Bill Belknap Collection

Belknap's professional career began in World War II, with his assignment to the White House as a Navy photographer. During the Roosevelt and Truman administrations he documented meetings with heads of state, war conferences with Churchill, Roosevel t's secret tour of U.S. military installations and war machinery plants, the last pictures taken of President Roosevelt and his family, and events, both for the news and "behind the scenes." At the close of the war, Bill covered the Potsdam Conference an d Truman's tour of the Allied Forces, and captured images of a war-torn Berlin.

Following World War II, Belknap returned to Boulder City, Nevada with his wife, Fran and two young children, Buzz (William III) and Loie (Laura). He continued on his path of photography doing freelance assignments for National Geographic from 1948-1967, covering a wide range of places and events including White Sands, New Mexico, Baja California, Craters of the Moon, Idaho, the United States Air Force Academy, Basque Sheepherders, Hualapai and dams, and the Powell Centennial. In 1947, Bill, along with partners Cliff and Gene Segerbloom and Mark Swain, opened Belknap Photographic services in Boulder City. The shop was a stopping off point for appreciative travelers and local personalities and a base of operations for Bill's own photographic endeavors. During this time he chronicled many river trips coming through the Grand Canyon and made frequent trips throughout the Colorado Plateau and Nevada.

Bill Belknap, adept with his pen as well as his camera, wrote many of the manuscripts for his National Geographic assignments as well as a weekly column for the Boulder City News called "Boulder Camera." The "Camera" had its eye, often with a humorous glint, on local Boulder people and events and the world beyond. Along with his wife Fran, he wrote Gunnar Widforss: Painter of the Grand Canyon, published in 1969. The same year, the Belknap family's (Buzz was the mastermind) Grand Canyon river guide made an appearance. More guidebooks followed this first endeavor, this time being published by the family's own business, Westwater Books. Publications now include the major rivers of the Colorado Plateau and the Snake River in Idaho. Bill a lso collaborated with his long-time friend to write Fred Kabotie: Hopi Indian Artist, published in 1977.

After years of running river trips and documenting them, Bill and his family began their own company. Through Fastwater Expeditions, which he ran from 1974 to 1986, Bill shared his love of rivers and canyons with others. The small orange crafts, dubbed sportyaks, that became the Belknap signature boats, dotted the Green and San Juan Rivers of Utah and the Delores River of Colorado, filling their customers with trepidation as well as joy as they plied the oars themselves. Bill lived a life of participation and involvement and his company followed that philosophy. During these years he taught courses on fastwater photography and river history through the University of Nevada at Las Vegas.

Throughout his lifetime, Bill Belknap touched the lives of many and left behind a legacy of important photographic and related works. In 1996, Loie Belknap Evans and Buzz Belknap donated their father's extensive photographic collection to Northern Arizona University, Cline Library. A generous grant from the Southwestern Foundation for Education and Historical Preservation provided support for processing.