I would't be surprised if there are "haints" at Lake Powell. I lived there in 1958 during the time when the dam was being built. One day I fixed a beautiful fried chicken dinner, but when my husband came home, he didn't feel like eating. He told me of a carpenter who was working near the keyway where my husband was pouring cement. Suddenly, a girder slipped from the grasp of the ironworkers on the bridge and missed the net completely. It fell on the carpenter, slicing him in half. My husband told me that when he first went up to Page (on the Arizona side), a whistle would sound when an accident happened. Unfortunately, accidents became far too common, so the practice of blowing the whistle was dropped.
In 1968 or '69, a co-worker of mine went up to Lake Powell for the weekend. He and his family (a wife and daughter) were fishing from the shore at a place where it is very deep. The girl's line got tangled, and she went to undo it, but slipped and fell into the lake. She couldn't swim, and her dad went to help, but got into trouble as well. Both drowned in front of the wife/mother.
In the seventies, my youngest daughter went to Lake Powell with a girlfriend and the friend's family. The two girls were about 13, and being teeny-boppers, they decided to be cool and stroll down the beach. They got about fifty to sixty yards from their camp, when they found a human hand half-buried in the sand. They forgot about being cool, and screamed for the friend's dad. He notified the authorities, who said later that they were fairly sure the hand belonged to a drowning victim
The Indians in that area tell of a monster/ bad spirit who had been imprisoned in a round rock on the edge of the canyon. The rock has been commonly known as the "Beehive Rock" because of its shape. It is a perfect beehive shape. Anyway, when the engineers began laying out the dam and the bridge, the Indians tried their best to get them to move the construction either up or down the river, the Beehive Rock wasn't to be touched. Asked why, they told the engineers that the monster in the rock would be turned loose, and the country would have misery and terrible things happening until the monster was recaptured and imprisoned. From all the terrible things that has happened to the nation since then, the tale makes sense.
One story, though, I think all would enjoy. The engineers and construction workers had a terrible time getting the diversion tunnels built. Time after time the tunnels would collapse, or just not work. However, there was one engineer on the river who had no trouble at all. His designs were perfect, his diversion dams worked. He had everything shipshape and in order. There were dark rumblings among the dam workers that perhaps he should be put on the payroll. There was one problem, though, he didn't speak English, Spanish, Navajo or Hopi.
He was a beaver.
