on the Colorado, the Green, Glen Canyon before the dam, eco-activism, all took on a heady importance in his writing. Harry Leroy Aleson, born Asleson, the subject of this book, is as much an electrifying character as Abbey, pre-figuring him by thirty years.
Russell writes a chronology of Aleson’s life and work, mostly in introductory sections where he sets the scene, and then quotes his subject’s own writings to tell the story. The illustrations, maps, and photographs are numerous and excellent, enhancing the written tale as it moves along from 1899 to Aleson’s death in 1972. What a story.
Aleson was born in the Midwest and served in World War I in the Army Air Service, a duty that would make him a victim of the horrific chemical warfare of the time, and would put him in and out of hospitals for treatment and surgeries through his entire life. The physical debilitation makes his demanding outdoor life all the more impressive, and indeed he becomes a figure larger than life. He begins his own adventure in the Pacific Northwest then on to itinerant jobs during the Great Depression. In a haunting quote that hints at today’s unrest, especially in Portland where Federal troops police the streets uninvited, Aleson talks about the unrest of joblessness, an economy in turmoil, and lack of food. “The city of Seattle has done nothing towards relief for its citizens. Something must be resolved. I don’t mean bloodshed…. If blackjacks and handcuffs are used to terminate peaceful dissent, they will be given a fitting and ceremonious funeral in Puget Sound, never again to be used on American citizens.”
His introduction to the Colorado River in the 1930s sets the rest of the course of his life and in 1939 endures the ordeal of having his boat washed away while camped, stranded. He meets Georgie White who eventually operates the first woman owned river rafting commercial company, Georgie’s Royal River Rat Company, and they use neoprene boats in 1947, perhaps the first run in such a vessel, sparking the idea of commercial enterprise. They also chase their separate demons together in wild, crazy endeavors. In 1945 Harry and Georgie float 60 miles in a swollen Colorado River in life preservers and backpacks, no boat.
Aleson forms Western River Tours in 1947 and in 1952 partners with Dick Sprang, comic book artist of Batman, who also has an obsession with the Southwest rivers and landscape. Canyon Surveys, the venture, surveys what Aleson calls the ‘white space” on Utah’s map.
The book is full of river characters who blazed the trails for today’s commercial adventures, all wild, wooly, and maybe just a bit unbalanced. Russell, in his introduction to the life in “Author’s Notes”, presents a concise image of Harry Leroy Aleson. “Undeniably, his appeal is that because he didn’t fear death and lacked good judgment, his misadventures are as extraordinary and frightening as they are amusing.” He was a step beyond eccentric. A read of the chronology of Aleson’s life at the end of the book is almost incomprehensible in its scope, its insufferable motion, and its distance traversing the wild geography of America.
Russelll’s book about the life and times of Harry Aleson is big and unruly, like his subject. But it is filled with quotes from Aleson’s writings and notes that present a man on a mission, in love with life outdoors and on the rivers, reckless, lucky, tough, and one of the first to realize the commercial opportunities of running rivers through the glorious landscapes of the Southwest. The life portrayed in this fascinating book is a wild ride.