Haldane "Buzz" Holmstrom (1909–1946) was a pioneer of running the

Colorado River The Colorado River ( es, Río Colorado) is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The river drains an expansive, arid watershed that encompasses parts of seven U.S. s ...

through the

Grand Canyon The Grand Canyon (, yuf-x-yav, Wi:kaʼi:la, , Southern Paiute language: Paxa’uipi, ) is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona, United States. The Grand Canyon is long, up to wide and attains a depth of over a ...

. He was the first person to float all the way from

Green River, Wyoming Green River is a city in and the county seat of Sweetwater County, Wyoming, United States, in the southwestern part of the state. The population was 12,515 at the 2010 census. History The townsite of Green River, Dakota Territory was platte ...

to Boulder Dam solo. He built his own rowboats, often of his own design, to run whitewater rivers. Born on May 10, 1909, in southern

Oregon Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idah ...

, he was raised in

Coquille, Oregon Coquille is a city in, and the county seat of, Coos County, Oregon, United States. The population was 4,015 at the 2020 census. The primary economic base is the timber industry. The city derives its name from the Coquille Native American tribe. ...

. Buzz's father worked as a logger and died when Buzz was twenty. As a young man, he worked in a filling station. He began building his flat-bottomed boats in 1934, running the Rogue River in southwest Oregon. He ran the Rogue again in 1935 and the Main Salmon in Idaho in 1936. On October 25, 1937, he began his most famous feat, his solo run of the Colorado from Green River, Wyoming, down through

Cataract Canyon Cataract Canyon is a canyon of the Colorado River located within Canyonlands National Park and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in southern Utah. It begins at Colorado's confluence with the Green River, and its downstream terminus is the co ...

Glen Canyon Glen Canyon is a natural canyon carved by a length of the Colorado River, mostly in southeastern and south-central Utah, in the United States. Glen Canyon starts where Narrow Canyon ends, at the confluence of the Colorado River and the Dirty ...

, and the Grand Canyon.Brad Dimock, Utah.com
''Haldane "Buzz" Holmstrom – The Humblest Hero''
Retrieved Dec. 17, 2006. At the end of his run through the Grand Canyon, the motorboats refused to give him a tow across

Lake Mead Lake Mead is a reservoir formed by the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River in the Southwestern United States. It is located in the states of Nevada and Arizona, east of Las Vegas. It is the largest reservoir in the US in terms of water capacity. ...

, so he rowed the distance in four and a half days. Symbolically, he touched the newly built Boulder Dam with his boat at the end of his journey on November 20. However, Colorado River historian Otis "Dock" Marston wrote that he actually went to the base of the dam at the end of his following trip. The second trip in 1938 included Amos Burg and Willis Johnson. This trip was captured in Burg's short movie, ''Conquering the Colorado''.''Buzz Holmstrom Collection''
. Retrieved Dec. 17, 2006. Buzz received no financial gain from the film. Despite the ground-breaking nature of Holmstrom's feat, his river-running was characterized not by bravado, but by humility and awe at his surroundings. When the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

entered

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, Holmstrom enlisted in the Navy, where he served in the European Theater and

Kiriwina Island Kiriwina is the largest of the Trobriand Islands, with an area of 290.5 km². It is part of the Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea. Most of the 12,000 people who live in the Trobriands live on Kiriwina. The Kilivila language, also known ...

in the

South Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

.Marston, Otis R., (2014). "From Powell To Power; A Recounting of the First One Hundred River Runners Through the Grand Canyon. Flagstaff, Arizona: Vishnu Temple Press, p. 397 Upon his discharge in 1945, he went back to work for the

Bureau of Reclamation The Bureau of Reclamation, and formerly the United States Reclamation Service, is a federal agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees water resource management, specifically as it applies to the oversight and opera ...

, where he had worked for two years prior to the war. Holmstrom died of a gunshot wound to the head on May 18, 1946, on the second day of a surveying trip for the

US Coast and Geodetic Survey The National Geodetic Survey (NGS) is a United States federal agency that defines and manages a national coordinate system, providing the foundation for transportation and communication; mapping and charting; and a large number of applications ...

. His body was discovered on a game trail downriver of Rondowa, the confluence of the

Wallowa River The Wallowa River is a tributary of the Grande Ronde River, approximately long, in northeastern Oregon in the United States. It drains a valley on the Columbia Plateau in the northeast corner of the state north of Wallowa Mountains. The Wal ...

and the

Grande Ronde River The Grande Ronde River ( or, less commonly, ) is a tributary of the Snake River, long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed May 3, 2011 in northeastern Oregon and southeastern ...

.Welch, Vince
"Expert Boatman – Haldane 'Buzz' Holmstrom"
''Convergence newsletter'', Sundog Expeditions, Winter 2013. Retrieved on August 31, 2015. The motivation for his apparent suicide is not known.

Further resources

* Vince Welch, Cort Conley, and Brad Dimock (2004). ''The Doing of the Thing: The Brief, Brilliant Whitewater Career of Buzz Holmstrom''. Fretwater Press. . * Briggs, Don (1999)

VHS/DVD. *

Northern Arizona University Northern Arizona University (NAU) is a public research university based in Flagstaff, Arizona. It was founded in 1899 as the final public university established in the Arizona Territory, 13 years before Arizona was admitted as the 48th state. ...

, Cline Library Digital Archives
''Diary of Buzz Holmstrom's trip down the Colorado. Oct. 4 to Nov. 20, 1937''
* Marston, Otis R., (2014). ''From Powell To Power; A Recounting of the First One Hundred River Runners Through the Grand Canyon''. Flagstaff, Arizona: Vishnu Temple Press.

Notes

External links

*
''Oregon River Legend Buzz Holmstrom''
Video produced by

Oregon Field Guide ''Oregon Field Guide'' is a weekly television program produced by Oregon Public Broadcasting focusing on recreation, the outdoors, and environmental issues in the state of Oregon. The show has become part of the Oregon zeitgeist. Steve Amen is th ...

* , full film, on

Oregon Historical Society The Oregon Historical Society (OHS) is an organization that encourages and promotes the study and understanding of the history of the Oregon Country, within the broader context of U.S. history. Incorporated in 1898, the Society collects, preserv ...

's YouTube channel. {{DEFAULTSORT:Holmstrom, Buzz Early Grand Canyon river runners 1909 births 1946 deaths People from Coquille, Oregon 1946 suicides Suicides by firearm in Oregon