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Transcript for Lake Powell, segment 08 of 11
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Most noted of all Lake Powell has to offer are the strange and haunting side canyons where light, shadow, and color dance about winding ribbons of blue water. Almost never seen before Lake Powell was formed, the side canyons are now open to boaters and explorers.
Even in the side canyons, the land is big. The girl becomes lost to view in its immensity.
Many of the side canyons continue on into higher country beyond the lake. Here is a part of the Earth almost untouched by modern man, a place where time seems motionless, where the primeval past still survives. Ancient man once called this canyon home. Seven hundred years ago, the pueblo Indians raised corn on the canyon floor, and they lived in the alcoves and caves.
Very little is known about these ancient and mysterious cliff dwellers. Just what was the Indian artist telling his fellow man or do these markings represent a meeting of the tribe where each clan recorded the family coat of arms?
Around the lake are signs of more recent activity, of miners and explorers. In the eighteen nineties, gold seekers cut steps into the rock for their horses, but prospecting for gold in Glen Canyon proved unprofitable. The real riches of Glen Canyon lay in the magnificent scenery.
At a place called Hole-in-the-Rock, visitors may see where Mormon pioneers built a road for their wagons during the winter of eighteen seventy-nine and eighteen eighty. It was through this notch and along the cliffs to the river that the wagons, over eighty of them, were driven in an incredible display of stamina and resourcefulness. At Register Rocks, many of the dauntless Hole-in-the-Rock pioneers cut their names into the soft sandstone.