Little by little, I began to hear about Georgie White, the first female guide on the Colorado River through Grand Canyon. She started Georgie’s Royal River Rats in the early 1950s and made a name for herself running huge motorboats — stocked with Coors and manned exclusively by Los Angeles firemen. Her trips were known to be raucous and so were her outfits, leopard prints preferred. But the stories sometimes made her seem more like a caricature, a wild and outrageous woman. I was curious about her deeper story. After reading what I could find about her, I learned that White’s story was complicated. She was definitely a trailblazer who brought more visitors down the canyon than anyone else at the time. She was also one of the first people to run both rubber boats with oars and boats with motors. |
