Queen of the Grand Canyon
Georgie White-Clark — “the Rabblerousing Queen of Grand Canyon Rafting”, as Outside magazie dubbed her — was the first woman to run commercial whitewater rafting trips on the mighty Colorado River.
She was famously brusque with her clients — and allegedly sometimes cavalier when it came to safety — but she had certainly earned her stripes on one of the world’s biggest and gnarliest whitewater runs.
In June 1945, she and fellow adventurer Harry Aleson put on Mae West lifejackets, strapped on backpacks full of supplies and dropped into the river which was then running at 1,400 cubic metres per second — a watery, runaway freight train. Three days and 97km later, they dragged themselves ashore at Lake Mead, proving, if nothing else, that it would be possible to run regular rafting trips on the Colorado.
In 1991 — a year before she died — Georgie ran her last trip down the canyon.
She was 80 years old.