Columbia River Dissenters Series
Tape 1, Side 1
22 October 1999

FH = Floyd Harvey
CH = Clark Hansen

OHS Inv. # 2723

Floyd Harvey was born in 1925 and grew up in Lewiston, Idaho. After serving in World War II, Harvey returned to the Pacific Northwest and studied Business Administration and Foreign Trade at Washington State College in Pullman, Washington. In 1958, Harvey started a river tourism business near the Hells Canyon area. In 1964, Harvey lobbied against private utilities and public power agencies over the proposed construction of the High Mountain Sheep Dam near the confluence of the Snake and the Salmon Rivers. Initially, Harvey was willing to work with the public agencies and construct his own business operations around the dam. He wanted to build a lodge on the lake and contract out his jet boat services to workers. When the Federal Power Commission gave the license rights to private companies, Harvey realized his business ventures would be stifled. From then on, Harvey lobbied hard to end construction of the High Mountain Sheep Dam. In 1967, Supreme Court Justice, William O. Douglas, refused the Federal Power Commission the license to build the dam.

CH: This is an interview with Floyd Harvey at his home in Lewiston, Idaho. The interviewer for the Oregon Historical Society is Clark Hansen. The date is October 22, 1999. This is tape 1, side 1.

I thought we might start first by going into some background information on your family, and how you and your family ended up here as far back as you can recall or you know in terms of your family roots.

FH: I guess about as early as I know, my dad after World War I moved to Lewiston to be near to some family that moved up here previously. And my mother was born in this area a little before the turn of the century. And then they got together right after World War I, married, and I was the first born. And [I] lived basically in the same house for the first eighteen, nineteen years of my life until I went into the service in 1944, 45.

CH: Now you were born when?

FH: 1925.

CH: 1925. And did you have any siblings?

FH: I had three sisters. One of my sisters died about fifteen years ago now.

CH: And you were the eldest?

FH: Right.

CH: And what kind of background did your father have? What kind of business was he in?

FH: My dad and his brother had a couple of service stations in Lewiston through the war years, World War II, and a little bit beyond before he retired.

CH: What was Lewiston like in the twenties and thirties as you were growing up here?

FH: It was smaller, more closely knit community that it is now naturally when you only had five thousand people or little more in the area. Why you knew quite a few of them. And the Orchards where I now live was not developed at all at that particular time. This addition now is quite new, but it now has more than fifty percent of the population.

CH: What was the mainstay of Lewiston during that period of time, the twenties and thirties?

FH: Mostly in the thirties the lumber mills built here by one of the relatives of the Weyerhaeuser family, and then in turn it expanded after World War II into a pulp mill, pulp and paper mill, and which is mainly the mainstay of the community now. That and the agriculture in the surrounding areas. The surrounding area has a dry land farming, and some of the best dry land farming in the world.

CH: Now the dry land farming, when did that primarily develop? When did that start becoming a dry land farming area, and how did that expand?

FH: I think that really started back in the eighteen hundreds, because the grass was so great here, and the farmers wanted the newcomers – they wanted the land from the Indians, and homesteaded, and took over that land where the Indians were not placed on reservations.

CH: What Indian group was here? Was it Nez Perce?

FH: Nez Perce. Right.

CH: Did the farming – what kind of dry land farming was it? What were the products that came from that?

FH: Mostly wheat, barley. The later years why they went into peas, and – but they don’t have to, and they don’t need to irrigate. It’s non-irrigated. It’s rolling prairie land, and very deep and good soil.

CH: Where did the wheat and barley go from here? Were there mills here, or was it shipped off?

FH: A few mills, but not very many. Most of it was shipped out of here. Most originally was shipped by rail, and now it’s being shipped mostly by barge. It’s the – since the last dam went in about 1975. Lower Granite was completed I think in 1975, at which time then a lot of the grain products were brought in, not only from the surrounding farms, but also from Montana and the Dakotas, and then stored temporarily until it was barge loaded and barged out of here to the Portland and the ocean, in ocean going barges.

CH: And the dry land wheat farming and barley farming, how did that work? Did they use water in wells, or just the natural rain fall? Did they supplement their water from wells?

FH: No. No supplement. It was all from rain fall. That’s why it’s called dry land farming in contrast to using irrigation systems like they do in part of the desert areas like the southern Idaho where they irrigate for potatoes. This is all natural. And of course they are dependent on rain fall. But the rain fall is normally pretty adequate here and gives fifteen to twenty inches a year, and that’s good enough to give them pretty good crops. They get some of the best land in the world, and so that crops are producing a hundred bushels or so to the acre.

CH: What is the rail network like now or since seventy-five when the barges seem to take over more of the shipping?

FH: The barges, of course, have taken most of the grain hauling, and some of the incoming traffic is handled by barge. It’s taken over mostly from the rail lines, and a lot of the short rail lines have gone out as a result. They rip up the rails, and some of them that are in use are merely hauling now grain to Lewiston where it’s off-loaded and put from the rail cars onto the barges.

CH: Are there any main rail lines that come through here now?

FH: No. Never really was. This was an off branch, and it’s not a through line from the east to the west coast. But the major rail lines are still in existence up north in the Spokane area and south through Boise.

CH: Did the lumber, and then later on the pulp and paper mills, what kind of trees were they using mostly here?

FH: The lumber mills were mostly white pine, fir and larch. Now I think the major pulp and paper is anything, and anything that is left over is going to be ground up in chips and made into pulp which in turn is made into paper.

CH: How do you remember your first experiences down on the river and the water? I know that much of your life took place on the river. What are your earliest memories of that?

FH: Oh, I was kind of fascinated by the river. I used to swim there at the beaches before any of the dams were put in. And went up a time or two on the mail boat in the nineteen thirties, I guess, where you went in by tunneled hull or low draft prop boats, and the operator delivered mail to the ranches up along the Hells Canyon area, where he had a lodge which was a two-day trip. The mail boat trip was a two-day trip. And in years later I just started doing it just for pleasure.

CH: How many people were living – in your childhood back in the early days, how many people were living in Hells Canyon?

FH: I never counted them, of course.

CH: But what kind of density was it?

FH: A lot more than there is now.

FH: Really?

FH: Yes. There was people at little ranch houses, and back during the depression they were making money off of sheep ranching and even some gold, but not too much in that area, but eking out a living as best they could. The depression was – brought in not only the ranchers with their sheep and some cattle, but then the people that had to tend them. Then once a year when the shearing crews came through, why there was a lot of activity. Because not only they brought in the crews, but the mail boat then brought out the mail – I mean the wool that was sheared from the sheep.

CH: Were there any actual towns or villages or established communities in there?

FH: Not really. They were mostly ranches. The present population along the river is on the lower end which is upriver from Lewiston yet, but it’s within the first twenty-five or thirty miles of Lewiston. Now they are more – actually it’s increasing now. It’s on the increase, because there’s lots of kind of vacation homes along the river, whereas it used to be working ranches, and even there was some – several Basque families. And that’s where Senator Jordan and – former Senator Jordan and his wife lived, and she wrote the book, Home Below Hells Canyon.

CH: Early on, after the settlers came out here in 1859, there was an irrigation project that was started on the Columbia Basin, and then later on in 1877, there was the Dry Land Act to promote irrigation, and it flourished from there. How were people attracted to dry land wheat farming or dry land farming in general where there was such an abundance of water down in the river, on the Columbia, the Snake and its tributaries? Why were people still drawn to dry land wheat farming?

FH: It’s not – you don’t have to tend a bunch of irrigation pipes and channel water through. You just – your seed was planted and waited for the crops to grow. It didn’t have to be irrigated after that. So as long as you had water from natural rain water, why you got the crops were growing. And there cannot be any great amount of irrigation, too, because of the rolling hills. Irrigation is mostly in southern Idaho, and of course they’re dependent then entirely upon the water coming from the Snake River drainage and the lower part of the Snake River. And then the Columbia Basin area which is in Washington didn’t come into effect until some deep wells were drilled into the aquifer. And that would have been in the nineteen fifties, I guess, fifties and sixties before the Columbia Basin became very productive.

CH: What about fishing in this area? Do you know anything about what the Native American fishing was like when the settlers were first arriving here? Was there much going on in the way of steelhead or salmon or anything like that?

FH: I used to see that Indians fishing in the river by net and especially there at Celilo where they were catching – the few times that I went that far down river, why the Indians were fishing from their platforms, but that was back in the – oh, prior to World War II. And I don’t know that they had lots of nets along the river. I know that they fished up this way with spears and gaff hooks to catch their fish, and there was apparently lots of fish in the river. There was some commercial fishing along by the white people here, and they used nets then, drag nets, and caught salmon. I don’t remember steelhead being a big commercial fishery then, but…

CH: You said the white [word unintelligible] had commercial [word unintelligible].

FH: Yes. There was – let’s see, the Grasser family had a fishing camp just down about where the Clarkson golf course is now.

CH: So when was that going on?

FH: That would have been back in the – oh, I suppose the nineteen twenties would be a good time. Nineteen twenties, early thirties. During the depression there was a pretty good fishing industry here.

CH: Did you see any of the Native Americans spear fishing or anything like that? Did you ever witness that?

FH: No, I really didn’t, other than the net fishing at Celilo. That was about the only fishing I saw myself.

CH: And what caused the decline in the commercial fishing that started in the nineteen twenties?

FH: You know I don’t know whether the dams down river, probably did not. Of course they were catching a lot more fish out of the ocean then. And I think there were quite a few fish here except after they put in a small dam for the power dam and a place for the mill pond at Lewiston, and that would have been in the twenties. That stopped the salmon runs, so I think that stopped the salmon at least going into the Clearwater drainage.

CH: Was there ever much flooding that occurred in this area?

FH: Yes, there was, a little bit. They did do some diking around Lewiston after one of the floods and in the early part of this century. That kept the downtown from being floods. I think there were a few floods before that while Lewiston had board sidewalks. I’ve seen some pictures. I never witnessed a flood.

CH: Were the – what, was the flooding happening mostly on the Snake as opposed to, say, the Clearwater?

FH: Mostly on the Clearwater.

CH: Mostly on the Clearwater.

FH: I believe so. I’m just – I remember – certainly the water was a lot higher then during the spring runoff then than it is now because of the controls that they have upstream. I think both of them to a certain extent.

CH: Does the Clearwater converge with the Snake in the middle of Lewiston?

FH: It’s at the border of Washington and Idaho.

CH: What was the depression like here?

FH: I don’t know. I was just going through school, so as far as we were concerned, why we were pretty fortunate. I think there was a lot of drifters coming through and that sort of thing. But my dad had a pretty good business, so we didn’t suffer any certainly.

CH: When did the – in this area when did the first dams go in? Were there dams on any of the tributaries before they started building the main dams on the middle Snake, upper Snake?

FH: There was a small dam on the Clearwater River at Lewiston that was put in by the Clearwater Timber Company, or which is now Potlatch, and it was both for power as well as the annual log drive, and that retained the logs that supplied the mill in back of that dam. They’re diverted into a log pond. And that was put in some time in about the nineteen twenties. It remained there. That’s what killed the salmon run. And that remained there until some time in about the nineteen fifties. It became ineffective, and the area was silted in in back of the dam. But that is gone now. The dams in – there are no dams on the Salmon River. The dams on the middle Snake, starting from Brownlee were put in – well, you’d have to look up the records on that, but I think that in about nineteen fifties and sixties the dams of the Brownlee, Oxbow and Hells Canyon were put in. And the High Mountain Sheep was licensed in 1963 which would have backed the water back up to the tail race of Hells Canyon Dam.

CH: The Chief Joseph Dam was in 1955. Where was that located from here?

FH: Oh, that’s on the Columbia.

CH: That’s over on the Columbia.

FH: I’m not familiar with that one.

CH: You had said that you were in World War II, and when you got out of World War II, what did you come back here – what did you have an idea of doing when you came back?

FH: I was looking for jobs, and I didn’t find any particularly that I wanted to follow, so I went to school in both the local college, we called it the Normal School, and then finally ended up in Washington State College. [I] often computed back and forth between Lewiston and Pullman, Washington.

CH: And what did you study there?

FH: Business administration, foreign trade.

CH: And when you got out of school, then what did you do?

FH: Oh, went to work for Firestone for a couple of year until – I was in their management training program for young college students and decided that – it’s kind of a long story, but my boy got sick, and then I found a job that would keep us closer to home. So I went to work selling insurance for the Prudential Insurance Company.

CH: And during all this time were you involved in any activities on the river in terms…

FH: Not really.

CH: Recreationally, or…

FH: No, just for my own pleasure. I think I went up a few times, and it wasn’t until later in 1958 or 1959 before I started looking at the idea, and helped a guy out. I had a little bit of surplus money, and I was helping a guy finance a business and running vacationers into Hells Canyon to a place called Willow Creek which is about ninety miles up river from Lewiston into Hells Canyon.

CH: And the trips that you went up there at that time, were you actually working with this company, working with this group, or…?

FH: No. I just loaned this guy some money, and it wasn’t more than six months later I had to take it over because he left. And then I hired a pilot to run the trips for me because I didn’t know the river. And I worked with him for a year or so, and finally when he left, why then I took over myself.

CH: And what kind of business was it? How would you describe that business?

FH: It’s a business in which you encourage tourists to board a jet boat, and you take them upriver – it’s south in this case, south is up in the Snake River that borders Idaho on one side and Oregon on the other – and into Hells Canyon which is deeper than the Grand Canyon. And then I – originally I had a tent camp there where we stayed over night, fed them, and we might swim or float rapids or so, and come back the following day. Or sometimes we would stay over for three days.

CH: What kind of people were taking these trips?

FH: All kinds. My guest book is – people in it from all over the world.

CH: And how were they hearing about it?

FH: I ran some ads in Sunset Magazine, and I ran ads in AAA Magazine, and used some direct mail, and sent brochures out to chamber offices and AAA offices. And tried to get kind of national publicity that I could. I’ve been – I think in 1970 I had stories in more than twenty major magazines like Sunset, the Audubon Society Magazine, and Family Circle. And you name it, why – if I could get a writer to come in, then I would give the writer a free trip if he would put a story in some kind of magazine. And that helped a lot. Free publicity and better publicity than you would get out of an ad.

CH: So the articles that were being published were about people going up into Hells Canyon and what their experiences were?

FH: No, they were mostly on the type of trip it was and what – it was a travel – travel stories, not any specific person or so. After a person came back, I had some from stories that I used to take the picture of the people who went up with me and then send that along with a form letter to their home town newspaper just for the added publicity. And sometimes those were printed and sometimes they weren’t, but at least those when they were printed, why I got the publicity out of it. And that’s what I was looking for.

CH: And from what you were saying, I imagine it was about 1960?

FH: Yes, I think fifty-eight. I was kind of looking back on some of my guest books, and I think fifty-eight was some of the earliest ones.

CH: And what was the Hells Canyon area like at that time and how was it different from what it was later?

FH: It hasn’t changed an awful lot, other than just a lot more people that are going up there. But the terrain hasn’t changed. There was a little more grazing by sheep people up there and cattle people but – and the beaches were a little bigger and better, but the water fluctuated quite a lot back in those days. After the spring run-off why there would be these beautiful white beaches which there aren’t any now, or very few.

CH: And why is that?

FH: Because all the silt and sand is contained in the back of Brownley, Oxbow and Hells Canyon Dam. And the water runs clearer below those dams because silt and sand has settled out.

CH: In the early years of your business were you involved in any of the issues over the Snake River at that time?

FH: There weren’t very many issues other than who was going to build the dams in Hells Canyon, whether it be private power, public power or a combination. That was the issue then, not on whether it was to be built or not.

CH: What kind of debate was going on between public and private power?

FH: Private power ended up with the combine of private power companies. Washington Water Power, Montana Power and Light, Portland Gas and Electric got together in a company called Pacific Northwest Power. And then they were – after hearings they became the licensee of High Mountain Sheep Dam. In 1963 then they were going to build and started to build High Mountain Sheep Dam. First they had to core drill it. [phone interruption]

CH: So in 1958 the Brownlee Dam was built. And what was the story behind that and what discussion was there on whether it should go in or not?

FH: I don’t remember because I wasn’t involved in the Brownlee or any of the three dams above. They were all licensed, and the Idaho Power built them. Morrison-Knudson built them for Idaho Power, all three of the dams. And I don’t remember the – only one of them came on line I think after I got involved in the excursion business and that was Hells Canyon Dam. That altered our flow quite a bit, so we found that at night time why we’d have a low flow and during the day, of course, there would be a high flow. Of course, that changed the further you got down river. But I was only about fifteen miles from Hells Canyon Dam, so we had to secure our boats or

[End of Tape 1, Side 1]

Tape 1, Side 2
22 October 1999

CH: The dams that went in on the upper part of the Snake didn’t have any fish ladders, did they?

FH: No, I don’t believe so. I know that they killed an awful lot of fish when they were building that dam, and that was a real sad situation because that completely killed the run up in the – anything above those dams and on the Snake and other tributaries in the southern part of Idaho.

CH: How much of that represent as far as the fish run down in this area? Do you have any idea?

FH: I don’t know. That might be a biologist question, and I…

CH: There was also a Nez Perce project, too, wasn’t there?

CH: There was a High Mountain Sheep project proposed dam. There was a Pleasant Valley site. There was a low – let’s see, one of the low dams up there. I think it was the Low Mountain Sheep, and I’m not positive, but there is also Appaloosa project. And then there was the Nez Perce Dam which blocked both the Snake and the Salmon. And that’s why they chose – why the public power eventually joined with private power in an attempt to build High Mountain Sheep, because of the adverse publicity they got in proposing the Nez Perce Dam. So after the license was issued to private power, Pacific Northwest Power, and there was controversy about that, then public power joined with private power in order to attempt to build High Mountain Sheep. But they had originally attempted to get a license to build Nez Perce blocking both the Snake and the Salmon.

CH: And why was the Nez Perce not approved?

FH: It was only a few miles from High Mountain Sheep, and it would have been an alternate to High Mountain Sheep Dam.

CH: Was there much resistance to the Nez Perce project?

FH: The Fish and Game, and the Wilderness groups and Society, and the Wildlife Federation approved High Mountain Sheep over and above the Nez Perce because it was an alternate of two evils. So they decided they would rather go on record of approving that and disapproving Nez Perce Dam.

CH: And this would have been when, what time?

FH: That would have been in the nineteen sixties, early sixties. The power company was taking hundreds, thousands of people up in that area by boat and showing them the great site that they had, and what they were planning to do, and what great plans they had. And they just overwhelmed the public at that time.

CH: And when were these other projects that you mentioned proposed, for instance, the Appaloosa?

FH: I don’t know. I don’t remember. That was after the High Mountain Sheep was licensed, but it was after the license was in the process of review by the Federal Power Commission. And subsequently, it was asked to be reviewed by the Supreme Court, the United States Supreme Court.

CH: The Appaloosa or the High Mountain Sheep?

FH: No. The High Mountain Sheep.

CH: The High Mountain Sheep. Okay. And the other one that you mentioned was the Pleasant Valley site. What was that?

FH: Oh, that was a former site. It was probably about thirty miles above the High Mountain Sheep site, and that was core drilled back probably in the late fifties. That would have been a private power project if that would have been put together. It was never licenced. It was just checked out as far as a site.

CH: And do you know why it didn’t go through?

FH: The granting of High Mountain Sheep to Pacific Northwest Power precluded that because it was no longer an issue because that would have flooded out that site as well as Appaloosa, as well as the Low Mountain Sheep site.

CH: What comprise Northwest Power? That was a combine…

FH: Combine of private power companies.

CH: Just private or private and public?

FH: No, just private.

CH: Okay. And during the same time – I’m thinking of the sixties and actually the early seventies, then the lower Snake River dams went in as well, do you know what effect that had on this area here?

FH: The which?

CH: The lower, the Ice Harbor, and after that the Lower Monument, and Little Goose…

FH: Oh, the four dams that brought slack water to Lewiston.

CH: Yes.

FH: That impacted Lewiston quite a bit because it allowed barge transportation and ocean-going barges to come up for picking up grain or delivering oil, and that sort of thing – petroleum products to this Inland Empire, and made Lewiston a seaport basically. And they still advertise it as a seaport.

CH: Is it a functional seaport? Is it doing well?

FH: Sure. It has – they get barges in every day or so, either empty to pick up grain or loaded with fuel products, petroleum products, or any other commodities. They haul lots of container units, both in and out. And then this becomes a trucking center because they truck those products either in or out of here from Montana. Grain comes from Montana, grain comes from North and South Dakota and Wyoming and into Lewiston, and is barged on out of here to the Pacific Coast.

CH: Did the building of the four lower Snake River dams have any effect on recreational use of the Snake River?

FH: It’s mostly so far- it’s pretty well cut out the steelhead and salmon runs. They are dwindling pretty fast, I guess. They do have good years and then a bad year, but they did provide some fish ladders at least in the dams so that the fish can get as far as Lewiston. They can’t get very much further other than on the Salmon River. But the four federal dams, the dams below Lewiston and all the way to the ocean are all federal dams.

CH: The first dam project that you were involved in in terms of the issues around it was which one? High Mountain Sheep?

FH: High Mountain Sheep. That was about the only one I was involved in.

CH: So, what is the chronology on High Mountain Sheep? How did that issue start, and who was involved?

FH: It was brought before the Federal Power Commission prior to 1963, and then through the combine of the four companies, Federal Power Commission licensed Pacific Northwest to build High Mountain Sheep. And immediately after that, the public power protested, as well as some environmental groups including the Sierra Club, and the Wilderness Society, and other groups, protested the licensee which it ended up an issue of the Supreme Court. And through Justice Douglas who handed down the decision, he wrote that they should look at the issue again, that instead of building a dam, maybe they had better look at not building a dam. And so that’s where it lay again, the Federal Power Commission heard it again at which time the Sierra Club, and so forth, had their act in gear, and the license was then rescinded. In the meantime the environmental groups began pressuring the Congress, first for a moratorium which was politically expedient, and then subsequently through Senator Packwood for the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area bill which was subsequently passed in 1975 and signed into law by then President Ford.

CH: On the High Mountain Sheep Dam, when did you first get involved in that, at what point in that?

FH: In 1963. As soon as the license was granted, then I went to everybody I could to ask them help me get this license rescinded. And everybody in this area anyway kind of laughed at me because I had a particular agenda. And my thoughts were that they were putting that dam in there to put me out of business because it was right in the middle of my run into Hells Canyon. And so I had a very – I had a reason to protest in being put out of business by building a dam. I’d asked them for work, and they had turned me down, so I decided – I wrote them a letter and told them that from this day forward, they weren’t going to build this High Mountain Sheep Dam. So then I went to work and brought in all different kinds of environmental groups until I think it was 1969, when I first got Arthur Godfrey to come up in 1970. Why he in turn got Walter Hickel and Burl Ives to come up, and we got quite a lot of excellent national publicity out of that. Most of them, then, of those people that went upriver in 1970 subsequently testified in Congress. And through their efforts the bill, the Hells Canyon NRA (Natioanl Recreation Area) bill was signed into law.

CH: When you were first getting involved actually before the license was granted for the dam, what had you heard about the project for the High Mountain Sheep Dam? Was there much discussion in this area about it?

FH: It was supposedly a good thing for the area because of the power it produced and the workers that it would bring in, and for the employees that would be there. They even tried to – indicated that it would be good for recreation as far as boating on this great inland lake above the High Mountain Sheep Dam, sail boating and that sort of thing. The power company was trying to con us into the idea that they would lift our boats up and over the dam by big lifts, would have elevators. And they just didn’t prepare for it. And the people over in Oregon were going to be the headquarters for the construction material and to get the material and so forth into the construction area. There was a lot of activity – there was to be a lot of activity, and most of the people were kind of – especially the power companies, of course, were going to get cheaper power. And nobody wanted to fight it then.

CH: And when they were first proposing it, people within your own group, did they realize there was a problem at that point? Or did people kind of go along with the idea?

FH: I didn’t have a group.

CH: Other people who were doing recreational activities on the…

FH: Oh, no. They were in support of it, because the mail boat operator – I mean he was getting business out of it. It represented business to him and probably a big settlement on when they built the dam because of condemnation. Because it would cut his business for the rest of his life, why he probably got some kind of a settlement. And the other groups, nobody is really organized to do anything. They were mostly Wildlife Federation because that was an alternate. There was not the best, but then it was better than Nez Perce Dam. It was better than blocking both the Snake and the Salmon. So we’ll endorse that as did the Fish and Game Department. We’ll endorse that over Nez Perce Dam. And the power companies really had them snowed.

CH: Did people feel that it was futile to have no dams built?

FH: Yes.

CH: When they were proposing the High Mountain Sheep dam in their first proposal, did they suggest that they might have fish ladders?

FH: You know, they tried to indicate that there would be, and they had a ladder that went miles and miles and miles up the Imnaha River. And I’ll be damned now if I can – I think I recall a drawing which was something like ten or fifteen miles that it would take to get the fish up to their – back into the pool area. But I don’t recall now, or I just have it vividly in my mind what they were trying to con us into.

CH: What about fish coming down the river? Was there any idea…

FH: No, there was no provision for that whatsoever. They would have been ground up in the turbines.

CH: And it would be too high to have a spill…

FH: Oh, yes, you couldn’t spill. They’re having a hard enough time on the hundred foot dam let alone a six hundred and eighty foot dam.

CH: So, were you actively opposed to the licensing of the dam before you actually got involved in this?

FH: No, I didn’t support it, but I thought maybe I’d get a good job out of transporting material and equipment up there. I went up to Pacific Northwest Power and asked them about it. I even asked them, and I said – they said they would promise to give me some work. And I said I needed a contract on it, so I can go to the bank and get the bank to lend me the money to build a boat. And I’ll haul all your men and material up there. And I no more get back to Lewiston, and a few days later and I find out they had already started building a boat for my competitor. And I got mad and sent them a snotty letter and said from this day forward you’re not going to build High Mountain Sheep Dam. I’m going to do everything I can to keep you from it. I’m sure they threw the letter in the waste paper basket. They didn’t have shredders in those days.

CH: So you were going to transport people and materials then up the river for the construction of the dam?

FH: Yes. I was proposing to do that.

CH: And what kind of a boat would you need to be able to do that?

FH: Oh, I had to have one that would carry like thirty, forty passengers or so, or material. I never got it built.

CH: And the person that they were making arrangements with to actually do that, did that person get the job? Did they actually…

FH: Yes.

CH: Yes. And that was a fairly lucrative arrangement for that person?

FH: I don’t know. They spent sixteen million dollars in attempting to – in the preliminary of getting High Mountain Sheep core drilled and that which they did up there prior to there being – the license being rescinded.

CH: And so you weren’t really opposed to the dam, then, for any environmental reasons for the…

FH: No. Not until I found out what it would do. And then I got together with a bunch of people that kind of told me, like Brock Evans, and Jerry Jayne and some of the rest of them that were opposed to it because of the environmental impact. And then I got to liking it, and I decided I didn’t want to see it changed. So then I started writing to people and getting Congress people to listen, and inviting in like the Arthur Godfrey and Burl Ives and Wally Hickel group.

CH: So the license was granted in 1963, and you began to find out about the effects of this then, when? At what point?

FH: It was just shortly after that, because it was in sixty-three or early sixty-four that I went to see a group over in Seattle called the Northwest Group or Pacific Northwest Group of the Sierra Club. And I didn’t know what the Sierra Club was. But there was a young attorney there, Brock Evans. And I got together with Brock Evans, and I suggested that maybe what he should do – if there is anything they could do, I would put together a trip up the river, and he’d come over and go up – if he could invite some people, it would help make a difference. And so I invited a fellow from the Wilderness Society, Cliff Merritt, I think his name was, who’s the director out of Denver, and a couple of fellows, Jerry Jayne and Boyd Norton and Jim Campbell out of the Alpine Club in southern Idaho. And the group of us then – well, and they also invited a reporter for the New York Times, and then we put together while they were there the beginning of the Hells Canyon Preservation Council. I turned over my list of names of people who had been upriver with me. They started firing letters to them and the New York Times put a headline in the paper in New York that questioned whether High Mountain Sheep dam should ever be built with all of the upcoming nuclear power that probably would be generated by these nuclear generators.

CH: And that happened when?

FH: That was in sixty-four. 1964 I believe.

CH: And the New York Times reporter or journalist that came out here, you took that person up the river?

FH: Yes. I don’t remember his name now. It’s in one of my books, but I don’t remember.

CH: And that was with several people as well. Did that include Brock Evans and…?

FH: Yes. And Cliff Merritt and the guys from southern Idaho.

CH: Boyd Norton, Jim Campbell?

FH: Right.

CH: And so this trip was – exactly when was it? Do you remember the date on that?

FH: No, I don’t. I could dig it up.

CH: It was sixty-three then, or sixty-four?

FH: Sixty-three or sixty-four.

CH: Yes. Have they been involved at all in any other activities involving the Hells Canyon litigation?

FH: No, I don’t think too much. I’m looking at my guest book now, and I was trying to determine – it was June of sixty-three, August of sixty-three, and – well, I have lots of different names in my guest book in sixty-three and sixty-four, and it looks like – I took the governor of Idaho up in sixty-four and the director of Fish and Game, and showed them the Canyon and what it was all about.

CH: Was that Don Samuelson that was governor at that time?

FH: No, it was Robert Smiley.

CH: Okay. So these were separate trips, then? These were different trips…

FH: Yes. This was listing out of my guest book from – that went from sixty-two to about the time I was burned out.

CH: So when you first took the people from – on the sixty-three, sixty-four trip from the Sierra Club, Wilderness Society and the others, did they have in mind simply stopping the construction of the dam or turning the Hells Canyon into some kind of a park?

FH: Oh, they were going to try and stop it.

CH: Just try to stop it. That was their ultimate goal was to stop the building of the dam?

FH: I believe so.

CH: And what were their reasons? What reasons did they give for wanting to stop the dam?

FH: I don’t remember, other than just the damage to the environment and killing the fish habitat or so forth.

CH: If the High Mountain Sheep Dam had been built, would that have been above or below the Salmon River?

FH: Above the mouth of the Salmon River.

CH: Above the mouth of the Salmon River. It would have been the Nez Perce that would have blocked both.

FH: Correct.

CH: And so what would the – in terms of salmon habitat and other things, what would the High Mountain Sheep Dam have done in terms of harm to the river and the habitat above that point?

FH: It would have cut off any fish runs up into the Imnaha or up into the Hells Canyon part of the Snake River completely.

CH: That is how long a distance, then, approximately between that – the Brownlee Dam, was that the next one above it? Or was that the Hells Canyon Dam?

FH: No, Hells Canyon Dam. The first one above it.

CH: Hells Canyon Dam. And the distance between the Hells Canyon?

FH: The distance between the Hells Canyon and – you know, I’m just not sure on those. They’re probably about fifteen miles apart, fifteen or twenty miles apart. The first one above south of Lewiston, and above and south of Lewiston is Hells Canyon. And the next one is Oxbow, and the biggest containment is Brownlee. Brownlee is an earth filled dam. The other two are concrete dams.

CH: So when you took them up the river, and at that point you had your lodge up there, is that right?

FH: That’s right.

CH: Now what was the history behind the lodge? Who built it, and what was the – what did it comprise of?

FH: Oh, it was just built as a tent camp really. And it was built by a couple of guys, Jack Shaunessey and – you know, I can’t remember who else was involved in that. There were two or three people involved in putting together an excursion business, and they didn’t really get it off its feet. There wasn’t any jet boats, and the water dropped so low in the summer time they couldn’t get their prop boats up there, so they gave up on it. And I ended up taking over on it. And then it was several years later before – this wasn’t until about 1970 that I built it up very much. I was kind of keeping it as a part-time business back prior to 1970. And then I got involved in the Hells Canyon issue, [and] decided it would be best to keep that area like it was and put a lot of effort and money into doing that.

CH: You had mentioned earlier off-tape that there was a sort of bunkhouse for guests, and then there was the main structure and…

FH: I had nine separate buildings. The main lodge building had the accommodations for cooking and also the dining area, and then there was a little fireplace at one end. And that you could use year-around. And then there were two bunkhouses, each were kind of dormitory units which house sixteen people each. And in each one of those, I kept the men and women separate. I could accommodate about thirty people overnight at Willow Creek Lodge.

[End of Tape 1, Side 2]

Tape 2, Side 1
22 October 1999

CH: …with Floyd Harvey at his home in Lewiston, Idaho. The interviewer for the Oregon Historical Society is Clark Hanson. The date is 10-22-99, and this is tape two, side one. So the first trip that you took these environmentalists up, what was their response or reaction? Had they been up into Hells Canyon before?

FH: No. No, they really hadn’t, and they were kind of enthralled with the white water and the remoteness I guess you might say, the difference in the country up there from what they had seen in other parts of the country. And so they were all for preserving it like it was, and that fit my agenda just perfectly, so we went from there.

CH: When they came back and then returned to their respective organizations, what did they first do? Was that when the Preservation Council was begun?

FH: Oh, it was actually begun up there on that trip. They determined to call that the Hells Canyon Preservation Council, HCPC. And I gave them the list of all the people that had been upriver with me and their addresses, and they wrote to all of them and asked them to donate money to the Hells Canyon Preservation Council in order to preserve the Canyon. And from that nucleus is the way we got started.

CH: And after having built that base of support, what were their first actions to preserve the Canyon?

FH: Probably better talk to Brock Evans about that, but mostly it was to pressure Congress to get the area preserved and the bill through Congress, and that’s when both Senator Church and Senator Jordan started the moratorium bill through Congress. And I can’t tell you when that was. I don’t remember.

CH: I’d heard that Senator Church – I think it was Senator Church – his family had land down there?

FH: No. No, Senator Jordan. They had had land there, and they sold about the end of the depression. He had a sheep ranch there. Senator Jordan did. His wife, Grace Jordan wrote several books about their stay there. She was a former school teacher, and then she became a rancher’s wife during the depression.

CH: So were both Jordan and Church on board with the preserving of the Hells Canyon from the very beginning?

FH: No. No, they both agreed that they shouldn’t do anything for awhile until they did some more studies. But Senator Jordan would have liked to have had the dam built, and Senator Church felt that it was probably sometime in the future that if they could keep the dam out of there, then they could do something with it. So he wanted to just – postponed it actually – postpone any action on it.

CH: What was the extent of, if you know, the financial backing that Idaho Power had behind the various political people in the state?

FH: I don’t know. I know they put approximately sixteen million dollars into development, but they brought a lot of political pressure on to – they brought politicians in – they brought anybody that would go with them, the Fish and Game Department, anybody that would listen to them and their propaganda on what a great site this would be for a big dam. A big high dam, a big block of concrete. And so they did. They had a boat running out of here – it wasn’t me, naturally – but they had a boat running out of Lewiston and fifty miles up the river once or twice a week with as many people on board as they could get. Chamber people, and it was a free trip. And they even got Art Linkletter to come up and come back and say, ��What a beautiful place to build a dam.�� But then I had Arthur Godfrey and Burl Ives and Walter Hickel coming back and saying, ��Don’t build any dams.�� Guess who won?

CH: When the Preservation Council, and you were working with them I presume at least to some extent?

FH: Yes. I furnished them with all their names and money as I could.

CH: Who did they first go to as far as political figures to try to get support for this?

FH: I think just the local senators, and they wouldn’t really go along with them. I forget who the other one was in Oregon then. I think it was Hatfield, and Jordan and Church on this side. McClure was the Congressman. And none of them would sponsor a bill. And it was only Senator Packwood that would sponsor the bill which eventually became the bill that was passed by Congress.

CH: So, did Jordan and Church actively opposed the preservation?

FH: Oh, they didn’t oppose it. Jordan might have, but by the time the bill went through he was out of office. And they supported the moratorium really is where they shown on that, was supporting the moratorium.

CH: And the effort for the moratorium began when approximately? Was it before Packwood got involved?

FH: Yes. Packwood actually introduced the bill about the time that – you might have better figures on dates on that than I do. Some of those dates are in that book by Ashworth, Hells Canyon, the Deepest Gorge on Earth. If you get a hold of that one, it will give you a lot better dates than I can remember off the top of my head.

CH: But where was the time line between the effort on the moratorium and Justice Douglas’s refusal or review?

FH: Review. I don’t know again. I don’t know, that would be – I’m sure that Ashworth’s book would have those, or actually even Tim Palmer’s book might have that.

CH: So aside from providing the names of people that were different to the environmental organizations that were fighting the dam, were you involved in any other activities?

FH: Not very much. I didn’t get involved in the Grand Canyon issue or some of the local issues. I had my own particular agenda. And then after – in 1974 before the bill was passed actually, I had been supporting the pressure on Congress to get the bill passed by writing letters to all the people who had been upriver with me and furnishing information to the Hells Canyon Preservation Council. But in seventy-four why then my lodge was burned down, and that not only put me out of commission financially but I was really demoralized by that time. And I kind of went out of it for quite a number of years.

CH: Your references to the people who – the public figures that you took up there, Arthur Godfrey and Wally Hickel and Burl Ives, when did you first do that, and how were they contacted? Or how did they contact you?

FH: Every year I used to have a camp opening trip when I first began, and I would invite any person that I could get on a mailing list. I had a mailing list that included all the senators and then politicians and movie actors and Prince Philip and Governor Reagan, and I don’t know who all. But I had a hundred and fifty people that I sent out this invitation to every year. And I think that once I got a call back from Reagan’s office, and he sent somebody up. And then Governor Smiley came up one time, and there were a few others that came up. I never got any real – well, I did put a trip together for a – a hunting trip with Phil Harris, but that was really done by somebody else. And then in 1969 why I got called one morning from Arthur Godfrey, and Arthur Godfrey said, ��I can’t make your camp opening trip. You got a trip you can take me on and show me up the river there?�� So I said, ��Sure, when would you like to come?�� He said, ��I don’t have anything going fourth of July. How about the fourth of July?�� So on the fourth of July, 1969, why I took Arthur Godfrey just by himself upriver. And while we were up there, we had some other guests. One of my other pilots brought some other guests, but we were just staying by ourselves for a couple of nights up there. He and I threw a couple of mattresses down on beach and spent the night on the beach, just talking and looking at the stars. But I asked him then, I said, what could he do to try and keep this area free. He said, ��I’d get a whole bunch of people in here.�� And I said, ��Would you try and get the Secretary of Interior in?�� And I thought the Forest Service was under the Secretary of Interior’s office. I subsequently found out that it wasn’t. But anyway, he said, ��Sure.�� And so he wrote to Secretary Wally Hickel. And prior to delivering the letter to Hickel, why he released the letter to the press. And Hickel was so damn mad because even before he got the letter, he got pressure. And he said – when I talked to him about it later, he said he was just pressured into it. He resented it, but he couldn’t do anything about it. Then when he came out, why he kind of – I had a horseback trip for him, and I had a helicopter ride for him, and I had a float plane pick him up and take him up to different places and land on this mud flats in back of Brownlee Dam. And when he got back to town he said, ��Whatever I can do, I will do.�� And so he went back to Congress and he testified before Congress saying that they shouldn’t build the dam. And then along with all the rest of them that had been up there, and that was the Craigheads brothers and Morrie Hornocker and Doctor Dougherty and a few people like that, and the Director of Fish and Game, and -I wouldn’t let the Governor of Idaho go along, because he was in support of High Mountain Sheep dam – that was Don Samuelson you were talking about later. He wanted to go, and I wouldn’t let him go…

CH: Because he supported the dam?

FH: Because he wanted – yes, he was in support of ��progress��and that was quote and unquote. And so I told his office we were all filled up. So he didn’t come, and I couldn’t get – I think McCall, Tom McCall might have been the governor in Oregon, but I’m not just sure. And I forgot who it was over in Washington. I did invite them, because I think they were kind of on line, or kind of wavering in support. So anyway, with that kind of support why then you got a change in Congress. And that’s what a person has to do if they want to change Congress. You have to get support of general public which is all the letters I sent out, and then you’ve got to get support with politicians that are going to influence the – and you can’t offset the lobbyists that – all the power company lobbyists with money because I had very little money to do anything like that. So I used the other alternate method instead, pressure.

CH: The senators from Washington, Magnusen and Jackson, where were they?

FH: You know, I think Magnusen was in support of the dam. I think Jackson was a – but I don’t remember. I went in to talk to him back in Washington, but they weren’t on the committee. And I wasn’t – they were not on the Senate Interior Committee. And even to this day I don’t know how they voted, or whether they were even in office when – let’s see, I don’t remember.

CH: When did you go to Washington?

FH: In 1970, 1970 I was in Washington on the – there was a Senate Interior Committee meeting, and I couldn’t very well afford to go, but Godfrey sent some money to the Sierra Foundation so they gave me a chance to go back. At the same time why I went back and appeared on his radio program, and also another program called ��To Tell the Truth.��

CH: Now the trip you made to Washington in 1970, was that for – that was for the Interior Committee, Senate Interior Committee that was – at that point were they reviewing the bill for making Hells Canyon a park or the dam issue?

FH: No, what it was – it was a hearing on the Moratorium Bill. And Senator Church called I and the rest of the guys who were going to walk into his office ahead of time, and he wanted support of the Hells Canyon Moratorium Bill which was in committee and in the process of going before the full Congress. And so I, along with Brock Evans and the people from the Wilderness Society, got together then after hours, and we changed our testimony to support Senator Packwood’s bill to support the preservation of Hells Canyon, bypassing the Moratorium Bill. And Senator Packwood also, who sat next to me while we were waiting, he testified with us in support of his own bill and the Moratorium Bill was just a moot question. So we were prepared to answer questions through both the Wilderness Society and the Sierra Club as to why we changed our position. But by then it became – the moratorium was of course a moot question as to whether it should be preserved – if it were going to be set aside, for six years or five years or whatever it was, why we wanted it preserved for perpetuality.

CH: Was Senator Church unaware that you had made this switch during the night then?

FH: I think he must have been aware of it, because I think that’s why he called us in. And he wanted the support for his Moratorium Bill because it was politically expedient. And I guess I can understand his position, but…

CH: Politically expedient in what way?

FH: Because it had a better chance of getting through than the preservation bill. And of course he didn’t realize I don’t think, anybody realize what pressure that we had started to apply on people writing to their congressmen in support of, and it was an overwhelming support when it finally passed.

CH: When did the preservation bill first make its appearance on Capitol Hill?

FH: You know, I’m not just sure. I think it was about that same time. I know Brock was working on it while we were there, and Packwood, of course. It was the Packwood Bill.

CH: Did the power companies come out behind any one of those? I know they wouldn’t have against the preservation, but what about…

FH: [laughs] They wouldn’t come out for the preservation.

CH: But what about the moratorium? Were they backing the moratorium just as a way of keeping it from being preserved?

FH: You know, I think they were. I think they were supportive of Church’s and Jordan’s bill because then it would have taken them years anyway by the time they reheard the re-licensing, because they were in such hot water over that by then. Because not only public power joined with them, but the Department of – let’s see, I think Department of Reclamation under…

CH: Bureau of Reclamation?

FH: Bureau of Reclamation I think had come out and joined with them to build High Mountain Sheep. And it was such a hodgepodge by that time, I think everybody just gave up hopefully. Of course I think then it was an easier road to pass. But by then, see , I was kind of out of it anyway, I was out of it. By the time that I had my hands full, not only did I have a a lot of people going up the river, but by the time I was burned out, I was a mess anyway.

CH: Was there a major sponsor or proponent of the dam on Capitol Hill? Was there somebody that was always behind it?

FH: On Capitol Hill?

CH: You were afraid of Jordan and Church as being sort of behind the scenes on this issue, was there anybody who was really in favor of it? In favor of the dam on Capitol Hill?

FH: You know, I don’t know. I’m sure that you could find out from Brock Evans. Brock was out here not too long ago.

CH: So did Church show any reaction to your support of Packwood’s bill?

FH: Oh, I don’t think so. Certainly not before the cameras. You know, it was all – there was I don’t know how many senators sat on that committee. I think probably eight or ten sat on that committee. And I was able to show a film to the committee over the objection of the power companies. I had a film that was just being completed, and the guy sent it to me from – and got it there in time that we showed it. Most of the senators by the end of the film – it’s about a thirty minute film, and most of the senators had a call to go to Congress toward the end of it, so I think they didn’t get to see the last of it. But the last of it was the climax to the film, and it shows that New York Times article and how it came out in support of keeping the dam out of Hells Canyon.

CH: Was Packwood on the Senate Interior Committee?

FH: No, he wasn’t. I don’t know what committee he was on then. He was just a young – that was his first session, and…

CH: Did he testify before the committee?

FH: Yes.

CH: And what was his testimony like?

FH: In support of his bill.

CH: Yes, sure. But I mean do you recall anything about…

FH: I don’t. I was in so much awe being back there amongst the place that I don’t remember of lot of this stuff. I have read his testimony, and I guess after that, but I don’t remember. I think it’s one of those books we left out there at Myrtle.

CH: So what was the conclusion of that testimony before the Senate Interior Committee? What happened after that? Did they take a vote?

FH: No. No. They all got up and left, and the fact is we were just about through with the movie when they vanished, and then we didn’t have any more contacts. We did go to Congressman McClure’s office, a few of us did. We kind of went as group and visited McClure. And I think Simms was back there then. And of course we’re pretty predominantly a Republican state, so it was through the two Republicans I believe in at that time.

CH: And where did they fall on the issue?

FH: Simms was much in support of – originally McClure was, too, but I think we got him changed.

CH: Originally in support of the dam?

FH: Of the dam, yes.

CH: And then they came around to…

FH: Yes, as the wind kind of changed, why then – you know, you’ve got to support your constituents, and you’re going to get chastised at election time if you don’t. [laughs]

CH: So when you came back from Washington, then, what kinds of activities were you involved in over that issue upon your return?

FH: Just showing this movie that I had made to various conservation – or like the chambers and places like that and the civic organizations. Chambers were mostly against me at the time, but that changed. It took some time, but it was changed. And then – oh, just writing letters to all of the people who’d had been upriver with me, sending them form letters and who to contact back in Washington to get the support we needed. I was always looking for other people to take up – like writers and so forth. I put pressure on as many writers as I could to get stories in various magazines.

CH: And you got quite a few.

FH: A good job in getting quite a number of good stories.

CH: Were there other people here working with you on that?

FH: Not very many. This one fellow, John Barker that I would liked to have had you talk to, was, but people were pretty complacent about it, and I think that there was so much – had been so much pressure put on by the power companies that I don’t think that there was very much – they didn’t really want to come out in opposition. Especially chambers that were supported. When I had any kind of get-togethers, why I tried to get some person who was – oh, that was in support of keeping the dams out to go on the river trips with us. And I had a few. There was one young geologist that I kept taking up the river, and he would get together with some lecturers, and then he would always interject into that, ��If this were flooded out, we would no longer have this�� – sort of thing.

CH: How did you feel being in this community and being opposed to the dam? Was there much hostility towards you?

FH: Oh, I think people walked across the street to keep from facing me a few times, but after while they would return. But that was mostly people who were employed by the power company anyway.

CH: And in terms of the film you made and when you were approaching the writers and the politicians, what was your basic line? What was your argument against the dam? How would you put that?

FH: My basic reason was, of course, wanting to set something left that was like it is for future. And if you put a block of concrete in the way, why it would take man seven years to destroy what nature has made in seven million years. So, you know you’re destroying a legacy really. And it’s certainly held true you’re destroying – that if you do destroy that which is holding true now, you’re destroying all of that, the sand and the fish and all of that, if you start putting in all of these dams. You leave nothing left over for future generations.

[End of Tape 2, side 1]

Tape 2, Side 2
22 October, 1999,BR>

CH: …read about some pollution issues on the Snake River, and I’m not sure if that was in reference to the dam or other issues aside from the dam. Do you recall?

FH: Yes, there was some problems from the pollution from the farm run-off, but that wasn’t so much from the dams. There was pollution from Potlatch, from the effluent from after their pulp and paper mill. But water purifies itself pretty fast if it’s running free. It doesn’t if it’s stagnant. So that would be a good reason to keep the dams out. I don’t know, I was kind of better prepared when I was keeping up with this issue back in the sixties and seventies than I am now about the different reasons.

CH: The Potlatch pollution – now Potlatch had been here for how long?

FH: Since the twenties, nineteen twenties. Could have been even earlier than that, but I think it was nineteen twenty something.

CH: And that as you were saying the water flowing freely probably would correct a lot of that pollution, but what happened after they put in the four lower Snake River dams?

FH: It slowed down the flow, and of course with the lower dams down there now, it has a great deterrent for fish getting downstream, finding their way down, the smolts. And I assume it’s a little more difficult – well, it’s probably easier for the big fish coming up, but they get to lose their way, but the smolts are having a tough time getting downstream. There won’t be any fish after a few years if they don’t do something, and I don’t know what that’s to be. That’s for the biologists to figure out.

CH: Do you have any recommendations?

FH: [Laughs] I just suggested that they pull all four dams down for a good test, but they didn’t do that several years ago, and that kind of – and I think that if they would have found then that they could have – if that would have worked and they could have gotten their fish back up or downstream and the others upstream at the particular time, then the draw downs would show whether it was worthwhile or not to draw it down. But the port district screamed and hollered so loud, power companies screamed and hollered so loudly that they smell all the flood [words unintelligible] say okay, they had all kinds of excuses. So they didn’t try that again.

CH: When did you make that suggestion?

FH: Oh, I didn’t make it publically. That was just my comment. That was just – and I’m not sure there is any validity to it anyway because I’m not a biologist. I’m just a…

CH: But on the – going back to the Hells Canyon issues, after you testified and after this work was continued when you got back here, getting all the authors to write articles against the dam, what happened then after your trip to Washington?

FH: What do you mean?

CH: Were you involved in…

FH: Not very much other than just going before different committees, and just showing my film, and that was about it. I put together a slide program and showed it to anybody I could, some schools and so forth, but I had my business that I had to keep up with then in order to make enough money to put beans on the table. Until I was burned out, I was kind of back to that.

CH: Now how did that happen? What were the events that led up to your being burned out? Do you know how that happened?

FH: That’s an entirely different story, and that goes on and on and on. I don’t have time [laughs].

CH: Was it – do you think that people were vindictive against your…

FH: They were vindictive against me, but I don’t know whether it was because of the political situation or not. The guy was. There was one person who tole me the whole story.

CH: What actually happened? What happened to your place?

FH: Torched my place.

CH: Do you know how that happened, and do you know what events or how it happened?

FH: That’s what I say. That would take a long time to tell. An entirely different story. I went through two months of trial. So if you want to listen to two months, why I’ll tell you in two months [laughs].

CH: Can you – could you give me sort of an overview of it? A synopsis?

FH: No, I just did – we just proved beyond any, well not beyond a reasonable doubt, but by preponderance the evidence in civil trial that this one guy and along with somebody else went up the river at night, set fire to it, and came back. And I had to prove that in two months. It took me two months in trial.

CH: How did they get up the river?

FH: By boat.

CH: Do you know what kind of a boat it was or who supplied them the boat?

FH: Oh, it was a boatbuilder that built it.

CH: What kind of connection was there do you think between them and other adversaries you might have had?

FH: Just friends. I think it was just friendship.

CH: You said that that pretty much ended your business, then, didn’t it?

FH: It did. I tried to run after that but on day trips, but I just couldn’t make it. So I ended up losing it anyway to the bank.

CH: You couldn’t rebuild up there?

FH: It was a Forest Service lease, and I ran out of money, and money was a big problem. I couldn’t make my payments anyway, so the bank took everything I had.

CH: And what’s happened to that land since then?

FH: It’s gone back to the Forest Service.

CH: Is there any likelihood that that’s what the Forest Service wanted because of the preservation of Hells Canyon?

FH: I don’t think so. I wouldn’t think that they would have any – they may have wanted it, but then they wouldn’t have done anything about it. They certainly didn’t support me in going after the arsonists either, but then that was a different situation because they couldn’t get involved very well. Criminally maybe, but not that way.

CH: Are there other private holdings up in the park?

FH: Yes.

CH: And how are they being used today?

FH: There’s a lot more people going up there. A lot of people. Floaters, rafters, power boat people, private excursion operators. There’s quite a number of them. There are ten times as many people going up now as when I was operating.

CH: And what’s the relationship between the power boaters and the drift boaters? What’s that like?

FH: Oh, kind of [laughs] – I think it’s blown up more than it is than what it is, so I don’t think there’s a big problem there.

CH: Are there other things you could tell me about your experiences up there?

FH: I think we’re kind of running out of time [laughs]. So I’ve got a meeting, and I’ve got to get to it.

CH: I appreciate your explaining what you have and look forward to getting back together with you if possible later on.

FH: Well, you know what I have here now, and that’s –

CH: I appreciate your getting those notebooks out for me and the tapes.

FH: If that will give you some information, I – I don’t know – I know that these things have been accumulating around here. At one time I was going to donate them to our own historical society here to get them out of the house, but so far I haven’t done it [laughs].

[End of tape 2, side 2]