Brighty of the Grand Canyon

The large Grand Canyon mule may be the first animal that comes to mind when one thinks about pack animals at the Canyon today.

Yet a much smaller burro played a big role in the Grand Canyon of yesterday, and became quite famous in the process.

Bright Angel was a little donkey that lived on the North Rim from around 1892 to 1922.

He was named after the famous creek that flows from the North Rim into the Grand Canyon, but everyone just called him "Brighty."

At this point, you may be wondering, "What is the difference between a burro, a donkey and a mule?"

Brighty with Thomas and Elizabeth McKee, their son, Robert, and camp staff (Photograph courtesy © Grand Canyon National Park Museum Collection )

The wild ancestors of donkeys originated in Africa. Over time, they were domesticated into what we know now as a donkey and were eventually brought to Europe.

Burro is the Spanish word for donkey, and it was the Spanish who first brought donkeys to the New World along with horses.

Keep donkeys and horses together and the inevitable happens — babies.

Brighty carrying alfoges, the two large canvas bags that each held a tank for carrying water from the spring (Photograph courtesy © Martha McKee Krueger)

When a male donkey breeds with a female horse, the offspring is a mule.

Although mules are almost always sterile, they are said to be more patient and sure-footed than horses and more cooperative and intelligent when compared to donkeys.

In the late 1800s, Grand Canyon miners and prospectors used the burro as a pack animal because it is well adapted for hard work in a hot climate.

When mining slowed at the turn of the century, many of these burros, including Brighty, escaped or were abandoned.

Brighty and Bobby McKee (1910 - 1992) (Photograph courtesy © Martha McKee Krueger)

Going against type, this Grand Canyon donkey's good nature made him a beloved North Rim resident.

Although Brighty was essentially wild and roamed the North Rim as he pleased, he did some work during the summer seasons.

In 1917, Thomas McKee and Elizabeth Wylie McKee, along with their young son Robert, opened the first tourist facilities on the North Rim at Bright Angel Point at the invitation of the Union Pacific Railroad.

The simple tent-cabins became known as the Wylie Way Camp and were modeled after the camp Elizabeth's father, William Wallace Wylie, had established at Yellowstone National Park.

The McKees ran the North Rim Wylie Way Camp until 1928.

The Wylie Way Camp (1917 - 1928) (Photograph courtesy © Martha McKee Krueger)

During the summers of 1918 through 1920 and for a little time in 1921, Brighty of the Grand Canyon helped Robert (aka Bobby McKee) haul water from a spring below the rim in Transept Canyon to the lodgings.

Hauling water was an important job as this was the only water available to the camp.

Booby used a stool to saddle up Brighty and hang the water tanks from the packsaddle.

Then they would make the roughly 5/8ths of a mile trip down into the canyon to the spring, with Bobby following behind Brighty.

Once at the spring, Bobby used a bucket to collect water out of a wooden barrel that the spring dribbled into. He would then pour the water from the bucket through a funnel into the water tanks.

Once filled with water, the tanks weighed just shy of 200 pounds. Bobby and Brighty made the trip, which has a roughly 200 foot elevation change, four to seven times per day.

Brighty's favorite food was said to be pancakes and a few pancakes, given to him by the camp cook, was his reward for every trip.

In 1921, Brighty participated in the dangerous construction of the first Kaibab suspension bridge across the Colorado River at the bottom of the Canyon.

The bridge offered safe passage across the river and connected the North Rim to the South Rim via the North and South Kaibab trails.

According to legend, Brighty was first to cross the new bridge when it was completed.

Brighty also met Teddy Roosevelt, whom we have to thank for protecting and preserving the Grand Canyon.

In 1912, former President Teddy Roosevelt, an ardent outdoorsman, visited the North Rim and went on a hunting trip with "Uncle Jim" Owens.

Owens was a game warden for the Forest Service and a famous hunter in his own right. It was he who recommended the little burro to the McKee family.

Teddy Roosevelt (left center) and Uncle Jim Owens (right center) with a hunting party at Owens’s cabin in the Kaibab Forest, circa 1912 (Photograph courtesy © Grand Canyon National Park Museum Collection )

Brighty really became famous when author Marguerite Henry immortalized his life and adventures in her 1953 children's book, Brighty of the Grand Canyon.

Henry was inspired to write about the popular Grand Canyon donkey after reading a Sunset magazine article about Brighty.

Although Brighty had long since passed away, Marguerite Henry went to the Grand Canyon to do research.

Many of the events, animals, and people in her book are based on fact. However, we assume that the part of the book where Brighty helps to solve a murder mystery stretches the legend from fact to fiction.

In 1966, filmmaker Stephen Booth made a movie also called "Brighty of the Grand Canyon."

The bronze statue of Brighty of the Grand Canyon in the North Rim Lodge

Booth filmed at the Grand Canyon and Marguerite Henry's own burro starred as the lead character.

Although almost a century has passed since Brighty of the Grand Canyon roamed the North Rim, his legend lives on.

When you visit the North Rim of the Grand Canyon today, you can see a tribute to Brighty.

Walk into the Grand Canyon Lodge sun room where you'll find a life-size bronze statue of Brighty by sculptor Peter Jepson.

There are also several wonderful photographs of Brighty and Bobby McKee on the wall behind him.

Rubbing the nose of Brighty's statue is said to bring good luck.

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