Harvey Butchart

John Harvey Butchart (May 10, 1907 – May 29, 2002) was an American hiker and mathematician who was well known for his exploits in and around the Grand Canyon in Arizona, United States. Beginning in 1945, Butchart explored the Grand Canyon's backcountry on foot. He wrote extensively about his adventures and influenced generations of canyoneers.

Family and academic career

Butchart was born in Hefei, China, in Anhui Province to missionary parents. After his father died, the family moved in 1920 to Vermont, Illinois, and later to Eureka, Illinois. Butchart graduated from Eureka College in 1928 and received a master's

and PhD from the University of Illinois in 1929 and 1932, respectively. He married Roma Wilson in 1929, and they raised two children. He taught mathematics at several Midwest colleges. After three years at Grinnell College, the family moved to Flagstaff in 1945 to help cure their daughter's hay fever. Fletcher wrote: Today, Harvey Butchart is a compact, coiled-spring fifty-five – and a happy and devoted schizophrenic. Teaching mathematics is only one of his worlds. At intervals he lives in a quite different reality. His three-year-old grandson, a young man of perception, recently heard someone use the words “Grand Canyon.” “Where Grandpa lives?“ he asked, just to make sure.

He continued hiking until 1987. In 1998, the books were republished in one volume with additional new material. A 2007 biography tells his story and that of foot exploration in the Grand Canyon.

Butchart donated a large amount of material to Northern Arizona University. The collection includes more than 1,000 pages of his original trail logs, 52 hiking maps with handwritten annotations, more than 7,000 color slide photographs, extensive correspondence, and related publications. The collection and guide were reorganized in 2020.

In 2009, the US Board on Geographic Names honored Harvey Butchart by naming a 7,600-foot butte within Grand Canyon National Park "Butchart Butte" . The butte is east of the Walhalla Plateau in the eastern area of the national park. On the North Rim it can be seen from Pt. Imperial (7 miles southeast), or on the South Rim from Desert View (12 miles north-northwest). It is 1.5 miles west of Gunther Castle along the divide between Kwagunt and Chuar Valleys but not specifically mentioned in his route guides.