Photo: TownLift // Michele Roepke.

PARK CITY, Utah — Park City Museum will host Doiran DeMaio for his lecture, Major John Wesley Powell, on Wednesday, March 15, from 5-6 p.m. at the Park City Museum Education and Collections Center located at 2079 Sidewinder Drive.

In 1869, a company of explorers set off to survey the last uncharted territory in the American West by traveling down the Green and Colorado Rivers and becoming the first white men to brave the entirety of the Grand Canyon.

Intended as an expedition of scientific survey and discovery, the journey became a fight for survival against unpredictable rapids and near starvation. They were led by a 35-year-old naturalist/scientist, Major John Wesley Powell, who had lost an arm in the Civil War. Of the ten men who challenged the river, six completed the 1000-mile trek, but incredibly none were taken by the rapids. None of the men had white water running experience or knowledge of the many hazards that lay ahead as they proceeded into the “Great Unknown.”