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First Voices - Kelkiyana Yazzie Oct 26, 2024

In the modern history of the National Park Service, there’s but a handful of fourth-generation National Park employees. Kelkiyana Yazzie is such a ranger. What was it like growing up on the Navajo Nation in Arizona? What does it mean to work today, as the Tribal Program Coordinator for Grand Canyon National Park? And how do you calm a mortally-wounded, panicky and stressed-out bison on the North Rim? Join us for an insightful conversation with a unique Grand Canyon Ranger.

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Kelkiyana Something my colleague likes to say is that “we're not a resource to be managed.” And seeing the Grand Canyon, that's a part of us as native people. It's not like a different thing than us. I always hear that when I work with tribal members and even in my own culture is that this place is a living landscape and we're interconnected with it. We have a reciprocal relationship with it.

Doug Hello folks, and welcome. My name is Ranger Doug from the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park. We have a very special guest today, who will join us for an interesting look at Grand Canyon, sharing her insights and thoughts, from the perspective of an Indigenous National Park employee. This conversation is part of our First Voices series of Behind the Scenery Grand Canyon National Park podcasts.

In the modern history of the whole National Park Service, there’s but a handful of fourth-generation National Park employees. And today you are going to meet one of these rare individuals.

What was it like growing up on the Navajo Nation in Arizona? How did this park ranger become the fourth generation in her family to wear a National Park Service ranger uniform? What does it mean to work today, as the Tribal Program Coordinator for Grand Canyon National Park? And how do you calm a mortally-wounded, panicky and stressed-out bison on the North Rim?

We’ll answer these and many more questions. Join us for a fascinating and insightful conversation with special Grand Canyon ranger, Kelkiyana Yazzie. I will let her introduce herself to you.

Kelkiyana Yeah. Hi. Hello. Ya'at'eeh. Good morning. My name is Kelkiyana Yazzie. I am the tribal program coordinator for Grand Canyon National Park. That means that I work with the parks 11 Associated Tribes to have them feel represented and included in park management and projects here at Grand Canyon. And to introduce myself in Navajo language, I'm a Navajo tribal member, Bit’ahnii nishli, Lok'aa’ Dine’e bashishchiin, Bilagaana dashicheii, Tabaaha’ dashinali. That's how we usually introduce ourselves to other Navajo people to establish a sense of kinship with them. Those were our clans. So my first clan is Bit’ahnii, which means folded arm people. I always hope that means a good thing. And then my second clan is Lok'aa’ Dine’e, which means reed people and that actually has Hopi origins. So somewhere down the line I have Hopi, Hopi ancestors. Even though I identify as Navajo today. But yeah, clans are still strong and in existence in the Navajo culture. You can ask the little 5-year-old Navajo kid and they'll be able to introduce themselves in Navajo just like the way I did. So that just shows how important that is to our culture and heritage today.

Doug Now the Navajo reservation, the Navajo Nation, shares a boundary with Grand Canyon National Park. Our eastern boundary, and your western boundary is shared. So can you share with the listeners a little bit about the Navajo Nation?

Kelkiyana Yeah. So the Navajo Nation is considered the largest Native American reservation in the United States. I believe it's let at least 265,000 square miles and it has a population of about 165,000 people who live on the reservation today. If you ever get a chance to drive through the rez, you'll see how spaced apart our communities are and you'll see, like random houses here and there along the highway. So it may seem like it's a desolate place, but in reality it's just full of families full of culture and heritage that's still strong today. Growing up on the Navajo Nation, there's a lot of difficulties and challenges, such as not having running water and electricity, and that's a common thing for the Navajo Nation, is that a lot of households still don't have running water. And with my own family, we didn’t even have running water until I was about fourth grade. Before that, we would use an outhouse and then like a camp shower, like a solar shower, my dad built like pallets and put up curtains, and then we just leave the shower bag out in the sun all day, and that's what we would use. So yeah, wasn't till I was in 4th grade and a lot of families out there still don't have running water. But the Navajo Nation is a special place. We call it Diné Bikéyah (The Land). And it's considered to be within the four sacred mountains, one being San Francisco Peaks near Flagstaff, AZ. Another being Mount Blanca, Mount Taylor in New Mexico and Hesperus up in Colorado. So those, within those four mountains is considered our ancestral and modern-day homeland.

Doug So you grew up in the Shonto area. Tell us a little bit about that, growing up on the rez.

Kelkiyana Yeah. I grew up in a really small community called Shonto. We had a population about 500 people, so everyone knew each other and what's very common on the rez is that we live next to our families. So I have my house that I grew up in with my parents and my siblings, and then just like maybe 500 yards away with my Nelly, my grandma on my dad's side, she lived there and I just maybe like one or two miles away was my great grandma and she would always walk over to our house at all hours of the day or night. Even in the middle of the night, she would like, have no flashlight and she's just walking through the trees and she'll end up at our house. Well, But I grew up in a traditional household. We had sheep. We still have sheep and horses. Livestock. Cattle. And so we would do things like butchering for special occasions or just for family gatherings where we would butcher the sheep. Uh, we still do that today in our family. It's a great way to get together and we use all parts of the sheep, whether to eat or you use the wool for weaving. I always remember going to my great grandma's hogan growing up, my dad would drop us off there on the weekends. I know back then I used to really hate it, but thinking back on it, I'm really glad I got to experience that, but she would be using like a like a spindle and she would have a loom and she would like really care-take for her own wool. She would make it all from getting it from the sheep to where it ends up in a rug. She was a weaver. So that was really cool to see that process and I even got to weave a small rug with my great grandma that I still have today coming from the wool from her, her own sheep herd, from her own sheep corral. But yeah, I'm just really fortunate to have grown up in a traditional small community. Our closest neighbors, again, are our family, and then I would have the school is kind of faraway where we would wake up at 5:30 in the morning to get on the bus and we wouldn't come back until 5:30 in the evening. That just shows how harsh and long the commute to school was growing up in that community.

Doug And then where did you go to high school?

Kelkiyana I went to high school in a small town called Kayenta, Arizona. It's near Monument Valley tribal park. Some people may have heard of that. It's where those famous buttes are that are showcased in old Western films, such as the John Wayne movies. And yeah, it's called Monument Valley High School. And again, it would take like 2 hours to commute from Shonto to Kayenta on the bus because a lot of us lived on rural dirt roads. So the bus would have to travel through and pick us up and then take us to Kayenta. But yeah, it was a really good high school experience. A common thing that was taught to us is Navajo language, so that's something that's really strong on the reservation, not just at the high school I went to, but all the schools across the Navajo Nation, even in all the way from preschool age to college level, the Navajo language and crafts such as basket making and rug weaving are taught in our schools on the rez.

Doug And what was your post high school path like?

Kelkiyana Yeah. So after high school, I ended up going to Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, that was primarily because they offered free tuition to Native American students, and it was still close enough to home. It was about a four-hour commute one way. I'm really close with my family growing up, so I knew I was going to get homesick if I went elsewhere. But I was really glad with my choice because Fort Lewis and Durango is just like a really small mountain town with this strong sense of community. Everyone was so nice and welcoming. It also had a large Native American population. I believe 20% of the students were from tribes from all over the country, from Alaska to Hawaii, to South Dakota and even the East Coast. So I got involved with the Native American Center, the Environmental Center, and an organization called Engineers Without Borders, where I was able to spend summers in Central America, in Nicaragua, building latrines and water systems for rural remote villages there. So yeah, I got a lot of that experience. I built up my leadership skills while I was in college. I was always a shy, introverted person growing up and I always knew I wanted to be a teacher. So my college experience at Fort Lewis really shaped me to be where I'm at today. I give a lot of credit to that institution for making me the person I am today and for helping me in the current position that I'm serving in the Park Service.

Doug And there's a small National Monument established in 1909 near your hometown of Shonto area. It's called Navajo National Monument. Talk about your family’s connection to this small National Monument.

Kelkiyana Yeah. So I grew up about 5 minutes down the road from the small NPS unit called Navajo National Monument. It's right off of Hwy. 160. Not many people know about. Every time, visitors would show up, they'd be like, “oh, we just saw the sign on the road and came up with this way.” But it's a small park. It's fee free, has free camping, and in it the most important thing is that it protects ancestral sites such as 3 cliff dwellings, Betatakin, Keet Seel and Inscription House. Betatakin and Keet Seel are Navajo words for the sites, when in reality these ancestral sites have connections to more of the Pueblo groups, such as the Hopi and Zuni, as well as the San Juan Southern Paiute. We had four associated tribes with that park, including the Navajo, but yeah. So I am a 4th Generation Park Ranger at that park. My great grandpa Hubert Laughter was one of the first Navajo Park Rangers there in the 1950s, which says a lot because the park was established in 1909. Yet they didn't have local indigenous community members as employees until the 1950s, even though this small monument is located right in the middle of the Navajo Nation. So yeah, it was my great grandpa. Then it was my grandpa Albert. He used to give Ranger programs that were surrounded around traditional food, so he would do like fried bread, making classes with visitors. And he was even featured in National Geographic one year. And I found out that. Uh, my dad, as of I think he said he was five years old, is actually in that issue of the magazine too. There's a picture of him with my great grandma and that same issue. So I haven't had a chance to see it myself, but hopefully I get to find it, I think believe it was in the 70s or 80s when this was published. And then after that was my aunts Shannon and Althea. They were working there and I remember when my Aunt Shannon was working there, she would always come home in her Ranger uniform and I was just like, Oh my gosh, that's like, the coolest thing I've ever seen. Like, that's so neat. Where I would even wear it as a Halloween costume. I know we’re not supposed to wear the uniform like that, but I was just like mind blown and really inspired just even just seeing the uniform growing up. And just learning about what she did as well, I got to interview her supervisor for a school project and he talked about all these things on how they protect the ancestral sites and how they educate visitors on the heritage, the management of the park and so on. And I was just so inspired and knew that was something that I kind of wanted to look into back then. That was when I was back in middle school. Yeah, then now me. So four generations of Park Rangers.

Doug Which is rarely really rare. My boss is a second-generation park employee. I have known the name of a couple of three generations, but I can't think of a single person in the whole National Park Service who has that lineage as a 4th generation national park employee. So very well done. So when you started working there I'm, I've visited a couple of times, Keet Seel is about an 8 mile trail into the back country and it's the largest cliff dwelling in the state of Arizona. There's a small National Park Ranger quarters, a hogan there. Talk. Talk about living out there in that remote area as a park ranger and leading tours to Keet Seel.

Kelkiyana Yeah. So I worked at Navajo National Monument for about 5 years as a seasonal interpretive park ranger. I did this right after I graduated from college at Fort Lewis. And I wasn't sure what I was getting myself into because I always thought, like, “why are people coming to this park? Like there's just a bunch of old houses in the Canyon. What are they learning? What are they seeing?” So when I got my first experience going down to do cliff dwelling tours to Betatakin and Keet Seel I totally understood and I was able to reconnect to my own heritage and my own culture in so many different ways that I never would have if I didn't have this job, and if I wasn't educating and visiting these sites. But yeah, Keet Seel is a remote location. We consider it a backpacking route. Visitors would have to get permits through us, and we give them an orientation and they would have the option to hike out there on their own and meet a Ranger out there at the Ranger hogan that's been out there for a really long time, and even my family, who's worked for the Park Service were the ones who built it that helped build it. So it was really special connecting to them in that way, staying out in the Ranger hogan. Of course, we added stuff like a Tempur-Pedic mattress, a ceiling fan, a TV. We hiked all these things out there just to give that sense of comfort, because it is a very, very remote location. There's no cell service we would sort of kind of get the local Navajo Nation radio station KTNN, but it wasn't very good signal still. So that just kind of tells how remote this area was. Yeah, I would give tours to people from all over the world. And Keet Seel was a special place because people really wanted to be there. It was a 17-mile round trip hike for people to get out there. You would have to commit at least two days to do something like this. Even if you were just day hiking it. And yeah, I got to meet so many different people, and my tours ranged from an hour up to four hours. I remember spending it with the group who were actually on a tour I did with them at Betatakin. So they did the Betatakin and Keet Seel tour with me. They're a really nice family from Utah. And yeah, if once you see Keet Seel, it's 170 room cliff dwelling. A majority of it is what's original. It dates back to the 1300s. A lot of what's inside you can actually see like handprints and fingerprints in the mortar. And then you can also see lots of pictographs and petroglyphs inside the alcove as well, where the Cliff dwelling, the rooms are. The area was black above it, and it shows that's where people would build fires to keep warm. But yeah, it's just a lot of history, and once you really learn more about the site, you just realize these people were just like us. They were living day-to-day. They had social groups, they had families. And they were interacting with others out there. They were doing a lot of trading out at Keet Seel. It said that they found macaw feathers there. Seashells. So it shows that people were moving and migrating and trading with various people from different regions. But yeah, it was a really special place. I really missed that. I feel like that's the favorite, most favorite part of my job working there is because you just get this whole level of peace and serenity being at a space like that and we like to refer to this place as a living, spiritual place. Because it's not ruins or abandoned, it's still spiritually occupied by the ancestors who physically lived in Keet Seel for hundreds of years ago, and it still has a living connection to the Hopi and many other tribes who still do pilgrimage pilgrimages out to the site to leave prayers and offerings to honor where we come from.

Doug So after a few backpackers hiked out there and you spent some time giving them a tour, campers went back to the campground. You went back to the hogan, what would you think about at night?

Kelkiyana Yeah, actually I was really scared of the dark. Honestly, that's my honest answer, but in reality there were days out there where no hikers would come out, so I would have like the whole day to myself and those were days that I really thought about the history of the Canyon. I was just there alone and I would look out, I would see Turkey Cave in the distance. I would see these other alcoves where other villages were as well. It's not just Keet Seel in that area and I would just imagine what life was like back then. And there's this flat area where they would farm corn, beans, squash and other agricultural items. And I was just seeing all this erosion happening. All this arroyo cutting and how thinking about things like climate change and how that's impacted these areas that people have been sustaining and managing for hundreds of years. Yet within just a short time span you can see these dramatic changes, such as the arroyo cutting and the erosion happening in the Canyon. So yeah, those were just things I would think about. And of course, my own family history and my own cultural connections to these sites. I also got to see a lot of eagles and hawks in that area. Those are seen as really good omens and that just made me feel like I was in the right place at the right time. I was where I was meant to be.

Doug I know some Navajo folks purposely shy away from visiting the ancestral Pueblo home sites and villages. So what's your feeling about that?

Kelkiyana Yeah. So traditionally, I was always told growing up to not go near these sites from my great grandma and my dad. And even as far as pottery sherds, there's a lot of these around these sites, especially out at Keet Seel. The Navajo word for Keet Seel translates to broken pottery scattered around, so that was everywhere out there. So that was something I would never do is pick up pottery or mess with it because they say if you do you're disturbing the spirit of the person who made that, and you're also disturbing the intent and purpose of why someone left it there. And there's actually stories in Hopi where people would intentionally smash their pottery at areas they were leaving as a way to leave their footprints there and their connection to that space. And then there is always that intent to return to these locations as well. But anyway, as far as the visiting ancestral sites, my dad just kind of told me “as long as you're visiting these with positive intent that you're praying for yourself, you're praying for the site. you're praying for the visitors that you're bringing in with you like you should be OK.” And I would always have my tádídíín, my corn pollen, so I would always do my own offerings at these sites. And actually when I was reading some literature, I came across like this little interview, I guess, that my great grandpa did back in the day, for a book that was written about the park. And in there that, he said, does that exact same thing, “as long as you're visiting this place with positive intent, a positive mindset, an open mindset, and you when you leave, you don't bring any of that negative energy with you, then it should be OK on visiting these ancestral sites.” So that really meant a lot to me to see my great grandfather's advice written there and then just hearing what my dad told me, and I intended to pass that on to anybody else who would want to listen and learn about the Navajo connection to ancestral sites like this.

Doug Do you recall your first visit to the Grand Canyon? Tell us about that.

Kelkiyana Yeah. So my first, I grew up about two hours from the Grand Canyon and so we would come here either as a family on a couple of occasions as well as for field trips. And the earliest memory I can think of is my 4th grade field trip coming here to the South rim and we went to the historic village. We went to Desert View, got to walk the trails and even got to talk with the park ranger. And I just remember, as young as I was in elementary school, thinking, like, where are we at? Like, we were the only native people in this space at the Grand Canyon. I would go inside the museum area, like the Bright Angel lodge. And there was nothing but stories about Euro-American pioneers and explorers. And I remember seeing this mannequin of a Harvey girl dressed up in a velveteen blouse and a squash blossom and a Concho belt which is considered our traditional regalia and Navajo. And I'm like, why is she wearing that, like, what's going on? And that mannequins are actually still up at the bright Angel Lodge today. But that's just something I really remember. Visiting as a young Navajo child to the Grand Canyon is like where is where is us at? Where is our story to this space?

Doug So what was your motivation for coming and working at the Grand Canyon?

Kelkiyana Yeah, so working on my old park Navajo National Monument, that place is my heart and soul. I still consider it to be. It's my home and I have very rich history and tie to it as not just a Navajo person, but and my own family as well. So I did end up leaving the park because I kind of reached my developmental opportunities there. I was kind of stuck as a seasonal park ranger in that park, and I knew I really wanted to get into management. My career goal is actually to be Superintendent at Navajo National Monument. And I was just like, oh, that's hard as it's going to be, I have to go somewhere else to get this leadership and get these management skills so I can come back and help this park that I love so much. So I ended up going back to school for my Master’s degree. I got a Parks and Recreation management master's degree from Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. And at the same time, I was enrolled in the National Park Service Pathways program, which means once you have a degree, you can transition into a permanent career with the Park Service instead of me just staying as a seasonal park ranger, I could actually be a permanent ranger. So Grand Canyon was the one that offered the opportunity to me. And they also told me that they're really trying to improve their indigenous representation and education here at the park, and they thought I was the perfect fit to join the team in the village. So that's how I was able to get hired on at the park and finish up my degree. I was going to school full time and working full time and yeah, just a little over two years ago, I became a permanent park ranger.

Doug And what was your job at the Grand Canyon?

Kelkiyana I was also an interpretive park Ranger on the South rim in the village area, so I would give park programs to visitors who are coming from all over the world. And I remember it was just such a big change from where I was coming from at Navajo National Monument, like over there, we were getting 5 visitors during the day. In the wintertime and then coming here, we would get hundreds of people. And what I really missed was those intimate conversations that I would have with visitors. Like I would be on 4 hour tours back where I was coming from. Here, which is kind of a hi-and-bye like, where's Mather Point? Where's the bathroom? So I kind of learned that, oh, maybe interpretation, I mean, it is my passion, but there's something deeper that I'm really connected to and why I like doing what I do. And I found out that what I like doing is educating people on indigenous knowledge and indigenous history, as well as not just talking about it, but also being a part of that work in the park. So that's how I transitioned out of the interpretive role.

Doug And when you sit on the bench and you look at the Grand Canyon, do you see the Grand Canyon primarily as a natural resources National Park, or, as a cultural resources National Park and why?

Kelkiyana Yeah, that's a really great question. I really struggle with the whole resource management stuff, end of things, because historically and even today, tribal affairs and anything that has to do with tribes is usually sectioned underneath the cultural resource management division of national parks. A lot of parks today don't have a tribal liaison, and it usually falls on the archaeologists or anthropologists as a collateral duty for them to be the ones who interact with tribes, if they even do at all. So, something my colleagues likes to say is that “we're not a resource to be managed.” And seeing the Grand Canyon, that's a part of us as native people. It's not like a different thing than us. I always hear that when I work with tribal members and even in my own culture is that this place is a living landscape and we're interconnected with it. We have a reciprocal relationship with it. So yeah, I do see it as natural and cultural, but I really struggle with the whole resource word just because of the history and even current way that some parks out there include indigenous knowledge and voices. It's always under the cultural resource umbrella.

Doug What are some of your favorite people stories about the Grand Canyon?

Kelkiyana Yeah, so that was would be my favorite thing being an interpretive ranger at Grand Canyon National Park is all the people you get to meet and interact with. But always my favorite would be running into other native people who are just visiting the park because it was just so rare to see, and I would … oh my heart would just always feel happy. And yeah, I would just really love meeting all these different native families from different tribes. One that really stands out to me is a Comanche family who visited the park and were actually sat down on the bench, they said. And then all of a sudden I appeared and started giving a program. So they stayed to listen to me and and watch and afterward they came up to me. It was a mom, dad, their young son and their young daughter. And they're just like, “wow, we are so blown away by like, we've been to these different national parks, even coming from Oklahoma, we don't really hear our stories told in spaces like this. And that's really great that you're doing that for the tribes here.” And I just got to talk with them and get to know them and they told me they were actually going to the Navajo Nation for a dance, the gourd dance, because their son is a Gourd dancer. And participates in many powwows and they said, “yeah, when we went through the gate. Ah, we told them, like, hey, we're just visiting. We're on our way to Window Rock for a social dance on the Navajo Nation.” And the fee person responded to us. “Oh, you're going to go party with the Navajos? OK, come on in.” So I really thought that was cool. I love that story and just meeting that family who I'm still in contact with today. Uh, I also got to meet an Elder from the Ojibway tribe up in Canada in the Okanogan tribe, and he was telling me his own stories about what he thinks the Grand Canyon is, even though he's from a tribe way up north, they even have like a tie to the Grand Canyon. So I would say those are some of my favorite people stories interacting with the tribal people who were visiting the park.

Doug Modern archaeology is the science, study dedicated to learning about past human peoples and their behavior and their cultures. But to science, a modern, to do science, modern archaeological resource research often requires excavation and disturbance of the archaeological remains. Now, how do you think we should balance the desire to gain scientific information versus some people's thoughts that we should just leave the artifacts alone and undisturbed?

Kelkiyana Yeah, that's also a really great question. So when I first started with the Park Service a way to learn information about the ancestral sites that I was interpreting I was given archaeological manuals and research about the sites. So that was the way I was introduced to the park and the way to learn about these Native American sites from non-indigenous archaeologists, anthropologists, etc. So that was all the scientific evidence, which is really fascinating to hear, like how old sites are to learn about, like just different ways that they are able to piece the story together without even talking to native people. I know some archaeologists do, but a lot of that information gets, I don't know a better term for this, but whitewashed essentially. And um. So yeah, that was the way a lot of people get introduced to the Park Service, especially when you're working in a park that protects cultural resources. You get that knowledge from archaeological research, which there's nothing wrong with that. But there is another story to it. And that comes from the tribes themselves. So that's something I really learned working here at Grand Canyon is just talking to the tribes that you even have their own published booklets and research that comes from their own cultural preservation offices about these sites. And some of it will correlate with what archaeologists are seeing and some of it won't. And I think that's really important to listen to what tribes connections are because we're the ones who understand these landscapes and ways that Euro-American and non-native people do not understand this landscape because they weren't here couple 100 years ago. But our ancestors were and our knowledge has been passed down from generation to generation on how we need to treat and talk about and visit these sites. Just to give a quick example, we have this trail on the South Rim called the Trail of Time and we got to walk that with some tribal members a couple of months ago back in April. And they're like, “where did these rocks come from?” And the geologists, were like “Oh, they came from the Canyon.” And they're like, “oh, why did you move these rocks from the Canyon? Like they're not supposed to be disturbed by humans. Like, these rocks have spirits. They have meaning.” And it just brought up this really interesting discussion about science and tribal beliefs because, yeah, we're we believe that things need to move naturally. They're not disturbed by us without some type of purpose or intent. So yeah, that that was just a really interesting thing I saw on how science and tribal views conflicted.

Doug Now here at the north rim of Grand Canyon National Park, we have a free-roaming, unfenced wild herd of bison, and I understand you were out here recently helping us on our live capture operation. We're trying to keep the herd at about 200 and it was maybe 3 to 400 the summer of 2024. So talk about your involvement with the live capture and donation project here at the North Rim regarding our bison herd.

Kelkiyana Yes. So if listeners didn't know the North Rim does have a bison herd, the South Rim does not. So it's only on the north rim over here. And I got to participate in the Bison live capture and transfer last week. This was my first-time taking part in it, and I really, really feel privileged and honored to have done so. Because this is a program that's been going on for a couple of years now. We work with the Intertribal Buffalo Council to process and then transfer bison to tribal lands in the Midwest area. So I got to spend the whole last week and I've never seen bison up close that that way before. So that was really special. And then just being able to be there as a native person considering our long, long history with bison, and it's a complicated history. As far as when Euro American settlers were coming to this country, the bison were almost hunted to extinction and it was a way as quote-un-quote, to get rid of the Indian problem. If you get rid of the bison, you get rid of the indigenous people. And that's a really harsh truth that existed back then. And it was just really sad to know about that long history of our people. And but I really. Like last week, I was just really thinking about and honoring that relationship. We as native people have had with bison for generations, and we're very lucky and fortunate to still have that living connection with them today. And I got to be a part of that process to get these bison to tribal lands, to continue that long legacy and that relationship that people have had for decades, for centuries since time immemorial with the bison.

Doug I understand you had a personal encounter with the wounded bison. Can you talk about that?

Kelkiyana Yes. So on the first day, there was a bison that was wounded. And I was able to give it an offering. And I remember going up to the corral with one of the wildlife team members. And we got up to the corral and it was running back and forth. It was so stressed out. And I had this big gashing wound on the back, like by its hindquarters. And it was just really stressed out and I had my tádídíín, my corn pollen. I was going to give it an offering. And to help with its with its healing. And yeah, it was just running back and forth. And once we got up there, I just started to pray to myself and I said some words in the Navajo language. And all of a sudden it calmed down and then it walked right up to me and the person I was with, and I was able to sprinkle the corn pollen directly on its head. And we got to stare at each other for a very, very long time, and it was just a really powerful spiritual, even that healing moment for myself to experience something like that. And the person I was with was just so blown away that that happened because, yeah, it was just a really special moment to have had. I was also able to give some blessings to the bison once we loaded them up onto the, was like cattle trailers. These big trailers. We loaded up 100 bison into two. And so I did another offering and blessing for the bison before they did their 18-hour journey to South Dakota to the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe.

Doug And shortly after we saw pictures of them off roaming in their new home. So thank you for sending them off in, in a good way. For you, the three best things about being a Grand Canyon National Park ranger are:

Kelkiyana Yeah. So something I distinctly remember is talking to one of the past Navajo National Monument superintendents. That's when I was really getting into the Park Service - before I started working for the Park Service. It's like, “hey, I want to do this. I was like, what's? Your advice for me?” And he started talking to me about his job. And one of the things I distinctly remember is that “it's something new every day.” And that's so true. And that's one of my favorite things about being a National Park Ranger is that it's something new every single day. So that's something I really enjoy. And then now that I'm in my new role as the Tribal Program Coordinator, I would say it's being able to connect and strengthen to my own heritage and my own culture. And then even though that tribes are different than to each other, we still have these similarities. And these strong ties to honoring our ancestors, honoring our heritage. So I really like to connect to the tribal communities in that way. I feel so comfortable in that home. We go out and we visit these different reservations out to Hopi, out to Peach Springs and Hualapai. Down to Yavapai Apache and Camp Verde. And every time when once I'm surrounded by tribal members, I always just feel at home. And I always see these similarities compared to growing up on the Navajo Nation. And it just really gives me the sense of pride and happiness that I am in the right place and I'm doing what I'm meant to do. So those would be some of my favorite things being a park ranger. And I also get to live at the Grand Canyon, so you cannot beat that!

Doug Same question, but what are some of the challenges and struggles that you face as a Grand Canyon Ranger?

Kelkiyana Yeah. So I would say just being an indigenous person. There is a really harsh history with the National Park Service and native people. Just about every National Park out there was created by forcibly removing native people from their ancestral homelands, and that story has also happened here, unfortunately at Grand Canyon National Park, when the Havasupai people were forcibly removed in the 1920s from a place called - what is now called Havasupai Gardens. So that's something really tough to be working for the federal government that also has done numerous things that are even considered unforgivable to our indigenous populations across the country. So it's been really conflicting to work for a federal agency as well as for a National Park Service with that history like that. But and so that's brought forward challenges and barriers that have overcome over the years. I've been working for the NPS for the past eight years. And it's come with a lot of struggle. It's come with a lot of tears. My family knows this like, I would just come home sobbing and being upset that I just felt powerless on different things that were affecting our native people or just having no like mention of us at all in in places that are so sacred to us. And I just felt like as a little seasonal park ranger, as an interpretive park ranger, I'm like, yeah, I can talk about it, but but how can I help? What can I do about it? So that was really a struggle coming up and that's why I really pushed myself to get a Parks and Recreation management degree from NAU. And yeah, I'm working my way up to hopefully becoming in that management role to help make this path easier for not just myself, but for my people as well as the incoming rangers who are coming in. That's something I've seen in my job is that there's a lot of indigenous youth out there who want to work in the park after seeing all of these great things we've been doing at Grand Canyon to include native voices. So those are some challenges and barriers I really want to get across. I know a big thing is working for a federal agency, we always say we're indigenous first before we're a National Park Service ranger. So we're staying true to who we are as native people. It doesn't just end at 5:00 for us, this job is not just a job to us, it's our livelihood. And it's a way for us to strengthen and keep our culture and heritage alive.

Doug So where do you see yourself in five years? You know, what are some of your dreams and ambitions?

Kelkiyana Yeah. So I do have a very deep tie to Grand Canyon and I really don't see myself leaving here anytime soon as well as leaving my role as the tribal program coordinator. I plan to stick it out for a while, especially since one of our former team members, Mike Lindon, he's been working with tribes in this area for over 20 years and something I really admired and respected about him is his relationship with the people we interacted with and he has that relationship because he's been here for so long and that's something is that relationships take time. So I really want to build and strengthen these connections to these various tribal communities who interact and work with the park. So that's something I do plan. I do think I'll be here in five years still. We do get opportunities to have details, which means you get to go to a different park or a different position to kind of get experience. And something like that. So I do see maybe one or two of those in my near future. I want to try out like working in a park in Alaska or Hawaii and working with their native communities there or even just anywhere else like Glacier. Glacier is my dream park. I just think that place is so gorgeous, it’s such a rich history and cultural connection to the tribes up there, so maybe I get to do like a summer up there? Or maybe I don't know, maybe they'll steal me. So we'll see.

Doug OK, I'm going to wave my magic wand and you are Park Superintendent at Grand Canyon National Park for the day. What are three changes that you're going to make?

Kelkiyana Wow. That's a really, really good question and I have a lot of respect for our current park Superintendent Ed Keable because he has made indigenous affairs his number one priority as Superintendent. So that's something I'm definitely wouldn't change because I believe Indigenous voices and perspectives need to be a part of every conversation. A part of every division out there, whether that's law enforcement, science and resource management, interpretation and education, even maintenance and compliance, and all of that. So I think that's something I would, I don't know if enforces the right word, but just kind of make known, that hey, this is the priority and this is what we're going to do to include native voices in these spaces. And, I feel like going out to tribal communities would be one of my primary things as Superintendent. And I feel like a big change is shifting the narrative from, like John Wesley Powell, Mary Colter and all these other Euro-American pioneers and explorers, and have, like every single park ranger program talking about native voices, I think that's if I got to be Superintendent for a day like it's just all focused on indigenous heritage and connections to the Canyon, every little thing in the park that we do. So I know that that can't happen one day. But like we said, it's a magic wand, yeah.

Doug OK. And now you kind of answered this, but what are some things that you definitely would not ever want to change at the Grand Canyon?

Kelkiyana Yeah, that's also a great question. I think the people who are here, especially on the north rim and I'm not just saying that because I'm on North Rim podcast, but every single person I met, they're just so passionate and they're just so dedicated and committed to what they're doing, especially being in a remote location, both on the North and South rim. Yes, the South Rim is remote. We're about a little over an hour drive from the nearest city, which is Flagstaff. And yeah, we choose to be here and we choose to push forward on the representation on the authenticity of what this place means, not just to native people, but also to people all over the world. Like we're here to educate. We're here to upkeep this special and sacred place. Not just for ourselves, but for the wildlife, for the land itself. So that's something I would definitely not change, is the community, the sense of community that exists here in the park, not just above the rim but also below the rim as well. I have a lot of respect for our search and rescue teams and the people who are down in the Canyon all the time because they're out there looking out, not just for their own safety but other safety as well. Unfortunately, the Grand Canyon is a harsh environment where we do lose people each year due to heat related illnesses and things like that. And we just have like the best team out there who are just ready to, like prevent things from like this from happening and then if unfortunately an accident does happen, they're there to do it in a safe manner to where they're not adding to the situation. So yeah, it's a really capable team here and that's something I wouldn't change is again the people who live and work here at the Canyon.

Doug OK well said, same question. I'm waving my magic wand and you are a National Park director for the day. What three things would you change? What, three things would you never change?

Kelkiyana Oh wow, yeah. Uh, yeah. Not to sound like egotistical or anything, but I have been told a couple of times by several of my colleagues, they're like “I could see you becoming director someday.” And so I was just like, “wow, that's a lot of belief and respect for someone to have for me to say something like that.” It really helps me thinking that, you know, that is an achievable goal someday. And I think about it a lot where I'm just not just like being like director, but just being in a management position. On what I would change is staff support. Like I just mentioned how the people are incredible, amazing. Especially people who volunteer in national parks like, WOW, they're they're just incredible. But anyway, just support for our staff because I've kind of seen it working in the Park Service, how this can be mentally tolling and emotionally tolling on people, this type of work. Whatever they decide to do in the park, there's some type of effect that comes with us that that latches on to us. So I really think, mental health or anything like that would be a good thing to focus on with our employees. As well as increasing diversity and inclusion. It's been really awesome to see all these different people from different backgrounds doing amazing things in their park. I have a former colleague, Connie, who is doing these great things out at Yosemite now, where she's bringing forward Chinese American history to light at Yosemite because they have a rich history in that area too. And then my friend Linda, she brought forward Juneteenth programs and so on. Like we're we all bring our own personal perspectives and things to the parks. And I just really want to see these different Park Rangers with different stories supported. To never feel like they're being attacked. To never feel like they're pushing against the boundaries rocking the boat, and so on. I just really would like to see the support for that increase. And as director someday, that's something I would really heavily focus on, is that support for all park rangers to feel like they're appreciated. They're valued for all of the hard and incredible work that they do. And then of course similar to my other answer is bringing forward indigenous perspectives and narratives to all national parks. And really emphasizing, like creating tribal liaison positions for all national parks. And making that a requirement rather than it just being a collateral duty for an archaeologist or anthropologist. But yeah, I really respect our current director. He's been out to Grand Canyon. I got to meet him. And I really appreciate what he does for not just tribal communities, but for the park service as a whole. And I actually got to ask him a question. I'm like, “what do you recommend for someone who's coming up the leadership ladder?” And he said the most important thing to him to get him where he is today was mentorship. And he said that's what he strongly advises is to have someone like a confidant, a mentor, to really support you through these things because, yeah, it's hard. It's really difficult to work in a space like this and you won't really know how to navigate it without talking to someone who's been through it all. Who wants the best for you and I feel like I do have that. So. Yeah, that's something else too.

Doug OK. Any final thoughts or special messages you want to leave folks as we wind down?

Kelkiyana Yeah. So thank you for listening to the podcast. You listened all the way through. It just really means a lot to have a platform to be able to share out our voices because for the last 100 years or so since the National Park Service was created, since Grand Canyon National Park became in existence, native voices have been excluded from these spaces, even though we've had a connection to this place since time immemorial. And, yes, it's really unfortunate to talk about the past and what's happened then. And people were like, “oh, it was the past.” Like we like, “let's move on.” But in reality, even though myself and other living tribal members, we didn't go through something traumatic like forced removal or anything like that, it still exists in us as living tribal members through generational trauma. And that something people really need to realize is that us as living indigenous people in this country, we still feel those effects of what's happened in the past. It's still our day-to-day, whether that's through the loss of our language, the loss of our culture, the loss of our heritage, the loss of land, poverty, long term health issues. You know the list goes on and. That's just something I really want to put to the forefront here at Grand Canyon National Park so that we can acknowledge it and then we can move forward in our healing process. And that's happening here at Grand Canyon in different ways. A really big one is the renaming of Indian Garden to Havasupai Gardens. Because that was done to acknowledge that harsh history and that living connection that the descendants of the people who are forcibly removed from that space still have to that area that is now serves as a campground for backpackers and people who hike into the Canyon. So that even though it's just like changing the name just like that, it made a huge impact on our tribal communities. And it really honors that space and that history and that connection that our tribal communities have to these spaces. So yeah, that's just the message I kind of wanted to end on is that it's possible, despite what's happened in the past, it's possible to move forward. It's possible to welcome ourselves back to our home. And we experienced that in many different ways. But yeah, ahéhee', thank you. And I hope to see you at the Grand Canyon and just always think about when you visit these landscapes, like the history that's tied to it, even where you're from there. I'm pretty sure when you think about it, there's indigenous people from that area who may or may not still have living connections to where you're at. So just really thinking about that and treating these spaces like your home or the home of a loved one because it's our home. Ahéhee', Thank you.

Doug Very well said and I have a couple of presents for you, but I was very moved by your story of how you were able to calm this panicking and mortally wounded bison. So I would like to present you for your refrigerator at home, this official certificate. Can you read what it says?

Kelkiyana Yeah. So it's to: Kelkiyana Yazzie, special designations as an official Grand Canyon National Park, Bison Whisperer.

Doug You are an official bison whisperer now in my mind. So thank you for helping out with our bison folks and you can call yourself on official bison whisperer.

Kelkiyana Oh my gosh, I love it so much. Yeah.

Doug Also, I made you a couple of these little guys, here. You want to explain what these are?

Kelkiyana Oh, thank you. Yeah. So Doug just gave me a couple of split twig figurines. So historically these are made from willow found down by the Colorado River and it's in the shape of like a either a deer or some type of large mammal and yeah, a lot of these are found down in the Canyon and these date back thousands of years and they're still made today by people to wear as jewelry and for other ceremonial and spiritual purposes. But yeah, and back then they would use these and hunting rituals as offerings to have a successful hunt. And yeah, it's just a really, really special thing to have. So thank you, Doug.

Doug OK. You're welcome. This podcast is brought to you by the interpretation team at the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park. Thanks to ranger Alicia for expert podcast editing. We gratefully acknowledge the Native peoples on whose ancestral homelands we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant Native communities who make their home here today. It’s their home too.

Looking Up - Accessing the Night Sky with Kevin Schindler Sep 07, 2024

Kevin Schindler has a career in astronomy spanning nearly thirty years in the Northern Arizona area. Listen in on this episode of Behind the Scenery, where Kevin divulges his atypical career journey, some of his favorite moments and biggest inspirations, debunks misconceptions about accessing the night sky, and offers advice for success in night sky viewing. Just look up! Learn more about Kevin's work at lowell.edu.

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Dave: Hey, this is Dave. Elle: And this is Elle. Dave: We sat down with Kevin Schindler, the Public Information Officer and historian at Lowell Observatory, to chat about his time as an astronomer residence and to learn more about the night sky. Elle: While Dave had the chance to sit down with him in person. I phoned in from the North Rim. Please forgive our audio quality. We tried. Dave: In this episode, we'll be taking Kevin’s advice and looking up at the night sky. To learn more about it. Kevin: My name is Kevin Schindler, and I'm the historian and Public Information Officer at Lowell Observatory, and I've been at Lowell for 28 years. Early on in my career, I was in the public program at Lowell, so I started as a tour guide, then ended up managing the program for a dozen years or something like that. And now I I'm the historian, and so I try to document the history, which is not just back then, but now, it's kind of for me it's not history and current, it's the heritage that we've been doing for a long time. So, the heritage of research. So, I do with that I write articles and some books, and give talks, and kind of help with planning exhibits and that sort of thing. And then for the Public Information Officer, PIO, that's the other half of what I do and that's promoting the observatory. So that's largely the media relations, and so if we have a science story or we're doing something special for our public program, or there's an unusual or interesting astronomical event, like we have eclipses coming up so and so I'll do press releases and media alerts, set up interviews with our staff, host tours with media personnel so that people from around the world coming like to check out Northern Arizona, they'll go to the Grand Canyon, to here in Flagstaff, and so we'll facilitate tours up here at the observatory promoting everything so they'll write about it and let people know. We were talking earlier and mentioned crisis management. We don't have that much here. We do have some things you would call, I don't know, emergencies in a different way or things that you know when we closed for COVID for instance we had to gather and get some information together quickly. I mean there's certainly some of that. My title is Public Information Officer, but it really focuses on the media relations and everyday activities going on that are interesting and people want to know about. Dave: For most of our visitors that come to Grand Canyon when we're giving night sky programs, I find that most people have never looked at, looked up. What's your approach for starting to teach people just the beginning steps about the night sky? Kevin: I think the first thing is just to go outside and look up. It’s as simple as that it. You know, it's so cool to look through telescopes, and you know it's a whole universe revealed when you do that, but most of us don't have access to telescopes. Or maybe you can go and visit an observatory or an astronomy club, but just looking up to me is stunning because there's so much you can see with the unaided eye or with a pair of binoculars you can see more, but there's so much you can see if you just look. I'm reminded of a Yogi Berra. “You can observe a lot by just looking,” and it's really true. And I think part of that is, that you can really notice a lot of things like the moon rising and look at that really bright dot. Go back in a couple of nights to see where it is, how it's changed position. But I think another thing for me that I'd like to tell people just starting to stargaze is, you know, go out and look up, but also, you know, think a little bit about the sky and how important it has been to human culture. Because it's so ingrained with our everyday life. And we think about time, like AM and PM are based on astronomy. The length of the day, the length of the month, the length of the year, that's based on astronomy. Finding your cardinal direction if you're lost, use astronomy, you know whether it's the sun during the day or the North Star or other stars. It is so inspiring to look up and to see a shooting star, or to see a meteor shower, or an eclipse, but also just in our everyday life. How you know from the beginning, people looked up and its astronomy, they called the oldest science, originally called astrology, before it was really a science. Just looking up at the sky and it how much it impacts our everyday life. So just going out and looking up to me is the big first step. Dave: You talked about your background earlier, so I know you studied paleontology and history. How did you get started in astronomy? That's kind of a different career move. Kevin: Yeah. So, I grew up in Ohio and I'm not sure if we ever have clear skies there. It's always cloudy, it seemed like, but I was always interested in fossils. So, I looked down. I was always looking down during the daytime. I never did anything with astronomy. I went to college for geology and paleontology, and then I when I started working at Lowell Observatory in 1995, I applied here and when I was applying, you know the guy interviewing me, who's a friend of mine, now we've known each other for years, he said, “What do you know about the night sky and how many constellations can you identify?” I said “none, but I I'll sure be glad to learn.” And so, I think that's something that I found is sort of beneficial for me at least, when I'm talking to people about the night sky is that it hasn't been a passion all my life. I found it later on, and I really love it. I haven't studied all my life and used all the lingo. I kind of talk about astronomy in the same language that everyday people do. And so, I never have to worry much about talking as it were, over somebody's head, or using lingo that doesn't make sense because I'm conscious of that. And so, I try to explain it. I just started kind of by accident. You know, there's an opening at this place called Lowell Observatory, they do science, they have history, they do outreach. I love all that. So, I mean, it could have been an arboretum, or it could have been a number of things, but it was an observatory. And I've, you know, been doing it for a while now. And so, like now I just you know, I just love it. It's funny if you, if you, I always think of it, life is kind of like one of those mazes you do. You know, you start out, you know you're trying to go from one point to the end, and you go have all these different possible ways of going. And if you start at the start, you might have a couple you're not quite sure where the path is taking you, but if you start at the end and go backwards, it's pretty obvious how to do it, and I think that's probably all of us to some degree. I mean, some people certainly have their life planned out, but so many of us, one turn takes you in a different direction and for me looking back, I can see how I got here, but I sure as heck would never have been able to predict that when I was young. Elle: Can you tell us about the first time that you ever got to view like a deep sky object or a planet or something like that? Kevin: When I started here at Lowell Observatory in 1995, and I actually don't remember the first thing I looked at because we had a couple of things that, it was either Jupiter or Saturn, I think it was both. They were both up in the sky. But it was it was neat because we when I started here, we didn't have all these smaller portable telescopes. We had a big 24-inch diameter, 32-foot-long telescopes, the historic one that still people can look at today, and so just being inside of that room with the red glow of lights, looking through this 32-foot-long behemoth and looking at Jupiter and Saturn, I think it was both. But anyways, it was it was just, just stunning and you know, what stood out to me was again that I was I able to look and see these things up close but it was also almost as stunning that they were so small. Because I didn't have the background in astronomy, most of my connection with astronomy was seeing the cover of National Geographic or things like that that had these spectacular images that were taken by spacecraft that have flown out there. And so that's what I expected to see. And so when I looked through telescopes like, that's really cool, but it sure is small. But again, that's something that has stuck with me to explain to visitors, you know it's not going to be like the cover of a magazine with a processed image that's been blown up and from a spacecraft out there. But imagine what you're doing is you're looking at lights that, you know, if it's the moon, it's light, that start traveling to us half a second ago, and look at the details you can see. And again, I think because of my different background has served me well because I wasn't a hardcore astronomy nerd in the beginning. And so, I just feel like somebody that picked it up as a hobby, except I get paid for it, which is really nice. Elle: What do you think would be the biggest hurdle to accessing the night sky as a layperson, or as somebody who doesn't have a telescope and things like that? And how would you suggest overcoming that hurdle? Kevin: I think the biggest hurdle is finding clear sky or dark sky. 80% of the world can't see the Milky Way Galaxy. They live in a place where you can't see the Milky Way. 80%. So. I mean, that means, you know, 80% of the world lives in populated areas where there's artificial light pollution. I think that's probably the biggest hurdle. I mean, again, it's, it's great to look through telescopes and binoculars and a lot of people just can't afford those. Or are we going to spend money on that when we're trying to put food on the table? And can we afford that? You know, in that case you can find astronomy clubs or go to a place like Lowell Observatory, or the Grand Canyon during the Grand Canyon Star Party, or weekends when or whenever when Grand Canyon does programs. There's different options of even going and especially looking through telescopes, but in general, just finding dark sky and looking up, that's the biggest hurdle. Dave: Actually, talking about this, I was talking about this with fellow rangers, and I was like you, know when I grew up, I grew up right outside New York City. I could see about four stars. Kevin: Yeah, on a good night. Yeah. Dave: And we had one Ranger who we realized has lived in a dark Sky area her entire life growing up. And I was like, you might be the only person in your office that can see the Milky Way the whole time you've grown up. Kevin: Yeah, it's just not that you know percentage wise not that many people are able to see it. And I think that's to me one of the most fascinating, satisfying things is visitors at Lowell Observatory, at the Grand Canyon that are looking up to the sky. And I love this this comment that I've heard over and over, “I thought it was supposed to be clear tonight. Why is that cloud going through there?” That's the center of the Milky Way, and people are just stunned. I mean, I've seen people cry because they've never seen it and. And there's something about seeing that and having that kind of dark sky, that makes you really connected to the to the night sky and the universe around you. We're so in tune with, I mean, we live in this world where we stare at our phones so much and the computer screens and all the technology, which technology is great, but to be able to get away and reconnect with nature in universe, whether it's hiking down a trail at the Grand Canyon or looking up at the night sky, it really it's, it's part of what makes us human: that desire to explore and be inspired around us. And sometimes with all the noise and the lights, and distraction, we lose sight of that. But to be able to, you know, go camping and lay back in your chair and look up - it's just an exhilarating experience. Dave: I'm really curious, like, especially as someone who's still starting to look up at the sky myself, what's your favorite thing or favorite object to look at in the night sky? Kevin: This might sound a little boring, but my favorite thing is the moon because of the history around it, the human and cultural history, because it it's our closest celestial neighbor. And so, from the time humans started talking and communicating ideas, they were telling stories about the moon and part of the creation process for them. Or, you know, the moon is, is such an important part of our lives, from time keeping to the cycles and so on. And then the fact that it's the only world where humans have walked and I'm a big Apollo Astronomy fan and so for me, that's my favorite thing because to be able to zoom in and say I love doing this with visitors, I mean, you can't through the best telescopes on Earth, you can't see the flags or the footprints or that sort of thing. But you can point out the general area and to say that's, you know, that's where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin first set foot in 1969, and for people that were around then, that's one of those Kodak moments that they, you know, it's frozen in their memory exactly where they were when that happened. You know, in more modern times, more often than not, it seems to be like tragic things, like 9/11 or the Challenger disaster or whatever. But you know, human species walking on another world was such an achievement, and the fact that we had TV up there and people could watch it was spectacular. So, the moon for me, I mean there are certainly so many spectacular objects, but the moon is my favorite because it's fun to look at the analogs, things like we have on Earth, you know, like ridges, and where lava tubes are. We have lava tubes up in Northern Arizona, they're on the moon. And looking at craters and comparing those to like Meteor Crater or canyons, you know, like the Grand Canyon. It has it all, plus it has that human history. So that's my favorite thing. Dave: I never thought about canyons on the moon. I know there's one in Mars. Kevin: Yeah, the Mars one. I mean, it makes our Grand Canyon seem puny, cause that the one on Mars, essentially the distance is across the entire United States. But on the moon, it has it not to that scale or anything, but it's got ridges and mountains and canyons and stuff that are, you can see a lot of comparison. Elle: Can you tell us about your favorite night sky experience that you've had? Kevin: Oh gosh, I mean, there's so many. Sharing views through the telescope, or even with laser pointing at stars and constellations, is spectacular to me. When I used to work in a public program here, that was my favorite thing because you know, you sometimes there would be like grandparents and the grandkids. And they're both looking through telescope for the first time together and connecting the generations and the oohs and ahs, that's my favorite general thing, I think, to just, you know, exposing the night sky and to see stuff they never saw before. In terms of a specific one, gosh, I don't know that there's just been so many, like viewing through telescopes with the First Lady of the United States, and with a couple of astronauts, and with other with people like that, that was just neat to share what we do at Lowell Observatory, there are some singular moments like that. But overall, just getting outside and pointing out stuff is what I find most fun. Dave: And I'm curious about this, too. I mentioned a little bit about like me as a kid looking up, but as a young kid, did you ever imagine a dream you'd be doing this job or having these experiences or looking up at the sky all the time? Kevin: Absolutely not. I mean, I was interested in in rocks and fossils, and I had a teacher in high school, my favorite teacher, he was very inspirational. I applied to the school where he went, it's the only school I applied to because I wanted to go where he went, and he had studied geology. And so, you know, somewhere along the way as I got to high school. Well, I don't know if I go back a little bit, like I fell in love with fossils when I was in that golden age of seven or eight. I think that's when so many people find their passion. And I was out collecting blackberries, and the woods behind my farmland in Ohio, and found this rock that have all these little shell things in it. And then I looked down and found another piece, and they fit together, they had split apart. I took it home, my dad shellacked it, and then I did some studying, this is before the Internet, but I found the book and found these things are called brachiopods, you know, evidence of things that lived in the ocean. And I found the rock was a couple hundred million years old. And so, I just found that was fascinating, so I fell in love with it. And as I got to high school, I thought maybe I would do something with geology and paleontology. And I did that and worked in the Museum of Natural History in Florida. And there's a good chance I'd still be there because I really loved that. But I ended up moving out West and yeah, the path has just been unexpected, but I like it because the geology background really gives me a different - it makes it more integrated, like looking at astronomy. Because, you know, as we as we look at, you know, years ago, the moon and the planets, they were all being studied by astronomers. But now those are being studied by geologists because we can examine them and bring rocks back and such. So, to me that background, it makes it more interesting because it connects the two. Dave: Do you think that that's typical of someone in your, in this position, like as a historian and PIO like or do you think that it's helpful to have a different background to get into this? Kevin: I think it's helpful to have a different background. I think you know, you know, it's probably not unusual that people have different backgrounds. Like if you go into, if you want to be an astronomer, a lot of people get an undergraduate degree in physics or mathematics, especially physics, because that's such a key part of astronomy today. And so, I think a multidisciplinary background probably isn't unusual. But for me it wasn't an intended path, it just played out that way. It's like, hey, this sounds cool, I want to do that, and then it's grown. Elle: What advice would you give to someone who is astronomy curious, but is afraid to get into it, or maybe doesn't think that they have the background, you know, kind of like you're saying now? Kevin: I think a big thing is to talk to somebody in the field, like to go to an observatory like Lowell or to, a real easy thing is to go to an astronomy club, amateur astronomers that set up telescopes and stuff. But I think it's to talk to somebody in the field because I really believe that if you're passionate about something, you can make a career out of it. You might not make as much money studying astronomy as if you were on Wall Street, but if you really love it enough - why not do that? You can make it work. And you know there's different ways of being in astronomy. You can be a research astronomer in which typically you'll go to college and get your PhD and such, but you could do astronomy education where you have a passion for it, maybe you don't have a PhD, but you still have an amazing knowledge of the night sky. You could be a science writer, that you have this interest in science, but you also like to write. That could turn you into a historian also you like, you know the history of scientific exploration. So, there's different ways of going into whether it's astronomy or geology. Like if you love geology, you could be a ranger at the Grand Canyon National Park. You have one of the most spectacular geology laboratories in your backyard and you get paid to talk about it every day, that's not a bad gig. Do what you love and get paid for it. And so, I think it, you know, talking to people in the field, and I think what you said, you know, astronomy is one of those things that can sound intimidating. I don't know how many times I've heard people say I would have, I was going to go into that, but the math killed me. But there are other things you can do. I mean, my degree is in geology, I work in an observatory, I've been here 28 years, I haven’t got a pink slip yet. And I do history, I do public information, I did the education program for years, if you like it, you can find a way. Elle: Yeah, I get what you're saying. I know, for me personally, I majored in Writing in College and now I'm a park Ranger, and a lot of people are really surprised by that, that I didn't major in Forestry or, you know, Conservation Ecology or anything like that. Kevin: Right, But that's okay. I mean sometimes, it you know it's a very definite path, but there are so many other things you can do in a field. And you still write probably in some capacity or another, right? Elle: Yeah, I do. Kevin: And the skills you learned, I mean, writing is one of those skills that even if it's not writing a novel, it's skills you get that is going to benefit you in whatever you do. Elle: Absolutely. And as a writer myself, I'm curious to know if there's a story that you've ever heard that's changed your life, whether or not it's related to astronomy. Kevin: Well, to some degree, yes. I mean like, working here at Lowell Observatory and studying like our founder Percival Lowell really changed my thinking on things because he was looking for life in the universe. That's why he started the observatory. So, to me, it kind of connects my interest in paleontology with astronomy. I think Clyde Tombaugh was another one that I learned about, and I think to me is a very inspiring character because he was self-taught. Just what I was talking about, he didn't have the money to go to school, and so he did astronomy on his own sense and drawings off to see what the professionals thought. And it led to him getting a job. So, he was really passionate about it. And oh, by the way, a year later, he discovered a planet. You never know where your path is going to take you. But I think his story is really, you know, learning that story is really inspiring because it's a great case of, you know, the little boy who did, the little train that could. You know, he didn't have the resources, but he made it happen. He didn't have the money, but he had the passion. I think his story to me is really inspiring. And I mean something else that, you know, when I learned more about the astronauts, and going to the moon. I mean, you know, I certainly was familiar with the astronauts going to the moon, but being out here, you know, the Grand Canyon where they trained and the Lowell Observatory where some trained. Northern Arizona was just such a hotbed for the training. And again, combining the geology with the astronomy. When I really got into that, it really changed things because I, you know, had done the book about that, and really enjoyed talking about that. And that's one of the things that really got me connected to the Grand Canyon and doing the residency because that interest in the human exploration of the moon. And then the fact that we're going back, and astronauts are going to some of the same places in Northern Arizona for their training. Again, for me, I like history for the sake of what happened, but also seeing it as the foundation of what's happening today. And so, whether it's the Grand Canyon, or Lowell Observatory, or astronomy in general, or geology, it's, you know, it's the stuff that's been going on for a long time. And Pluto was discovered in 1930, but that was kind of the beginning phase of our studying another planet and it's still so much up for debate. Is Pluto planet or not? Of course, is a big debate question. But it inspires us to explore more and learn more. Dave: I think the story that I like is that he's just not a classically trained astronomer that discovers a planet, and I found that story just so interesting because that that's all people I'm surrounded with are not trained astronomers. Kevin: Right. And it's another example of somebody who got into the field that he liked, and maybe not on a traditional route. And after he discovered Pluto, he got a free ride to go to college, you know, discovered a planet, you know, you get pretty well known. But, but that's a certainly a non-traditional route, but again an example like I was saying before of if you're passionate about something, you're going to find a way to get into that field and make a living. And I really think that's the case. If you're passionate enough about something, you make it happen. Another thing with Pluto is there are so many angles to it that are so unlikely. Like, that you know, Clyde Tombaugh himself, the self-trained guy who he had the attention to detail and the work ethic to follow this this plan and find a planet. The idea that Percival Lowell’s research predicted the existence of this planet, and Clyde Tombaugh found a planet very close to where Percival thought it should be. But now we know today that Clyde Tombaugh didn't find the planet that Lowell thought was there, he just happened to find something. Because Lowell thought there was a much larger planet whose gravity was pulling on the Earth and Neptune. Pluto is a lot smaller. It doesn't cause those regular motions like they thought were happening. They just happened to find Pluto right there. It, it's just there's so many unlikely things with it. It's a great story and then it continues in 2014 or 2015 when New Horizons went by, and his big heart-shaped region on Pluto. I know there's a lot of personality being Pluto because especially when it got reclassified, there's a lot of people upset because, you know, that's our planet that was discovered in America and, you know, a small-town guy did that. And so, there's a lot of passion and love for Pluto, and then it's got this heart-shaped feature. And it was discovered four days after Valentine's Day. So, I don't know, there's just so many weird, fun coincidences with it. Dave: We always talk about Pluto, especially here because that has a real connection to Lowell. Kevin: Right. Dave: And you know, I think too talking about the connection with, you know Grand Canyon as a dark sky place, and Flagstaff is a Dark Sky City. Do you find that there's a relationship that this is just a naturally dark area, or is there something larger at work here to try and keep it that way? Kevin: Well, both. I mean, when Percival Lowell came out here, the reason he came to Arizona is because he got interested in astronomy and one of his, I mean he was he was trained at Harvard in mathematics. And so, but he wasn't, and he had this interest in astronomy all his life. But he had gone overseas, he worked for the family business, went overseas, and it wasn't until he's 39 that he started the observatory. But he sent an assistant out here to find a good spot because, you know Lowell lived in Boston, but realized that wasn't a good place to put an observatory, because there's a lot of artificial light, and this was before artificial light and light pollution was really a thing for astronomy, but he recognized this. That you know, he was in Boston and electric lights were becoming commonplace and they were shining. This is great, we have light we can see at night, we can extend our day as it. But there’s always something on the other side, it always balances out. We can see more at night, but it also is artificially polluting the night you know with artificial light. Lowell recognized that back east it wasn't good, because there's artificial light, and there’s also pollution from smoke from factories that that were some of his family’s factories. But he decided to go out West. He was one of the first people to really think about where to locate an Observatory, and he sent an assistant out to Arizona territory, this is 18 years before Arizona State in 1894. And he went, his name was Andrew Douglas, and he went to Tombstone, Tucson, Tempe, Prescott, and ended up in Flagstaff and the skies were just brilliant. In fact, at that time Flagstaff was nicknamed the Skylight City because the brilliance of the stars against the night sky. Just coincidence, well, kind of coincidence. It was a dark place, and so they set up shop here. And then in the late 50s, the observatory acquired a new big telescope, and they were trying to figure out where exactly to put it and realized that they wouldn't put it right on site to traditional Lowell Observatory because Flagstaff had grown and there were now lights, you know, shining up here, they decided to put it outside of town about a dozen miles. But there are some searchlights that occasionally shined up, and so one of our retired astronomers, who, by the way, had been mayor of Flagstaff at one time, he still had connections with the with the city leadership and he said, “Can you guys write some sort of ordinance that limits the use of that artificial light, just so the astronomers at certain times, they can go out and see the night sky and they won't have these search lights?” And so, they created this ordinance in 1958, and that was the world's first artificial light ordinance anywhere, right here in Northern Arizona. And since then, the community and Coconino County have updated and created other ordinances to protect the night skies. And in fact, Northern Arizona is a model for places around the world to do this. And of course, Grand Canyon National Park since 2019 is a dark sky park. And so, I think part of it was originally this, you know, this was a dark, dark, pristine sky. Not just dark, but, but you know higher elevation so there's less cloud cover, there's less atmosphere. Looking through you feel closer to the stars in some way, so there's that natural feel. But then it’s a community that is really scientifically tuned in to the universe around us, whether it's the rocks or the skies. And so, there's a real interest by people who live in this area to protect those resources, whether it's the rocks of the Grand Canyon or the dark skies. Dave: I'm curious, too, so we have tons of people that are like first time in Grand Canyon, first time in the area and they look up and like, oh, it's really dark here. Like, what advice would you give to someone who lives in a really bright place to take that home with them, to do something different there? Kevin: I think, I mean you know the one thing with artificial light and light pollution, you know in general it's not an attempt, you know, trying to keep the skies dark. It's not an attempt to get rid of artificial light, it's just to use it more appropriately. I mean you don't need to shine lights up in the sky for trying to, you know, illuminate a sidewalk. And different types of lights, I mean, you can have like types of light that doesn't interfere with our dark sky viewing as much. But also, the whole dark sky movement started with astronomy, but now scientists have shown that it negatively impacts life. It throws light, you know, night life off its cycles, animals think it's daytime in some cases. And so, there's obviously some negative impact to it. But I think, you know, for those people who live in a bright area, come here, view our dark and go home. One is to, you know, go out and try to find those dark places and view it, but also, you know, we can all do our part. You can use properly shielded lights in your backyard. Instead of, you know, they're different types of lighting you can use, so we can all do that our own ourselves and improve it a little bit. Plus, in the long run, quite often you can, you know, illuminate cheaper. You don't need as much lighting, for instance, in a lot of cases. And so, in some cases, you know, people will go back and start a movement, a grassroots movement to try to keep the skies dark. Or like in Grand Canyon National Park where Raider Lane worked with a lot of people, I know to change the lighting out. To have the park designated as the Dark Skies Park required adjusting the lighting what was used, how it was used and such. But that really made a huge difference. You go to the Grand Canyon and it’s even more stunning at night. There just isn't as much light pollution and it's, I don't think there's any evidence that it's not as safe or anything, it's just you're able to see the night sky more and it's more of a dramatic experience if that's possible. It is. It's more dramatic than it was before. Dave: We had, we went out to Tuweep, and we were like out in this really remote place, and the lone park ranger out there was like, look, you see that one light? That was the only light we had to change here. And he changed his spotlight that goes on the American flag from a white one to a red one. And was like, “that's really all we had to do.” But that was like, you know, the entire park did it all across both rims and it's a huge effort. Kevin: It was, yeah. Dave: Yeah, I know they did the final last final few structures up on North Rim as well. Our electrician went and retrofitted all those. Kevin: Yeah. And it and it hasn't changed or negatively impacted the visitor experience. It's improved it because, you know Tyler Nordgren, who was the first astronomer in residence, and he coined the phrase, “half the park is after dark.” And that's so apparent. Especially, you know, after the lighting was changed out. You know, you go, and you see the rocks during daytime and instead of just nighttime, you go and have dinner and go to bed, go outside and look at the sky. Oh my gosh, it's stunning. So, you have both the daytime and nighttime experience there. Elle: My final thought or question is what do you wish that everybody knew about the night sky? Kevin: I think what everybody should know about the night sky, I think that it's, that we can all do something to make it more accessible to everybody and we can all do our part. To you know, maybe leave those lights off or use a different kind of lighting, but so that's an important thing. But I think, I don't know, I think I still go back to the fact that it's accessible to anybody who could look up. If you can lookout or look up, it’s accessible to anybody. It's nice to look through telescopes, but you don't need that. You can be wowed by the night sky just by looking up, especially in a darker area. So, I think that that's probably the biggest thing that it's a resource for everybody. Nobody owns it. It's something available to anybody who can look up. And, you know, if you like, like my background is in fossils. You know, if you're, you know, depending on where you are, you might not have fossils around you, you have to go somewhere. Everybody has a night sky like, you know, if you can look up it's just some places that brighter than others. So what can we do about that? Dave: We gratefully acknowledge the native peoples on whose ancestral homelands we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant native communities who make their homes here today. Thanks for joining us for another behind the Scenery Podcast episode. We'd like to thank Kevin and the whole team at Lowell Observatory located in Flagstaff, AZ, for hosting us and taking the time to chat with us. We hope to have more programming with Kevin and the rest of the crew in the future.

Art and Activism with Amy Martin Aug 08, 2024

“It makes me want to work harder to protect it, just seeing both how alternatively resilient and fragile it is. I think the more I am connected, the more I want to work towards helping preserve it.”

How do you protect the places you care about? In this episode, Amy Martin explores how photography became her medium for telling stories and helping to protect the places she loves. See her work at amysmartinphotography.com.

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Hannah: It was one of my chaotic questions too. Amy: Oh yeah right, So wait what was the question so I can think about it for one second? Hannah: Yeah. Hannah: Welcome back to another fun conversation with Amy Martin. I'm Ranger Hannah, and if you haven't listened to the episode where Amy and I discuss her personal connection to the Canyon, I highly suggest you give that a listen, then listen to this. In this episode, Amy and I talked about her photography activism in the work she's done with Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni, Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument. And at the time of recording this episode, it was not yet a national monument and became one, just about a week after recording this. So let's jump into the episode and learn more about Amy Martin's photography activism. Hannah: So I’m sitting here with Amy Martin and so excited because I love her work and I first learned about her last year when she talked here at Grand Canyon. And her work is specifically in photography. And I'm curious what drew you to photography? Amy: A few things I think did. I always was a very visual person growing up, and I thought everyone was, you know, as we do. When we’re you we think everyone thinks the same way we do. And so I would just stare at scenes and, you know, take in detail, and look at the light, and stare at people. laughter But so I did a lot of different visual art growing up, but my mom was an amateur photographer, and so she documented our life growing up. And I kind of took, you know, after her, I inherited her a little camera. Hannah: Yes! Amy: And just with my kind of fast paced life drawing kind of went to drawing and painting, went to the side. And it was amazing that there was this device that we were able to capture a moment of time in, you know, a millisecond. So yeah, that's really what started what drew me to photography. Hannah: I love it. So, when you got drawn into photography from when you initially started and the different projects you've worked at, how has your photography style changed? Amy: I feel like, that is a very good question, I feel like for the different projects that I do, my photography style changes kind of to meet the story. To either, I work a lot with different organizations, both environmental and social organizations, and so I feel like this style of photography, I try to kind of match what story these organizations want or the mood. Yeah. Over time, it's definitely got, I've gotten a lot more into documentary style photography. Hannah: So when taking a photo, what is the goal? Are you trying to tell a story? Catch a glimpse of many moments, or is there something else? Amy: Yeah, I think with the goals really, it's kind of twofold. And one is to really be true to this story. I think there's a lot of ethics involved in, you know, in good photography. And so I really try to be true to the story that's being told. And the second is I'm really trying to make a really compelling photo and compelling photos I think can have so much power. You know, for the good or the worse, but hopefully for the good. So, with these photos, we can you know, now we can share on so many different types of platforms and it far reaches, you know, to the end of the world. But if we take Grand Canyon as an example, if we have a really compelling photo of Grand Canyon that can create a connection for somebody, somebody who maybe has never even been to Grand Canyon, you know, and they can experience that beauty. And for me, if they can experience that, they have that connection. And then, you know, because I do so much advocacy work, then they can potentially become advocates, even if they have never walked the edge of Grand Canyon or seen it, you know, in person. They can they can connect with it. Hannah: Yeah Amy: I think that really is my goal. Hannah: So with connections, would you say that's how your work initially started as you were trying to form connections? Or when do you think you finally made the realization that you were helping connect people? Amy: Yeah, I think when the photographs are used in advocacy work, and that's what I do a lot with both social organizations and with environmental organizations, is, you know, if they are used for, you know, advocacy work, fundraising and volunteer recruitment, all of these different things, when those are successful, like I know that those photographs have connected with other people with a greater audience then could connect with them without, you know, actually being there. laughter Hannah: Yeah, it's really cool. I love, I just love being able to connect people and I'm excited that you use photography as that route. And so, you talk about how you've been working on different projects. And I'm curious because one of the projects that you're going to talk about here at the park. How did you get involved with the proposed monument Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni, the Grand Canyon National Monument? Amy: So I got involved with the monument proposal and, you know, documenting some of the different areas and activities on it through Grand Canyon Trust. I was asked. So, Grand Canyon Trust is acting as an umbrella organization for the proposal. Hannah: Okay Amy: And so they're working with the tribal coalition. Grand County Tribal Coalition, and dozens of other smaller organizations nationally and local, like to come together for this for this push. Hannah: Yeah. Amy: So, yeah, that's how. That's how I got involved in it. Hannah: Sweet. What experiences have you taken from working on Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni Grand Canyon National Monument? Amy: So the experiences, I think the most important experiences that I take away from my time up there are the connections that people have to his land, to this landscape. And I had been in all three sections. So there's three different sections of the proposed monument. One is in the South on the on the Kaibab National Forest to the south of Grand Canyon. One to the east, kind of on the marble platform that is adjacent to Grand Canyon in Marble Canyon. And the other one is mostly up on the Kanab Plateau, which is out to the west. And so, these are very extremely varied landscapes. Hannah: Yeah. Amy: Yeah. Tall ponderosa forests on the south, too. Sage lands in the east and grassland in the west, all sorts of landscapes. But what really stuck with me was that through this process of photographing and getting to know people who have connections to the landscape is that there are very, there are many very different, very strong, very powerful connections to each of these areas. In the South there is the Havasupai tribe have one of their very important sites, cultural sites, Red Butte. The West, there are a lot of ranchers and hunters that have close ties to that that are also in support of the monument, which is very interesting, you know, because when you think about monuments, a lot of times ranchers and hunters are excluded. But this monument proposal is inclusive of bringing of allowing those activities to still happen on the landscape. And then in the east, the recreationalist have so much so many ties as well. Of course, there, you know, which I think has been overlooked for so long, are the ties that people have had even before this even for Grand Canyon was a park. Hannah and Amy: Yeah. Amy: So I think being a tribally led monument proposal is so important, Right? Because there has been such a long history of exclusion from decision making and leadership roles that that is something that I that I really support. And getting to know those ties so much more through this experience has yeah has really secured that in my mind. Hannah: So when taking all those different photographs and going to the different, the three different environments and learning about other people's connections, how did that make you feel? Amy: So working on the proposal and photographing the different areas and making these connections to all of these, you know, people who come from different backgrounds, who have deep and powerful connections to place. In one hand you know, it kind of feels like family, that there are people that have, you know, like me, strong connections to a place. And it also has felt, you know, it gives me so much respect. And I know that I will never have as strong of a connection to these places as people do whose ancestors have been here even before this land was a park and who have been here since time memorial. And so there are 11 different, you know, federally recognized Associated Tribes of the Grand Canyon, many of those with ties to these three different areas that are proposed within the monument and their culture is the landscape. Their language has been created with the landscape. Yeah, it's inextricably linked. So, you know, seeing that and hearing those stories has been really powerful and really beautiful. Hannah: So I know you've been involved with many different projects with Grand Canyon. So I'm curious how has that affected your overall connection to the canyon? Amy: Yeah. So, I think every different trip into the canyon, you know, you learn more. Hannah: Yeah. Amy: You know, and it has like I, it has so many facets. It's got thousands of side canyons and hidden gems and jewels everywhere. And so, you know, when I started, I started doing PSAR, so I was working mostly with visitors and then made my, you know, made my way down into the canyon working at one of the backcountry stations. And so that was, you know, a very intimate experience. And you're seeing the seasons change I was there from April to October. So you see, you know, these little minute changes that are happening down there, you know, that I don't think I would have been able to see if I just, you know, came in with so many times. And from there, you know, I started understanding, you know, all of these connections, like the water connection being on the river and really made me want to do more in conservation. And so then I went into the fisheries biology. And so, like, it's just been like these step stones, like getting deeper and deeper, Hannah: Yes! Amy: Not to be, not to make that analogy, the deeper you go into the canyon. But yeah, it's just it makes me want to, like, work harder to protect it, you know, just seeing both how alternatively resilient and fragile it is. I think the more I am connected, the more I want to work towards helping preserve it. Hannah: Is there any word of advice as being a photography activist and helping with these different projects that you would give to someone that is entering the photography field? Amy: Oh yeah, that's a good one. Yeah. You know, for me, I'm thinking what has really helped me has been thinking about these photographs not only in like two dimensional world, but, you know, doing your research and really understanding what you know, what it is you are photographing. So get, get really close to your subjects by understanding what it is, which story you do want to tell and getting close if it is the people spending time with them and really connecting with them. And if it's a landscape spending, you know, like as much time as you have out there experiencing it and seeing what kind of, you know, magic happens instead of just going out looking for that one photograph, It's more of a, it's more of this long process of like getting close to getting close to your subject. Understanding, you know, researching. Hannah: I love it because all of this comes back to different connections. And I appreciate that you use photography and I appreciate you taking the time to sit down and talk about the different topics we've talked about today. Thank you so much. Amy: Thank you so much, Hannah. I feel very lucky to be here. Thank you so much. Hannah: Yes! Hannah: I can't express enough how grateful I am for my time to chat with Amy Martin about her work and her being down to just go with the flow as I came up with new questions on the spot. Thank you, Amy, for matching my chaotic energy, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of your work. We gratefully acknowledge the Native peoples on whose ancestral homelands we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant native communities who make their home here today. Amy: Can you cut that out? Hannah: Yeah, I can cut it out. laughter

Looking Down - Kevin Schindler's Time as Astronomer-In-Residence Jul 06, 2024

Explore the parallels of time between the stars and rock formations at Grand Canyon with May 2023 Astronomer-In-Residence, Kevin Schindler. Kevin is the Historian and Public Information Officer at Lowell Observatory, where he’s worked for 28 years. Tune into this where Kevin shares about his time as Grand Canyon’s Astronomer-In-Residence, his insights on the night sky, and his experience retracing the steps of the Apollo 11 astronauts who trained at Grand Canyon. Learn more about Kevin's work at lowell.edu

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Dave: Hey, this is Dave. Elle: And this is Elle. Dave: We sat down with Kevin Schindler, the Public Information Officer and Historian at Lowell Observatory, to chat about his time as an Astronomer-In-Residence, and to learn more about the night sky. Elle: While Dave had the chance to sit down with him in person, I phoned in from the North Rim. Please forgive our audio quality, we tried. Oh, that was the most awkward little laugh. *laughing* Elle: In this episode, we'll be looking down on Kevin's experiences as an Astronomer-In-Residence within the Canyon. Kevin: My name is Kevin Schindler, and I'm the Historian and Public Information Officer at Lowell Observatory, and I've been at Lowell for 28 years. Early on in my career, I was in the public program at Lowell, so I started as a tour guide, then ended up managing the program for a dozen years or something like that. And now I'm the Historian, and so I try to document the history, which is not just back then, but now, it's kind of for me it's not history and current, it's the heritage that we've been doing for a long time. So, the heritage of research. So, I do with that I write articles and some books, and give talks, and kind of help with planning exhibits and that sort of thing. And then for the Public Information Officer, PIO, that's the other half of what I do and that's promoting the observatory. So that's largely the media relations, and so if we have a science story or we're doing something special for our public program, or there's an unusual or interesting astronomical event, like we have eclipses coming up so and so I'll do press releases and media alerts, set up interviews with our staff, host tours with media personnel so that people from around the world coming like to check out Northern Arizona, they'll go to the Grand Canyon, to here in Flagstaff, and so we'll facilitate tours up here at the observatory promoting everything so they'll write about it and let people know. Dave: You were a former Astronomer-In-Residence as well. Kevin: Right, I served as Astronomer-In-Residence in May of 2023, and that was just a spectacular experience. Dave: What drew you into the program and why did you apply for the program? Kevin: Well, I've worked with uh Raider Lane, the Dark Sky Ranger and other folks at Grand Canyon over the past - gosh, it's been years now - doing some research, retracing where the Apollo astronauts trained in 1960s, but also other things like, I mean like Bucky O'Neill has always been an interest of mine, Theodore Roosevelt’s role in Grand Canyon National Park, which is a really interesting, politically charged sometimes, topic. And so those were besides, just the dark skies, and I I've been to star parties for years, the Grand Canyon Star Party. So, it's kind of a combination of, you know, working with folks up there, and working on some projects here and there. But the reason I applied was the opportunity to be up there for a full month and really zoom in on this, you know, rephotographing where the astronauts trained because we have a lot of photographs from NASA and the US Geological Survey, they trained to pinpoint where those pictures were taken. It's a lot of fun and it can be frustrating, but it's fun and it means hiking into the Canyon and you know, at one point I was walking back and forth, I think about a half a mile, and just below O'Neil Butte, going back and forth about a half a mile, trying to line up this one rock that was split along the trail and I could see a little bit of the background that wasn't changing much. So, it's just a really fun project, but that's the reason I applied was to try to really spend more time with that. Dave: It sounds like a really interesting project, yeah. Kevin: And then also you know it was kind of a combination of that was the main project, it was rephotographing, but also giving daytime programs on some non-astronomy history and then doing you know star parties at night. I mean what a cool place. And so, when I was there, I did something like 30 programs for the month. Which were a combination of like from a walking tour of the cemetery, a history tour, to talking about Bucky O'Neill and Brighty the Burrow, which is a really fascinating story. And then, of course, the astronauts and the night sky, there's so many different things to do. I mean, you could spend the rest of your life working on so many projects there. Dave: Yeah, I think that's maybe a little bit different about your programming while you were there, was that you did do some daytime stuff. What was your favorite part of your experience? Kevin: I think the people. Because like you mentioned, this is a program with the Grand Canyon National Park supported by the Grand Canyon Conservancy, the financial arm of the National Park, as it were. And it was, it was so fun to be able to get to know a whole cadre of different people that are really passionate about the same thing. I work at Lowell. You guys work at the Grand Canyon, but we're all passionate about the universe around us and preserving it and exploring it and sharing it with others, and the inspiration that comes. So, I think that was the biggest thing, whether it was talking to visitors and showing them views through the telescope for the first time, which is always a thrill for me, or working with the Grand Canyon Conservancy staff. You know they; I was living at Verkamp's store and down below or upstairs and down below is the store and the visitor center. But the staff rotates every day among several different stores in the park. And so, I got to know just about everybody on the retail staff. And then the rest of the team like Clover Morrell and others that work in the office, it was just, it was just great, and you like through this, I got to know you and go to the North Rim and, you know, work with a lot of people I hadn't before. So, like I think that, I mean there's the obvious things of the Canyon. I mean I I've been to the Canyon a lot, but living there is a different experience, but really the biggest thing was the people and sharing the excitement. Elle: Kevin, what would you say was the most surprising part of that experience? Kevin: I think probably that even though I've been to the Grand Canyon a bunch of times and hiked down and done rim to river back when I was younger, and you know, not, you know, maybe not as smart or not, I was in better shape. Like I think, of all that, really still being there for a month, living there, just how connected you are to the universe. I mean, every time I go, my wife and I go, we want to as we're driving back home, we say “okay, let's plan our next trip.” But you know, we've been there for a few days, a week maybe, but being there for a month where during the daytime, you look down and you see these layers of rock, the time that's represented, and at nighttime you look up and you're looking back in time also it's just, you know, you're looking at starlight. I think, I'm not sure - I expected that, but not to that level where I really felt just really so connected to it. I think that was probably the biggest thing because I thought, okay, I'm going to be here for the month, this is going to be great. I'll just do, it'll be more of what I felt before, but it was a new experience. It was just, it was like I was in an alien place because I was there day and night. It wasn't just visiting there. Elle: How did you find those spots to recreate the photos? Kevin: So, we have, we have these photographs from NASA and the US Geological Survey, and there's probably, I don't know, a few dozen of them and some of them, from my experience hiking, they're pretty obvious. Like O'Neill Butte, you know, you see it standing in the background, it’s obvious. And some of the places I was kind of familiar with. Others, I talked to people a lot more familiar with the Grand Canyon than me, Dennis Foster is a local, he lives in Flagstaff, but he's very familiar with Grand Canyon, and Bill Farris and some others that we're able to pinpoint it. Carl Bowman, who’s another expert on the Canyon. So, they helped me kind of narrow down where some of these things were. And then in other cases, it was just you know, I knew, you know there are like a bunch of them are along the South Kaibab Trail, somewhere along there. There, there are a couple that I just bumbled upon, and when I saw them, I thought, my gosh, how did I miss this before? So, it's kind of a combination, of a you know, going on a sleuthing expedition. So, every time I found one, it's really kind of satisfying. Dave: What do you think your favorite one was? Is there a particular spot that you really liked trying to pinpoint? Kevin: Oh, gosh. I'm not sure if I have a favorite one like there's there are several pictures of Neil Armstrong and one of him at the Fossil Fern Exhibit, and I like that one because my background is paleontology. And so, it ties together paleontology and of course the rocks, the Grand Canyon, and Neil Armstrong, who, like me, was from Ohio. And so, I voice, you know, he's one of my favorite astronauts, partly because that besides, you know, obviously what he did and so that one has a lot of personal meaning. Another one down, it's Havasupai Gardens, where the astronauts had hiked up then got mules there, and there's a picture of one of the mercury astronauts, Gordon Cooper on a mule. And so, this one wasn't too hard to find a spot just right by the mule paddock, as it were. But several years ago, I wanted to recreate that shot when I first started doing this and so there was a wrangler there, her name is Tex Parker, and she was riding, and I asked her if she'd pose for a picture. I showed it to her, and she said “sure,” and she did this spectacular pose and just this cute smile and everything, and then after we were done, you know, I showed that picture in different programs I've done. But when I did the Astronomer-In-Residence, I told her I wanted to rephotograph it because her head was cocked once to the left instead of the right. It was really almost like an inside joke because it wasn't that big a deal, but we arranged a time to meet down there and so she brought her wagon train down and she reposed, and she had been practicing. And so, she not only got the head tilted the right way but had the same look on her face. So that was fun because that's something that led to a long-lasting friendship now that we just kind of stumbled on. So that's, I'm getting into a long answer, but those are a couple of the ones that are kind of fun. My gosh, there's, again it involves the people, like down at Phantom Ranch trying to figure out where this one picture was taken, and Sjors I don't remember his last name, but he's a legend in in the Grand Canyon, he volunteered there for 30 years and I showed this to him and he said, oh, that's looks like cabin eight, or I think it was cabin eight. And we walked over there and sure enough, you know, the background rocks and everything have lined up perfectly. And another personal thing with that is that I was when, I had got this lined up that trip, I was giving a talk that night about the astronauts. And so earlier that day, I went back to rephotograph the spot right by the cabin and the people who were staying in the cabin, there's somebody there that were outside. So, I showed this picture and said, hey, you're staying in this cabin, look at this, these astronauts are there, and that's pretty neat. And hey, I’m doing the program tonight, come on over. So, I give the program that and I noticed this one guy looking at me like closer than everybody else. It was kind of odd, and afterwards he came up and said, “Kevin, do you remember me?” And it was a guy I went to college with, he was in my class, and we haven't seen each other in well, and I won’t divulge how long it's been since I was in college, but it was like 3 decades plus. And, Ed White, and of all the things he said every year, he and his friends rent a cabin at the bottom and hike down and stay a couple of nights, and that happened to be the weekend. And so, we reconnected after all these years because of rephotographing, you know the spot, so that that had a lot of personal connection, also. So yeah, I think it just you know, I think to me Grand Canyon is like Lowell Observatory in a lot of ways, that people go to either place and are stunned and they're great experiences, but it's the people working there that interpret and explain and inspire that that put it all in context, and that's what makes Lowell Observatory and the Grand Canyon so spectacular. It's one thing to see them, which is great, but having - whether it's Rangers at Grand Canyon or educators at Lowell - it's having it explained and put in context, that you know, that those are always the best comments we get from people of so and so really helped me see, it or really explained it well. And so that's something I think, one of many things the Canyon and Lowell have in common, you know something exciting for people to see, but also the staff to get people excited about it. Dave: During your experience, you know, we talked about staff and thing, what was the most impactful thing you learned from the Canyon itself? Kevin: I think, I'm not sure if you would say I learned it, but I think so, but it really impacted me by living there and seeing what I was saying before about time, and how we're looking down at the rocks are up in the sky, but the similarities with them. You know, the rocks, you look, they appear to be so stable layer after layer that have been there a long time. The same thing when you look up the sky at night. Every night the Big Dipper is rising, you know, with all, it looks the same. You know the sun rises every day very predictable. But if you look at either one of them closely, you see that beneath that stability is chaos. Like you go to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and the Vishnu basement rocks that are contorted and twisted around. Or if you look closely at the sun and it's, you know, 27,000,000 degrees and these thermonuclear reactions going on that, I just really saw so much similarity in, you know, we're looking back in time in different ways, but they both they both have a lot in common. I think that that really stood out to me more than anything. One thing that I want to do is you know, you look at different layers of the rocks and when they were laid down and then comparing that to something in space whose life started traveling to us at the same time, those rocks were laid down. So, you know, there's a couple million light years away, for instance. Now the rocks in the Canyon were laid down hundreds of millions and longer ago. And so, you look at things in space that are that age, you know, like a distant Galaxy or whatever and it's neat to think that the light that is touching my eye now started traveling when there was no Grand Canyon, these rocks were being laid down. It's magnificent to think of the time it takes for things to happen in the universe. And that's what I think you know, I mean you look at the Grand Canyon, you know you see these layers of rocks and you're looking back in time, but the being, standing on the edge like at sunset and seeing the depth of the Canyon and the hundreds of millions of years represented, and then at the same time, you see stars starting to come out and think. You're, again, you're looking back in time at that light. It was just really such a visceral experience. Elle: It seems like your geology and astronomy interests lined up pretty well on this residency, then. Can you tell us a little more about that? Kevin: Yeah, my background is in geology. I went to College in Ohio, Marietta College, and I focused on paleontology, and I worked at a museum in Florida, the Florida Museum of Natural History, for six years. And so that's always been a love of mine, soft rocks for fossils, and you know the Grand Canyon, that's mostly what it is. It's layer upon layer of fossiliferous rock of one sort or another. And again, it's looking back in time that's just fascinating. I mean, I'm a, I'm a historian and so, you know, at Lowell Observatory, I look back in time in some ways, decades or 100 years at the operations of the observatory are things that happened. But I'm also looking back in time at, you know, when the period of heavy bombardment on the moon, you know, billions of years ago. Or looking back at Jupiter, you know, millions of years ago, but then the Grand Canyon, looking back, hundreds of millions of years, it's all it's all looking back in time and it's just, it's such a neat connection for me. Dave: When you visited us, with us at North Rim, you talked about your upcoming book, and I was really curious about how the progress was going, and what that would look like, and maybe a little bit of an overview of what’s going to be in it. Kevin: Sure, sure! So, the book is called, it's a, it's a series called Past and Present, put out by History Press/Arcadia press, it’s the same thing, essentially. And so, it's a series where they do these past, it's a past and present series that focuses, usually on communities, so it's historic pictures and then the modern counterpart taking the same place; rephotography. And so, my publisher asked if I would do something for Flagstaff, which I might still want to do, but I thought, “how about Grand Canyon?” Because it would be neat to kind of document, you know, what it was like 50 years, 100 years ago to what it looks like today? You know the like, where visitors go to hotels, and trails, and visitor centers and stuff like that. So that's what this is, and it comes out January 1st and it's something like, I don't know 160 images. Again, then and now. So, the cover has a picture of Lookout Studio taken about 100 years ago and then what it looks like now. And so that again was, it was fun and during my time as the resident astronomer, I worked on that some specifically on the astronomy related stuff. So, we were rephotographing the astronauts, but also there are a couple of times like when I visited you at the North Rim, we photographed the Brighty statue. Dave: Right. Kevin: So, I actually had to go back and rephotograph again because the angle. But it turns out that the base, the statue has been moved and so you can't recreate it exactly, it's been moved several feet from the pictures that I have. But anyway, so there's some like that that we're that we're fun to get when I was up there. So yeah, that comes out January 1st and it's kind of fun for me because I've done seven or eight books and mostly about astronomy and astronomy history, but to do one specifically about the Grand Canyon is pretty neat. And so, I'm excited about that. Dave: It's interesting too, because when you think of all these buildings, I'm always like, well, it's historic preservation, they should be exactly the same. But I'm sure that that's just not true. Kevin: Oh yeah, that's right. And then you say exactly the same when because you like, building one at the Canyon that was originally the administration building, there's a picture we have that's in in the book and it has the building as it was originally, but they expanded it and now it has, you know, it's got the garage, it's got another wing. And I think that, you know, at the Grand Canyon, that was typical that buildings, if it went out of use for one thing, it was repurposed or something else. So, there's a lot of buildings that change because they were repurposed. And so that, you know, there is a on the North Rim, there's a, it was a mule paddock that's not being used anymore. But then there is there's a place that at the South rim, that was, I think it was at one time, it was a next stage administration building, now it's the law enforcement building. And so, there's a lot of things that, they get repurposed, so they're going to get modified a little bit. Elle: Kevin, where did you get the inspiration to start recreating all of these photos, you know, of people and buildings, just things that have changed and have stayed the same? Kevin: Well, I you know, when we talked with the publisher and talked about doing something with Flagstaff, I just happened to be going up to the Grand Canyon, and I started looking around, thinking, my gosh, there's a lot of classic buildings. There are so many historic landmark buildings up there, and I knew that there were, you know, the Grand Canyon Museum Collection is just a treasure trove. And so I went and checked that out and talked to the great people there, Kim and Colleen, and they shared with me that their the collections are just vast. And I realized that between mostly pictures there, are a couple from the National Archives and, The Library of Congress National Archives, those are all open-source places as well as Grand Canyon Museum collections. And so, I found that there was a great resource for historic pictures and it kind of grew from there. But it was fun doing it because, you know, like I went to the North Rim and Dave, like we talked there, and we did a bunch of pictures, and it's not really until you get back and can really look at them on the computer, get them full size. Then, I went back and redid several because you know the angle wasn't quite right or because the sun you know was really shadowed in one and you could play with the image a little bit, but it had to be redone. So, there is one, there's an overlook down below the lodge at the North Rim and there's a little bridge that goes to it and so it was really, it was really neat, but I had to redo that in a slightly different angle. And you can't recreate the exact angle because you would be on the edge of the rock that drops down several hundred feet. And that wasn't going to happen. Plus, you know, I want to, you know, the last thing I want to do is be a dummy, that you know went too far and then Grand Canyon has another statistic on their hand because this knucklehead was trying to get a picture. So yeah. Elle: If you had to describe your residency as a color, what color would it be and why? Kevin: Um probably, oh gosh, ask me tomorrow and it might be different. But I would right now, I'd probably say golden, if golden's a color. Elle: I think it’s a color Kevin: But because the most dramatic time of the day to me was sunset and the color; I mean you get these golden red colors, but just the rays of the sun. And to me it was, again, connecting the sky and the land you have the sun setting and just, you know, that afternoon light you get, and I think it would be that, that's what sticks with me the most. I mean obviously there are the color of the rocks that stand out and change depending on the lighting and cloud cover and such, but golden really sticks out to me I guess. And it kind of connects, I think one of the of the most fun nights, and one that sticks with me is, it was late afternoon and we set up a couple of telescopes on the top of the of the John Wesley Powell monument. And so, we had a solar telescope looking at the setting sun and then another telescope looking at the moon rising, it was around full moon. And to see them both at the same time, and it's always, I don't know, it was a day or two short of a full moon, but to see them both at the same time with the golden rays of the sun, and then by the way, there's the moon and standing on the monument to John Wesley Powell, who really kicked off the exploration of the Grand Canyon and has strong connections to the moon. And you know, it was just, it was just beautiful. So, I think the color maybe because of that singular moment of being on top of the monument with the telescopes was it was just so striking that that will stick with me for a long time. Elle: Thanks for joining us for another behind the Scenery Podcast episode. Care to learn more from Kevin Schindler? Head over to our second episode looking up to hear more from Kevin, Dave, and myself about some hot tips and techniques to access the night sky. We'd like to thank Kevin and the whole team at Lowell Observatory located in Flagstaff, AZ, for hosting us and taking the time to chat with us. We hope to have more programming with Kevin and the rest of his crew in the future. We gratefully acknowledge the native peoples on whose ancestral homelands we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant native communities who make their homes here today.

Strength Through Diversity with Superintendent Ed Keable Jun 15, 2024

"I know that there are some people who think that if you tell particular stories, like LGBT stories, that that is divisive, but I think given the nature of the culture of the United States and how we have come to be, that each of those strands of narrative are threads in the fabric that make this country strong.”

Join us for a conversation with Superintendent Ed Keable to hear about why the NPS celebrates Pride, how Grand Canyon is becoming more inclusive, and which side of the Canyon is his favorite!

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Ed: First thing I’ll say is being Gay is part of who I am, it’s not who I am... Julia: Hello there! I’m Ranger Julia, and for the last two years, I have been working as a seasonal interpretive ranger on the North Rim at Grand Canyon National Park. In that time, I’ve written a few social media posts in honor of LGBTQ+ Pride month, which takes place each June. This year, the post featured myself wrapped in a pride flag, with a short caption highlighting diversity and inclusion in the parks. While the post received widespread support from other parks, visitors, and our park partners, it was also met with vitriol, ignorance, and hate. People were confused about the post’s relevance to the Grand Canyon, and to the National Park Service in general. In response to these comments, I sat down with Superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park, Ed Keable, to discuss his thoughts on diversity and inclusion in terms of the NPS mission. To explain Superintendent Keable, I need to explain the role of a Superintendent. The National Park Service is a part of the Department of the Interior, and is spearheaded by one director, currently Chuck Sams. Under the director there are deputy directors, each with their own staff and area of expertise. Next down the list are the regional directors, who oversee many parks. Each park in the region then has its own superintendent. For Grand Canyon, that Superintendent is Ed Keable. You can think of him as the person in charge of Grand Canyon; Superintendents are essentially the chief executive officers of individual parks and can be appointed by the Secretary of the Interior. By the time I sat down with Superintendent Keable, he had been hard at work at Grand Canyon for about three years.

Acoustic guitar music.

Julia: Welcome to the North rim. First, can you introduce yourself? Ed: Sure! I'm Ed Keable, I’m the Superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park. Julia: Can you briefly tell me about your path to becoming Superintendent of Grand Canyon? Ed: Sure. So first, this is my first National Park Service job. So my path here is unusual. I spent the previous 23 years as a lawyer in the Department's office of the Solicitor, which is their legal office. And spent seventeen of those years in different executive level jobs, basically in various jobs, and managing the solicitor’s office, and had an area of practice that included administrative also, the nuts and bolts and how to manage federal organizations and then of course I manage the Solicitors Office. So I had that background. The superintendency at the Grand Canyon had been vacant for almost 2 years before I got here. The Department of Parks Service had advertised the job twice- weren't satisfied with the applicants they got, most of which were outside of the National Park Service. I think in either both -- one or both of them, nobody in the Park Service applied because it's a really hard job for lots of different reasons. So the secretary of the Interior has the authority to reassign executives in the department to any jobs they’re qualified to do, and the Secretary of the Interior is - what at the time was David Bernhardt and I've known him for almost 20 years. He was my boss when he was the solicitor of the Department of the Interior and I gave him legal advice when he was the Deputy Secretary and the Secretary. So he knew me really well, and as he thought about the challenges of the Grand Canyon, he thought, after failing to recruit anybody, who could he reassign into the job? And he told me that he kept thinking of my name as somebody who could do this job. So, 24 hours before he called me into his office, I got a call from my boss, my political boss in the solicitor’s office telling me "Hey, I think the Secretary is gonna ask you to be the superior of the Grand Canyon. And he's gonna ask you tomorrow.” So I had 24 hours to think about it and so the secretary did call me into his office on what turned out to be my birthday. And told me, “Hey, I really am having a hard time filling the Superintendency of the Grand Canyon, as I think about it, I think you'd be really good at it. So I'm going to ask you a question and you can say no” because the deal is with the senior executives in the federal government is, if the Secretary of the Interior asks you to take a job, to reassign you to a new job, you either have to say yes or you have to resign. Julia: Wow. Ed: That's part of the law that established the Senior Executive Service. So the secretary knew that I knew that because I'd given him advice in the past on how to reassign executives. So he prefaced his question with “you can say no,” but he asked me, would I take the job and I, having thought about it for 24 hours, I said yes. Julia: What was your first thought when you were told you would be asked that question? Ed: Wow! You know, I had been to the Grand Canyon twice as a tourist. The first time was in 1994. My husband, he wasn't my husband at the time, but my husband and I were traveling the southwest and we stopped at the north rim. And you know, I had one of those iconic Grand Canyon experiences where I walked up to the rim and was just awed by its grandeur and its beauty, and and had that sense of the divine that this is really a special place. And shortly after that I had a random thought: “This would be a really cool place to work and to live!” And 26 years later, the secretary of the Interior asked me if I would become the Superintendent of the Grand Canyon.

Acoustic guitar music.

Julia: Ed Keable's tenure as Superintendent started just after the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, so he is no stranger to working through new and complicated challenges. What are you most proud of accomplishing during your time as Superintendent so far? Ed: There's a lot to choose from. We're doing just amazing work across multiple issues and fields. I think if I had to pick one - by the way, this question is a lot like, you know, who's your favorite child? - But if I had to pick one, it would be the work we're doing around the welcoming Indigenous people back into the Park. Grand Canyon National Park, like so many other federal land units, certainly National Park units, was established over 100 years ago against the will of the people who lived in this place from time immemorial. And the Park Service then, like other federal agencies, for 100 years kept them away from what they still today view as their home. And that's caused all sorts of challenges within Indigenous communities; dispossessing them from their home, keeping them away from their home for 100 years. I believe it's created social and economic challenges that tribal leaders are dealing with today. And so this park, before I got here, began working really hard at trying to welcome Indigenous people back. We have an initiative to create the first Inter-Tribal Cultural Heritage Site at Desert View at our east entrance gate on the South Rim, and in order to really accomplish that in a meaningful way, the park established an Inter-Tribal Working Group; representatives from the 11 Associated Tribes to the park have formed to work with the park to help give us guidance on how to really effectively welcome people back. And that process has taken time to mature because there was distrust between the tribes and the park, but the park has been really mindful to work that process well. So we work with our park partners, the Grand Canyon Conservancy, to fund a facilitator who themselves are indigenous, not from the 11 associated tribes from other from another tribe, but that's really important for our tribal partners to have a facilitator who understands their perspective generally. And so, the park is a part of that dialogue. We're not leading that dialogue, and in fact, in many ways, we're working with the tribal leaders to lead that process. We're taking our lead from them. So at the Desert View Inter-Tribal Cultural Heritage Site, the Tribal leaders of the Inter-Tribal Working Group have established a strategic plan, we’re following that strategic plan. They've established a theme, which is that “we are still here.” It's important to them that that not only our visitors, but the park, understands that this is their home, and they are still here and so that has informed how the Park Service is engaging with them. And when I got to the park, that work had been going on for a number of years and within a couple of weeks I went to Desert View, got the briefing on what's going on there, and my only question walking away from that briefing was “Why are we doing this only at Desert View? Why aren't we doing this throughout the whole park?” So we've made sufficient progress with Desert View and we're following that strategic plan. We're now engaging with the Inter-Tribal Working Group to expand what I call the Desert View Vision to the rest of the park and we're having really meaningful conversations with some of the associated tribes to identify co-management opportunities and we're beginning some long term plannings on how to implement co-management effectively including infrastructure issues. So if we want our Indigenous partners to come into the park and work with us, for example, they're going to need housing. So as we manage our housing program for the future, we're building into our future housing needs opportunities for our Indigenous partners to come to and live into the park. Julia: This might be similar to that last question, but what are you most looking forward to working on still? Ed: So I have three main priorities as I'm leading Grand Canyon, I've identified 3 priorities. You know there are lots of other work that we're doing and it's all important, but in order to be an effective chief executive officer, which is essentially my role as Superintendent, you have to have a clear sense of priorities, and so my number one priority is this Indigenous Program that I spoke to earlier. My second priority is climate change. The Grand Canyon National Park is part of the Colorado River Plateau. The Plateau has been going through drought for 23 years. It's called the Millennial Drought. It's had tremendous impacts across the basin, including in the Grand Canyon. And so I'm working with the scientists in the park and with other federal partners and other stakeholders in the region to help shape key policies around water allocations, particularly water distributions, through the Glen Canyon Dam that come through the Grand Canyon to get to Lake Mead. And so we're doing a lot of work in that space, I'm personally doing a lot of work in that space. And our third priority is deferred maintenance. Like so many other parks in the system, this park hasn't maintained its infrastructure for decades, and the infrastructure is falling apart. Just as one example, the Trans-Canyon Waterline, which draws water from the Canyon to the rims, breaks. The water lines break on a fairly regular basis. Last year, there were thirteen major breaks in the water line to the South Rim and there were three in August. And it takes the water utilities crew time to fix them and to reprime the pumps. And through August, we weren't for the most part of August, filling the tank farms in the South Rim and so as we used water in the South Rim during that period of time, the water levels in the tank farms dropped and they dropped sufficiently close to the level that we require for structure fire support in the park that that I was within, I would say, two or three hours of shutting down the South Rim in September. Julia: Wow Ed: And so fortunately, the water utilities crew, which does amazing work, fixed the last break and primed the pump in enough time that we started filling the tanks farms before I signed the order, so we averted disaster by the skin of our teeth. That's just one illustration. We've got 4 wastewater systems in the park, all of which have not been invested in and are failing. We've got an electrical grid that was designed and built in the 1970s for a park in the 1970s, and we're moving into an era where we're building infrastructure that requires electricity, more electricity than we currently have, and we're looking to support our visitors, who are increasingly bringing electrical vehicles to the park and we're redesigning the park's fleet to be more energy efficient and going electric with our fleet as well, including our bus fleet. So we need more and better and reliable electricity, so we're in the process of changing the entire electrical grid in the park, so -It's - we'll be spending hundreds of millions of dollars in the next four or five years, doing the work that should have been done regularly, consistently for the last 40 or 50 years. Julia: Right. What is your favorite Grand Canyon story; either a personal story, a story you've heard... what comes to mind? Ed: Yeah, you keep asking me to name my favorites... Julia: A favorite story? Ed: So I think that this might be a cop out, but my favorite story of the Grand Canyon is the way the staff and our partners pull together to really work to make this an amazing place, right? So our mission in the Park Service is to preserve the natural and cultural resources of the park and to make it available to our visitors now and into the future. And you know, that's a remarkable mission, especially at a place like the Grand Canyon, which is one of the seven natural wonders of the world and a World Cultural Heritage site, and one of the icon parks of the National Park system and the staff here is really incredibly talented and dedicated, and there are multiple disciplines that have to work together and this is not an easy place to live. I mean, while we dedicate ourselves to that mission, we’re remote, we have internet connectivity challenges. The developed areas in on the North Rim and the South Rim both have limited resources, right? There are no doctors here, no dentists here, there's no movie theater here, there's no cinema. For the South Rim where I live, I have to drive an hour and a half to see my doctor or my dentist, or go to a movie, or do any of those things that people in the United States oftentimes take for granted. You know, add the Internet connectivity challenge, especially for our younger employees who grew up with a special relationship to connectivity, it makes it a hard place to be. I mean, fortunately it’s also the Grand Canyon, you get to be out into the resource, you get to hike, you get to recreate and that is a great compensation, but it's still a hard place to live. But the staff here is, as I said, they're really talented, really dedicated and being a part of an organization where we work collaboratively across disciplines to accomplish that mission of preserving the natural and cultural resources and making it available to our visitors now into the future is in and of itself it's a remarkable story and I'm proud to be part of it. Julia: Yeah, I definitely agree with you on that. This is also my first Park Service job and I get the feeling that I'm being a little bit spoiled by starting at the Grand Canyon. Ed: Well, you just, you just have to never leave the Grand Canyon! Julia: Well, exactly so it's it's almost like a double-edged sword because it's such a great experience, but nothing will ever compare to this, even with all the challenges. Definitely agree with that.

Acoustic guitar music.

Julia: Moving on to the questions of Pride and diversity and inclusion, I have noticed working on various Pride projects for here and Zion, that people often ask what does this have to do with national parks? Why are you posting about this? Why not just post pretty pictures of the Grand Canyon? So why do you think representation is important to national parks? Ed: The National Park Service excels at telling the story of America. And we tell the whole story. We haven't always told the whole story, but we are committing ourselves to doing that. And the United States is largely an immigrant country, so diversity is one of the great strengths of the United States, and so it's important for the National Park Service to tell that whole story in order for all of us to understand that underlying strength of the country. And it's it's easy for us to lose sight of why diversity is important and how that makes America strong. And so the park service’s efforts to tell the whole story of the country is an important service that we provide to the country and I know that there are some people who think that, you know, if you tell particular stories, like LGBT stories, that that is divisive, but I think given the nature of the culture of the United States and how we have come to be, that each of those strands of narrative are threads in the fabric that make this country strong. And so it's important for the Park Service to tell those stories. Julia: So the second question that I have is pretty similar to the first, but more specifically about Pride as opposed to general representation. Does Pride, LGBT Pride, have a place in the National Park system and what do you think that place is? Ed: Of course it has a place. Gay people are and always have been, an important thread in the fabric of the country and our story, I'm gay myself, our story is important to tell, and it's as important to tell as any other story. So I think it's great that the Park Service is telling that story. Julia: How do you think we can best create an environment where everyone is welcome and safe and free to tell those stories? Ed: It's a really good question, especially given the history of the National Park Service, which has not been always as welcoming to that narrative; that broad narrative. The National Park Service currently has an initiative underway, called RISE, which stands for respectful, inclusive, safe and engaged National Park Service, and RISE is an effort within the Park Service to help across the system to create that environment where every employee, regardless of their background, feels respected, included, safe and can engage. I think that's a really important initiative because not everybody has felt that welcoming environment and not everybody has felt included. Not everybody has felt as safe and so not everybody has engaged. And so we're working on a number of initiatives to create that environment for all employees and as I've told employees in the Grand Canyon, it both in -in my e-mail communications and when I talk to them individually and when I talk to them in work groups, from my perspective, the linchpin of the rise initiative is the R, respect. If every employee treats every employee with respect at all times, the inclusion, the safety and the engagement will follow. It's not always an easy thing to do because people are people, right? We all have personalities. We all have likes and dislikes, we have people we don't like. We have stress on our in our work lives that sometimes lead us to be not our best selves, and it's easy to lapse into behaviors that can be disrespectful and that can be corrosive to relationships and to cohesion in work units and ultimately to the success of the park. So I work at stressing for myself and encourage others to stress respecting each other at all times, and because that's not easy, it's not always easy, it's important to remember that respect isn't just a matter of me communicating respectfully or behaving respectfully towards you, but also me respecting you as you're engaging with me. You know, allowing sometimes for you, or you allowing sometimes for me to have bad days, or allowing you to have whatever dislikes that you have acquired over the course of your life or you allowing me to have whatever dislikes I have and trying to figure out how to navigate as we engage with each other how to how to work through those differences. If I like some things and you don't, or if I have a communications practice or pattern that doesn't resonate with you. I'm 62. It's going to be hard for me to change my communication strategy and however old you are, I'm not going to ask, it's not really appropriate for me to ask you to change yours necessarily. I mean, maybe around the edges we can work around our communications, but fundamentally we are who we are and we need to learn to respect who we are. That gets back to that strength of diversity. When all of the diversity that we bring to the table starts working in an environment where we can respect each other. We learn different things from each other. We learn different insights about the work that we're doing, and it makes us a stronger organization. So the key is trying to navigate that respect in a way that doesn't diminish the need for each of us to be valued. I used to have, well I worked in the Army before I took a job in the solicitor's office and I manage the park and along these ten lessons that I learned in the United States Army. #8 on my list is that all of us are valued and none of us are irreplaceable. And I think that's a really important concept and principle. Certainly for me, it’s proven to for me to remember as I work with people, I really do value everybody I work with and learn from them. So I need to respect them, but I also have that same need. I need to be valued, I need to be respected and and so I think we just need to keep working at that and the RISE initiative that the park service are promoting, I think creates the framework for that. Julia: You mentioned the fact that you are a gay man, you have a husband. I was wondering if you'd be willing to talk about if your identity has affected your experience in this position or in general through your positions in the government. Ed: I think it has. So I'll say, the first thing I'll say, being gay is part of who I am, it's not who I am. Julia: Yes. Ed: And I have had the great fortune of not being discriminated for being gay, whether it's in the Army, in my professional capacity, whether it's in the Army, in the in the Department Solicitors Office or in the National Park Service. I have been discriminated against in my personal life and that has given me an appreciation for people who have also felt discriminated against and so that context has given me an empathy that I think is important, as, you know, as particularly as we do things like implement the rise initiative to be open to listening to what people's experiences have been, so that we can try to identify solutions to creating a more respectful, inclusive, safe, and engaged workspace. So, I think that's been helpful for me to have had those experiences. I didn’t like them at the time, but you know every every positive and negative experience in a person's life helps shape who you are. And so, I think those experiences as, as I said, have given me empathy, and that's helped me to be, I think a better, more inclusive leader. Julia: I think that the fact that you mentioned that being gay is a part of who you are and not all of who you are is very important. I wrote the Pride post for Grand Canyon this year and it's a picture of me wrapped in a pride flag and a lot of people commented saying things along the lines of “imagine if your sexuality was your whole personality!” Which is silly because that's not true for anyone, I don't think, but I feel like there tends to be this idea from a lot of folks that if you mention being queer in any way, that that must be your whole shtick. And so I think it's important that we talk about folks who are not straight as just being people, people doing great work, like all the things that you've mentioned, that you've been working on at Grand Canyon, it's... has nothing to do with your sexuality, but then, like you were saying, the empathy that you get from that experience does have to do with your job, so I think that's a very important thing to bring up and I appreciate that a lot. What advice do you have for the next generation? Broadly or for young LGBTQ folks, what comes to mind? Ed: Be who you are, proudly. I served in the Army during the “don't ask, don't tell” era. And it was difficult hiding who I was to my friends, it felt dishonest. It was dishonest. And when I left the Army and told my friends that I was gay, none of them cared. And I committed at that point to live my life openly and honestly and I've never looked back. So you know, as a general rule my, my, my approach to life is to move forward and that's what I'm doing and I encourage everybody to live your life proudly and openly and honestly. Julia: And the last question is which side of the Grand Canyon is your favorite side of the Grand Canyon? Ed: All of the Grand Canyon is my favorite side of the Grand Canyon! You know, there are,. I just encourage our employees and our visitors both to explore all parts of the Grand Canyon. The North Rim is a special place, to be sure it's the it's the place I first saw the Grand Canyon, so it will always have a special place in my heart, and it's just a great place. But the South Rim has a lot to offer too, especially in the Desert View area. The Inner Canyon, hiking into the Canyon, especially some of our less traveled trails where you can be a little bit more remote, are great experiences. And of course, the river experiences are remarkable. I get on the river twice a year as Superintendent, have really come to value those experiences. As Superintendent, I try to I try to travel to as many parts of the park as I can because I believe I need to really be in as many parts of the park to really fully understand it. So I encourage that of all employees. So you need to get out in the park more! Julia: I know I got to go down to desert view for a week and help out them down there and I was thinking, wow, this is really cool! You know, it's so different! The views are so different. But then it was like 95 degrees and I was like, I'm going back to the North Rim, Ed: Yeah. Julia: It's too hot! Ed: One of my one of the lessons I learned in the river is you have to embrace adversity in order to enjoy the experience. Julia: Yeah, definitely. Is there anything else that you would like to add or talk about? Ed: No, I just want to thank you for inviting me to join you for this discussion. It's been fun and hopefully for your listeners, it'll be a little educational. Julia: Yeah, I hope so! Thank you for agreeing to come talk with. Ed: Sure, it's been a pleasure. Acoustic guitar music. Julia: Many thanks to Ed Keable for sharing his stories. Musical interludes in this episode were created by MrSnooze. The Behind the Scenery Podcast is brought to you by the interpretation team at Grand Canyon National Park. We gratefully acknowledge the native peoples on whose ancestral homelands we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant native communities who make their homes here today.

Down to Bedrock with Kevin Fedarko May 29, 2024

"The Canyon can be incredibly harsh and cruel... It will strip away all of your arrogance, all of your preconceived ideas about who you are, and what you think you have, and how much you think you know. And it will leave you staring at what's left, which in my case was not a lot." In 2015 Kevin Fedarko and Pete McBride set out to hike the length of Grand Canyon. Find out what Kevin learned about himself, the Canyon, and the people who have lived here since time immemorial. Learn more at kevinfedarko.com

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Kevin Fedarko: The Canyon is, can be incredibly harsh and cruel and it's very difficult place to move through and it will strip away all of your, all of your arrogance, all of your preconceived ideas about who you are and what you think you have and how much you think you know. And it will leave you staring at what's left, which in my case was not a lot.

Jo Baird: Hi, I'm Jo. And today we have the honor of speaking with Kevin Fedarko. A renowned writer and adventurer whose work has captivated audiences with its vivid descriptions and immersive storytelling. Kevin is perhaps best known for his critically acclaimed book “The Emerald Mile,” which chronicles the daring journey of a small group of river runners through the Grand Canyon during a historic flood. Drawing on his background as a journalist and his deep connection to the region, Kevin's latest endeavor promises to take readers on another unforgettable journey. Set to be released in May, 2024. Kevin's new book, “A Walk in the Park” promises to be a captivating exploration of the natural world and human experience. Well, thank you so much for being here today, Kevin. Can you just briefly introduce yourself for us? Kevin: Sure. My name is Kevin Fedarko, and I make my living writing books, mostly about the Grand Canyon. Jo: OK. Thank you. And just to start off here, can you provide us with an overview of a walk in the park, your newest book and what inspired you to write it? Kevin: So this book chronicles a journey that I undertook. Back in 2015, so almost 10 years ago, with one of my best friends and also a kind of professional collaborator, a National Geographic photographer by the name of Pete McBride. And I latched onto this project when Pete came to me with an idea. The year before we launched, the idea was that it might be fun to set out, to walk the length of Grand Canyon National Park from Lee's Ferry in the East to the Grand Wash cliffs in the West. A journey that the Colorado River, it takes the Colorado River about 277 miles to travel, but the catch on this particular journey is that there is no trail in Grand Canyon National Park that will take you along the length of the park. And that in order to cover that distance, you need to wind into and back out of so many tributary canyons, and you need to climb up and down vertically between so many different layers of rock that that 277 mile journey that the river takes gets stretched to something between 600 and 750 miles, depending on the route that you are traveling. So Pete came to me with this idea, and Pete and I have a history of kind of collaborating on magazine projects that have taken us to some rather exotic parts of the world over the years. And what all of these stories have in common is that they're incredibly bad ideas concocted by Pete, which get us into an enormous amount of trouble. And you know, despite the trouble that we got into in a whole variety of places, from the Horn of Africa to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to the Caucasus Mountains over the years. And even Everest Base Camp, nothing compared to the amount of, the difficulties that we encountered, the suffering that we endured and the embarrassment that was inflicted on us by the Grand Canyon over the course of this journey. So this book is a chronicle of that experience, the good, the bad and the ugly, all wrapped between two different covers. Jo: Yeah, and you've collaborated obviously with Pete McBride on a host of past projects. Can you share a little bit more about your dynamic and how your relationship evolved over the course of this traverse through the canyon? Kevin: As I alluded to a moment ago, it's a pretty dysfunctional relationship. If any of your listeners out there, happen to have a friendship that forms a part of their lives, and at the center of that friendship is the knowledge harbored by at least one of those people that maybe the friendship itself is not very good for them. That that characterizes what Pete and I have shared over the last 20 years. We have, I think it's probably, it's fair to say that all of the trouble that we've gotten into over the years in the course of doing these magazine assignments and then later the Grand Canyon really boils down to a kind of a hubris and an arrogance that we both, well, particularly Pete suffers from, to a lesser extent myself, in thinking that we have more ability and prowess and physical strength than we actually have. And that we can do these things and that that we set out to do, and not encounter too much in the way of problems. And so that level of confidence and hubris. I think is part and parcel of and lies at the core of everything that we have done. I would say that Pete brings more of this to the table than I do. I'm a -- in some ways we're not – we look similar, but we have a lot of differences in terms of our personalities. I'm a writer, I'm accustomed to working alone, I kind of embrace solitude. I'm somewhat socially dysfunctional and rather shy, and Pete is the opposite of all of those qualities. You know, Pete works in the medium of light as a photographer, and that's kind of a metaphor for who he is as a person. He's incredibly social. He loves to sort of flit around like a butterfly, just meeting new people and encountering new things. He embraces challenges and people and experiences in a way that I do not because he's an extrovert. And so it's the interplay and the dynamic and the tension between those two personalities, that kind of drives much of the interaction between us as we embark on these adventures. Jo: And I can fully appreciate the humbling aspects of the canyon that you touch on. I think everyone who has hiked and ventured into the canyon experiences that in some way, shape, or form. Can you tell me about what that process was like for you and how you came to that humbling sense? What point in your journey, or if it was a continuous progression throughout the traverse for you? Kevin: Yeah, for sure. I mean, it probably starts with mentioning something briefly that we can go into in greater detail if you want later on in this conversation, but you know, I started this hike thinking that I knew more than I actually did about the canyon and the reason for that is that I many years ago wrote a book about the canyon. A book called “The Emerald Mile,” which chronicled a very different story. It was the story of three river guides who in the in the spring of 1983, put a little wooden Dory into the Colorado River at Lee's ferry with the intention of using a historic flood, an epic spring runoff to propel themselves through the canyon, to catapult themselves through the canyon so fast that they would hopefully break the standing speed record for the fastest boat ever to traverse the length of Grand Canyon. And the name of that boat was the Emerald Mile and the name of the book was taken from that boat. That book was researched over the course of a decade in which I kind of apprenticed myself as a river guide at the bottom of the canyon on the Colorado River, in order to kind of learn about the culture of river guiding, in order to absorb everything I could about that environment. For people who come to the canyon for the first time, what they typically do is they move to the rim of the canyon and they spend minutes, or hours, or sometimes days staring down into this abyss. Very few people actually venture down to the bottom of it. And so I wanted to tell the story of those people and I spent years learning about them and learning about the environment itself, the rock, the light, the hydrodynamics of the river itself. And I came out of that having written this like 416 page book, or whatever it was, convinced that I was kind of like an expert on Grand Canyon, you know? And I had sort of covered all the things that needed to be covered. I kind of thought of myself as a bit of a bad***. To be totally and bluntly honest about it all. And so when I agreed to do this hike with Pete, I didn't think it was going to be that big of a deal. I had done, you know, couple dozen river trips. I'd been through the canyon. I was familiar, I thought I was familiar with the basic frame and structure of the chasm itself. And I didn't think that it had all that much to teach me that was going to be new. And so that's really the sort of baseline fact that governed the start of this story. And to answer your question like I think within the first 48 hours, I was brought up face to face with the depth and density, and scope of my own ignorance. One of the things that Grand Canyon does to any, to all of us who are who are familiar with it, connected to it, and spent time in it, is it -- the place itself does what time has done to the rock. It abrades and strips away everything down to bedrock, and it leaves the canyon with this, it's a revelation of what lies at the base of, underneath all of the dirt and foliage and the tapestry of life that that covers you know the landscape in most other places. Well transfer that to a person. The canyon can be incredibly harsh and cruel and it's a very difficult place to move through and it will strip away all of your arrogance, all of your preconceived ideas about who you are, and what you think you have. And how much you think you know and it will leave you staring at what's left, which in my case was not a lot because I had so much to learn, not so much about the world of the river, at the bottom of the canyon, this ribbon of water that you know is responsible for having carved and polished and created and honed the canyon itself and the kind of the, the lush foliage that lines its banks on a very thin margin. What I needed to learn about was everything the wilderness of rock that extends from the edge of that riparian zone, all the way up through this, this kind of vertical wilderness of cliffs and ledges and side canyons between the edges of the Colorado River and the rims of the canyon. This is a place where very few people go because of what I mentioned a few moments ago. The fact that there is no trail on the north side of the canyon, on the south side of the canyon there's a trail for like 15% of the distance that you can take. Which will usher you along through this environment and the rest of it is just, it's a place that you have to sort of figure out how to move each and every step that you take. You have to think very carefully about, and that's the South side. The north side of the canyon, almost 95% of it has no trail. So this is the world that I realized within the first 48 hours of entering with a backpack on foot having left my boat behind that I was unprepared to enter, knew very little about, and was about to get an extended lesson in the complexity of during the course of this journey. Jo: So it sounds like you had been stripped and kind of had that bedrock moment as you speak of within 48 hours. What was the plan from there to reinvigorate the trip and continue on? What happened after that moment? Kevin: Well, you know, I'm embarrassed to say now like the initial plan -- I mean, in addition to Pete and I being pretty arrogant and suffering from quite a bit of hubris. I don't know if I can swear on this podcast, but we are capable of, we have a flair for quite a bit of bull**** and one of the things that we did was we talked a group of -- We're pretty good at fast talking -- And so we convinced a group of very, very experienced canyon hikers who were embarking on their own through-hike to let us tag along with them for what we thought would be the first segment of our hike. This is maybe a moment where I should just sort of explain an important difference. So if you're setting out to hike through Grand Canyon, you can do it in one of two ways. You can start at one end or the other and hike all the way through without stopping, and that is known as a continuous through-hike. There's another way of approaching it which is more like a puzzle and what you do is you hike the canyon in sections. Those sections can be very short or very long. They can take a couple of days, they can take three or four weeks, it doesn't matter. But when you're at the end of that section, you come out of the canyon, you rest, you reprovision, and then you go back in. And you string together a sectional-through-hike, like kind of like pearls on a necklace, if you can imagine that. So these hikers that we were tagging along with, we're doing a continuous through-hike, which is like an order of magnitude more difficult than a section-hike, and we just thought to ourselves, we thought, well, gosh, we can tag along with these guys for the first segment and we'll learn everything that we need to -- the few things that we don't know about, we'll just pick them up along the way. It'll be super easy and then we'll come out of the first section of the hike as like total experts. And also, Pete told me, we didn't even need to get in shape for the hike because the hike itself would be the thing that would get us in shape for the hike, and so at the end of this first section, we would emerge as like these bronzed Adonis-like you know through-hikers. What ended up happening is that we were spanked so hard that first section was supposed to be about 12 days, and it would take us all the way from Lee's Ferry to a really important crossroads inside the canyon that everybody who knows about the canyon reveres. This is the place where the largest tributary of the Colorado River inside Grand Canyon, the Little Colorado, meets and merges with the Colorado itself. It's a place known as the confluence and it's about 66-67 miles downstream from Lee's Ferry. 63 miles according to some people, and that was our goal. We were so inept that we only survived five days. Within five days, Pete had succumbed to a condition, a heat related condition, called hyponatremia, which is kind of the opposite of dehydration. Where you end up ingesting too much water instead of not enough and you throw off the balance of electrolytes inside of your bloodstream, you undergo muscle cramps. If it gets really bad, you slip into a coma and then you die. Meanwhile, my feet had deteriorated so bad and had so many blisters that it felt like I was stepping into a bucket of broken glass with each step that I was taking and on Pete's advice, I had wrapped my feet in duct tape. Applying the duct tape directly to the blisters to create like these duct tape booties, which were then creating a kind of like terrarium environment. Moist, warm, nurturing environment for bacteria and so my feet were literally rotting. We were in so much pain and we're holding back this team of through-hikers. This like crackerjack team of through-hikers that had this schedule that they had to stay on in order to achieve their dream. For which, by the way, they had been preparing for years like this is what you're supposed to do when you hike in Grand Canyon. You set out to learn about hiking slowly and increments and you devote years to doing small hikes and then more ambitious hikes and gradually you know, you learn about water, you learn about the different layers of rock. You learn about how to pack your pack. You learn about how much weight you need to carry. You learn about land navigation. You learn about where to camp and you acquire all that knowledge in increments, and then you apply it to a through-hike instead of what we did, which was just like -- It's the equivalent of like jumping to the front of the line when you're waiting in line to get through the front gate of the park on a hot summer day. We just figured we'd show up and jump the line and so six days after on the sixth day of our what we thought was going to be our initial segment of the hike and less than half the distance from Lee's Ferry to the confluence of the Lower Colorado and the Colorado rivers. We had to pull the ripcord and request an extraction from some friends who would who came in with some additional supplies and escorted us out of the canyon. We retreated back to Flagstaff with our tails between our legs. Word had already leaked out that these two wildly incompetent National Geographic journalists had failed on their initial bid to through-hike the canyon, and that was the reality that confronted us. At the at the very beginning of our project. Jo: So it seems like you relied heavily on the support network of friends, acquaintances along the way. Can you kind of explain more of how they helped you and Pete actually complete this traverse across the Canyon and in what ways they helped? Kevin: You know, that's such a great question because it touches on a truth that we were not aware of at the time but gradually came to learn about and appreciate. Which is that, you know, for many of us, when we think about wilderness and going into the wilderness for a whole variety of reasons that go back to like Henry David Thoreau, a lot of Americans like to imagine that they experience wilderness alone, solo. This is an American archetype to move into the wilderness as a lone, rugged individual, learn some lessons, overcome a set of challenges and emerge alone but enlightened from that experience. My experience in Grand Canyon is very different. My experience in Grand Canyon, one of the things that the canyon has taught me is that the canyon is so enormous, and so complex, and so formidable in terms of its harshness and its brutality and its ability to just, like, kill you within hours if you don't know what you're doing. That in order to move into it and through it successfully, most people don't do it alone. Most people do it either in the company of others, or if they're not doing it in the company of others, they're doing it alone, they're doing it with knowledge that was acquired by others and shared with them and provided to them. Grand Canyon in many ways is not a solo experience. It is a recognition that there is a community of knowledge, and participation, and values that drives and sustains each person moving through that environment. And so what we discovered, Pete and I discovered, is that after we'd been spanked so badly on the first leg and we had to abandon the canyon and come out. And by the way, we came out thinking we were not going to go back. Like we came out so horrified by how hard it was and how badly we hurt that we were on the verge of calling up our editors in National Geographic back in Washington, DC, and basically saying like, look if you guys want this project to continue and this story, you're going to have to outsource it to like some college students or some rodents or some life form that's capable of moving through the canyon. The only reason that we didn't do that is because the through-hiking team that allowed us to accompany them. And by the way, were the only reason we could even make it for five days. You know, they like taught us so much and they helped us so much. And then in addition to that, when we exited the canyon, they used their DeLorme, a communications device, satellite communications device to reach out to their friends in Flagstaff who are part of a community of people who care about and are connected to Grand Canyon. And when these people learned that, you know, there were two journalists who were trying to make their way through the canyon to do a story for National Geographic. It was going to talk, among other things, about the threats that hang over the park, how fragile the park itself is and how important it is to preserve it. They kind of, like, rallied. And they made contact with us. They met with us. They listened to us tell them that we weren't going to go back. And then they told us the opposite, they said no, no, no, you are going back and you're going back with knowledge that we're going to give you. What they did was they essentially put us through like a hiking boot camp over a month and, you know, they redid our nutrition program. They dumped our packs out on my living room floor and threw a whole bunch of gear away. And then they gave us some more gear that was much lighter that we could use. They re-planned our route through the canyon. And then they appointed from among themselves, some people who are basically going to go in with us and be like babysitters and minders. To see us through the canyon, to kind of like pull us through the rest of the canyon like a locomotive pulls a caboose. All of which gets back to this point I was making a moment ago, and this long winded soliloquy I'm in the middle of right now, which is that in addition to like everybody who's hiking solo, you know, hiking on the shoulders of a body of knowledge that has been given to them by others. Our experience of the canyon, we experienced the heart of the canyon, the heart of the wilderness of the canyon, in the company of others. And we were brought face to face with something that I think is an important truth to acknowledge, not just about Grand Canyon, but all of our national parks, all of our public lands, all of the spaces that we own collectively as Americans and that we care about. In part because they belong to us and that we are responsible for as stewards. And that is that perhaps the only thing that's more fulfilling than doing this archetypal American solo journey of going in alone to wilderness is experiencing wilderness in the company of others. Experiencing the wilderness in the company of people we care about. What do we do with our National Parks? So many of us, we drive to them with our families. We take our kids into them. We're taken into them as kids by our parents. Sometimes our grandparents come along and what we do inside of these spaces is we experience wilderness, we're touched by beauty, but we are also given an opportunity by the natural world to strengthen the connections that bind us together as human beings. And this is an unrecognized and unacknowledged and under celebrated aspects of what our National Parks are, and the gifts that they hand to each and every citizen of this country. And so one of the gifts that canyon gave to Pete and I over the course, yes, extraordinarily difficult, but also very kind of revealing an important learning journey that we had was -- I mean it, it strengthened our friendship. We'd been together, we'd worked together for so many years, but we emerged, we went in as friends, we emerged as brothers and that is a story that I think almost everyone who comes to the canyon experiences, in one form or another. Jo: So your previous works have touched upon the rich history and cultural significance of the Grand Canyon, including the enduring presence of indigenous communities. Can you discuss for us how your new book specifically explores indigenous perspective of the land and how their voices and experiences are woven into the story itself? Kevin: Yeah, I can do that. And you know, I need to do what I just did. I need to do it all over again, which is to go back to this baseline of cluelessness and ignorance that I...that I had. At the start of this hike, despite having written an entire book about Grand Canyon, the book that I wrote before, as I said a moment ago, it was focused on the river. It was focused on the world of the river. It was focused on the culture of boating and river guiding. What I didn't mention is that one of the many, many things that that book did not touch on, or really involve much thought about was the history of Native Americans inside the canyon. I was mostly interested in, like, the history of white people and the history of boating inside the Grand Canyon that really started, at least the written part of that history, in the summer of 1869, with the legendary journey of John Wesley Powell and a crew of nine men in four wooden boats who completed the first traverse we had in written history of the Grand Canyon, which itself was part of a much larger boat journey that they were undertaking. It was a journey of exploration, if you define exploration as the series of encounters that the descendants of white Europeans had with a landscape they viewed as wilderness in the American West over the course of a couple of centuries. So I didn't really know much about or had thought very much about the Native American presence inside of Grand Canyon when we started this hike. One of the things that occurred over and over again over the course of the year that we spent moving from Lee's Ferry to Grand Wash Cliffs in segments with breaks in between is that as I mentioned a moment ago, we were concerned about and interested in learning about, and writing about, and covering for National Geographic, some threats that loomed over Grand Canyon. And what we began to realize over the course of this year was that each and everyone of these threats had a tribal component to it. Because, and the reason for that, is that it's really impossible to think about the landscape of the canyon itself and the history of that landscape without taking into account the fact that prior to the arrival of white European, of the descendants of white Europeans, this landscape was occupied by a matrix -- an incredibly rich matrix of tribal people. There are 11 Native American tribes whose ancestral lands either abut or lie directly inside of what is now Grand Canyon National Park. And when we created this national park, and other national parks, one of the things that we did at the time was we completely ignored the presence of these tribes, we told ourselves as Americans, we congratulated ourselves in creating a National Park system and having the sagacity and the wisdom as Americans to identify, and set aside, and put a fence around, and protect some of the most beautiful parts of this continent. And what we never bothered to do because we didn't value it at the time was to recognize the importance of these people. We actually disenfranchised them. We pushed them out of the parks, we exiled them from their own homes, and then we rewrote the history into what is kind of a fairy tale, really. At the heart of the story we tell ourselves about what our national parks are and how they came to be. And there are some wonderful aspects to that fairy tale. But there's a lie at the center of it. So in Grand Canyon, as I said a moment ago, there are these 11 Native American tribes. Each and every one of them was pushed out. Their histories were written out of the canyon. The thing that you begin to realize if you spend time in the canyon, and you begin to wrestle with issues that loom over the canyon, this sounds like such a obvious thing, but it came as a revelation to me when I learned it; These people who were part of the canyon in the distant past -- Who occupied this space literally for thousands of years prior to our arrival, and who were then pushed out, they are still here. They are still here, living in this space, connected to it and every aspect of it is, is still present in their culture, it's encoded in their language. It's encoded in their rituals, in their culture. And in their values. So all of the tribes: the Hualapai, Havasupai, the Zuni, the Hopi, the five bands of the Southern Paiute Tribe. I mean all of these people still have a deep and incredibly important connection to Grand Canyon and by virtue of the connection that goes back so far into the past, that white people like me find it difficult to even begin to imagine, they have things to teach us about this place. They have a body of knowledge about what it is, how it's laid out with the plants and the animals, the richness of the plants and animal life inside of it, how human beings might think about conducting themselves inside of this space in a responsible manner that is connected with thinking of themselves not as consumers, but as stewards of it. These people have things to share with us. That we would do well to listen to, that we could benefit from learning about. And so over the course of this journey, Pete and I had a series of encounters with Native Americans, with members of the Navajo tribe. The one tribe I just didn't mention a moment ago, whose lands abut the entire eastern portion of Grand Canyon. Encounters with the Havasupai Tribe at the very center of the canyon. With the Hualapai in the west. With representatives of the Zuni and some of the Southern Paiute bands and the Hopi. And these encounters first of all made us aware of all this stuff I just talked about a moment ago. The fact that these people have this incredibly important history that has gone unrecognized, that they are still here. And then they began to educate us and enrich our understanding of how to view threats that now loom over Grand Canyon National Park, many of them in the form of industrialized tourism. And industrial industrialized tourism like air tours in the in the western part of Grand Canyon or a proposal at the time to build a tramway from the eastern rim of Grand Canyon to the confluence of the Colorado and the Little Colorado rivers. This spot that I just mentioned a moment ago. Which I said was very important in everybody who is connected with the park, knows about and reveres. What I didn't mention is that place, that confluence of these two rivers, is viewed as sacred by each and everyone of these tribes in the canyon. And the idea of building a tramway capable of delivering 10,000 people per day, to a raised metal walkway, at the edge of the river that would lead to an observation deck and a restaurant? That would serve hot dogs? Overlooking the confluence itself. That project represented an offense, a sacrilege in the eyes of some Native American tribes. Some members of Native American tribes that illuminated an entirely new way of thinking about the canyon and the space it contains for me and for Pete. So what I'm really saying in a super long-winded way is that the journey that we undertook was a education. It was a physical journey that involved moving like 650 or 750 miles from east to west, but it was also an intellectual and emotional, and if you'll forgive me for sounding a little bit woo woo here, a spiritual journey. That that journey paralleled the physical journey. And that was a journey of education and awareness and enrichment. Here's a metaphor for how to think about it. It's how I thought about it. The canyon itself is defined by these layers of rock, 26 of them that are stacked one on top of the other, and the oldest layers are at the bottom, and each layer as you go up is younger than the layer below it. It is a kind of a time machine. The canyon contains rock, an enormous amount of it, and distilled within the folds of rock laid out in layers is something, is what geologists call deep time. When you begin to -- when you reach the point where you begin to, really, your mind begins to wrap itself in, around, and embrace the connection between rock and time. You're moving towards a pretty rich understanding of an appreciation of Grand Canyon. Well, encountering the history of the tribes in the Grand Canyon, those tribes are just like those layers of rock. They add layers of richness and meaning to the physical environment and they take you to a different place mentally and spiritually, when you begin to allow your mind to open itself to that history. And perhaps the most marvelous part about it all, it's what I mentioned just a moment ago, by virtue of the fact that these people are still here. Your listeners who are listening to this podcast like they can have this experience. These people are here at Grand Canyon, inside of this park. They are selling their art in the form of jewelry and baskets and rugs that are representations of their culture. That contain knowledge and understanding of the canyon itself and you can have encounters with these people. You can meet with them. You can speak with them and you will come away from those encounters with a far more meaningful understanding of the space itself than you would have if you just stood at the edge of it and looked at the colors. I've completely lost track of what the question was. Jo: I do want to talk about another journey that we haven't touched on, which is the writing process for you. So this book seems to be a bit different than your previous in that you're writing it all in the first person. Can you talk about what that journey was like, writing it, and what you learned about yourself from that writing process and journey? Kevin: You know, that's a tough question and it touches on one of the kind of central challenges of this book. So I mentioned at the beginning part of this conversation, I'm kind of a, you know, instinctively shy person and an introvert and you know, most of my writing, a lot of it, not all of it, but a lot of it – and certainly the books that I've written have all been in what we call third person, right? It's the pronoun that you use when you're not referring to yourself, when you're focusing the spotlight on others. And I enjoy and feel comfortable telling the story of others, which is what I did in this book called The Emerald Mile. You know, it's a story that has nothing to do with me, except for the fact that I had to go into the canyon to kind of learn about it. But I actually took maybe an inordinate amount of pride in the fact that in that entire book, you know, I think I said a moment ago is 416 pages, the first person singular pronoun, the word I, occurs only once in the footnotes when I'm explaining how I had to meet one of the protagonists in the book. Otherwise, you will never find me anywhere in that book and I love that about it. What this this book, “A Walk in the Park” required me to do was to step out of my comfort zone. And you know, place myself at the center of the story. And in so doing, to speak and write with a level of honesty. Sometimes, brutal honesty about what – just what I've been doing in this conversation to talk about my shortcomings, my hubris, my arrogance, my propensity to take shortcuts, my failure to do enough homework. And the extent to which the canyon put me, and Pete, through an incredibly brutal and painful process of education. To use myself as a proxy for somebody being taught things by a place and the people whose history inside of that place extends far deeper into the past than my own history because I'm not from this part of the world. And so the process of writing this book involved peeling back layers of revelation, self revelation. I'm not sure I'm entirely comfortable revealing all the stuff about myself that I did in this book, and frankly, a lot of it is not very flattering. But that's one of the things that you do when you write nonfiction that has to include yourself. And it may be one reason why, you know, this is the 4th book that I've written. I wrote two books that were, I ghost wrote books for other people. I wrote a book touching on Grand Canyon about other people. This is the first book I've ever written about myself and it took it took one year to research and six to write. That's twice as long as any other book that I've ever written, and I think it's because I was struggling with all of this stuff and it wasn't fun. The only thing that was less pleasant and more brutal and more painful than the hike itself was the process of writing the damn book. Because I did not enjoy it, and I'm really glad that I'm at the end of it. Jo: Oh my goodness, such a good answer. So you did mention how you aren’t from this part of the world being Northern Arizona, can you share with us how your background and upbringing influence your decision to not only move westward, but how that transition has shaped your perspective about writing and landscapes and cultures of the Western United States? Kevin: You know when I kind of imagined in my mind like the ideal person to write a couple of books about the Grand Canyon, one that profiles the river at the bottom and the other chronicles what feels like to move through the world of rock on foot. I kind of imagine that like the ideal person to write those books would be someone who was born here. Who in either the strict literal sense, or the metaphorical sense is indigenous to the land. Someone who's values and aesthetics and physical prowess, those were shaped by a relationship that began at birth and I'm the opposite of all of that. Like I grew up, I grew up in a place that's about as different from Grand Canyon and a National Park as you could possibly imagine. I grew up in the city of Pittsburgh in western Pennsylvania. One of, if not the most, industrialized landscapes in America. I grew up in a city whose name is synonymous with the manufacture and production of steel, and my family's tied to it. My grandfather spent his life in a coal mine, working at digging coal and later as an electrician in the mines that supplied the coal that fed the furnaces of Pittsburgh. And so when I grew up, I grew up in a landscape that had been transformed by and polluted by and tainted by, and changed irrevocably, and in some ways, forever by industry. And my impressions of what the world was were filtered through the prism of all of that. Now, this isn't to say that -- like western Pennsylvania prior to you know the 19th century was one of the most gorgeous landscapes on Earth, and parts of it are still very beautiful. But I grew up with a sense that I was living in a landscape that was defined by loss. And that there was a profound contradiction and difference between what that landscape= was and what it had once been, and that between those two points were a series of acts, sins if you will. That my forebears, including my grandfather, had committed against the natural world and the environment and the beauty that once defined western Pennsylvania. And when I started to read as a young man, I stumbled across the books of two authors who, oddly enough, grew up very close to where I originated. My family grew up on the eastern end of the metropolitan area of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And less than a 15 minute drive from our house was the birth place of a writer by the name of Rachel Carson. And those of your listeners who are familiar with a book called “Silent Spring” will know that Rachel Carson during the 1960s, Rachel Carson really started the modern environmental movement with a set of books she wrote first about the oceans and then about pesticides and pollution that opened American’s eyes to the idea that in pursuing prosperity through industrialization, we were killing ourselves and the land we depended on. And her ideas were radical enough, and new enough, and courageous enough that they transformed the way that not everybody, but a good portion of the population, thought about that kind of stuff. And in the opposite direction from Rachel Carson's girlhood home, about 1/2 an hour's drive away from where I grew up is the birth place of a writer named Edward Abbey. And again, your listeners who are familiar with Edward Abbey will know that Edward Abbey grew up in Pennsylvania but came west. He embraced, celebrated, and became in some ways a spokesperson for some of the most gorgeous landscapes of the American Southwest. Unlike Rachel Carson, Edward Abbey's ideas have not aged well. Not all of them, but part of the weirdness of writing is that those ugly truths can kind of sometimes coexist within the same work. With beautiful writing about in Edward Abbey's case, landscape. And for those of us who were influenced by him early on in our lives. We have been faced with the task and the challenge of going through Abbey's writing like you might wander through an apple orchard and picking the fruit off the low hanging branches and leaving the rest of it behind. Anyhow, I grew up influenced by these two writers who wrote about and connected with and provided a frame for seeing and understanding land. And as a result of all of that, I realized at a certain point when I was in my late 20s or early 30s, working for a news magazine in New York City, that the life I was leading was not the life that I wanted to be leading. It was not the life I was meant to lead. It was not the life that was going to make me happy, and that if I wanted to explore those things, I was going to have to leave behind the landscape of the East and move West. And so I moved west to ostensibly to take a job with a magazine called Outside, which wrote about the outdoors, but really more than that, I wanted to be part of this place. I wanted to see it and smell it and touch it. I wanted to be touched by it. I wanted to spend enough time in it to see the seasons turn. And the years rotate and to start to read its history and get to the point where I felt like I might be able to say with a level of honesty that I understood it at certain level and then maybe to write about it. So that's all of what took me west and that kind of transformed the arc and the trajectory of my life. And it was further transformed when I, you know, had the stroke of luck or the misfortune, depending on how you want to look at it to see the Grand Canyon for the first time. Because what happened to me happens to many people who are struck by the Canyon. It sinks its teeth and its claws into you, and it refuses to let go and anyone who has worked at the park and spent 20 years or 40 years of their career here knows this to be true. And the canyon got its hooks into me. And I just...I can't imagine that this point ever not having it be part of my life in some way and part of the beauty of it is that like I can move now, and it'll still be a part of me, because that's what it does. It opens up a space inside of you. It creates a little like miniature Grand Canyon inside of you. Then it pours all these ideas into it. Some of them have to do with Native Americans. Some have to do with natural beauty. Some have had to do with, like, the joy of boating. And you carry that with you wherever you go. That's what landscapes do. That's what stories do. Again, I forgot what the question was. Jo: I think you nailed it. Thank you so much again for your time today. Finally, what is one thing you'd like visitors to know about the Grand Canyon? Kevin: Oh. You know, there are a bunch of things, but here's one that I feel is like really important that I would want to share with anybody who's coming to the canyon, and it doesn't matter if it's for the first time or for the 100th time. And it's something that's important to say in the context of all the blabbing I've been doing for the past hour. Especially blabbing about like this super long 750-mile journey, this place, this landscape, this iconic natural feature of the earth is so beautiful and so powerful you do not need to spend 14 months carrying a 50-pound backpack from one end to the other and suffering pretty much every step along the way. Nor do you need to spend two or three weeks inside of a boat, you know, moving through 160 or however many rapids there are at the bottom of the canyon to touch and be touched by the most extraordinary parts of this park. There are many places inside the canyon that are secret and hidden that have been gazed upon very infrequently by human beings. They're not any more special than what you can see from the rim of the canyon itself. One of the most profound and profoundly radical and most radically transformative things that you can do is to allow yourself to do more than what the average visitor does at the Grand Canyon. Jo, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think there's a study that's been done on how many minutes the average visitor spends at the rim of the Grand Canyon. And I think it's like 40 minutes. One of the most radical things you can do is as a visitor here is to expand that outward, move to the edge of the canyon. And allow yourself to be in its presence, move along the edge of the canyon. There is a paved pathway that runs along the rim of the canyon for I forget how many miles you can walk along it. You can roll your grandmother in a wheelchair qlong it. You can rent a bike and bike along it. You can experience sunrise and sunset and all the hours in between and what the canyon looks like under the light of the moon without ever stepping foot inside of it. Stepping foot inside, venturing down one of the trails is a beautiful and wonderful thing to do, but if you do not have time, you can still have an extraordinary experience here, and you can embrace that experience in the knowledge that the people who have gone deeper into the canyon, spent longer inside of the canyon, accomplished more impressive things in terms of athletics. They don't have any better experience than you do. That's how powerful and special this place is. And what it requires, however, is allowing yourself not just the time, but also the quietness of it. I think I'm going to say something else. It's important not just to be at the edge of the canyon, but to kind of step away from a large group, if you're with family or friends to move with them, but to do something that so many of us do not often enough, which is to stop talking. To ourselves and others, to stop listening to what we have to say. And to be silent enough to listen to what this thing spread out in front of you has to say and allow whatever message that might be to kind of loom up out of the canyon and wash over you. And I think that is something that I would just want to share as one of the most special parts of this place for somebody who's coming here. And again, if you're coming for the first time, allow yourselves that experience. If you're coming for the 100th time and you've never actually done that, conduct an experiment and embark on that experience and see what it does to you. So that would be the one thing that I would share about something super special about Grand Canyon. Jo: And if people want to find out more about you, your works, where can they go? Kevin: Oh, I'm in the process of building my website for the very first time, but by the time this podcast airs, I think it will be up and running kevinfarko.com and you will be able to find information on the books that I've written and lectures that I give and anything else that you might be interested in learning about. Jo: Great. Well, thank you so much for your time today. Kevin, we really appreciate it. Kevin: Thank you so much and thank you for your time. Jo: The Behind the Scenery Podcast is brought to you by the interpretation team at Grand Canyon National Park. We gratefully acknowledge the native peoples on whose ancestral homelands we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant native communities who make their home here today.

Canyon Connections with Amy Martin May 11, 2024

Each person connects in different ways to special places in their life. Photographer Amy Martin’s connection to Grand Canyon started before she was even born. Her parents hiked to the bottom of the Canyon when her mom was six months pregnant with her, and again when she was six months old. She’s continued that tradition of going to the canyon with her daughter Sunny.

What’s a special place in your life that you hope to share with past and future generations?

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Sunny: I know there’s a river down there. Amy: There is. Sunny: I know there are different kind of places there. Amy: There are. Sunny: I know there, there is very fish down there. That trout. Amy: Yeah Sunny: that's rainbow trout. Amy: There are rainbow trout. Behind the Scenery Intro: Grand Canyon. Where hidden forces shape. Our ideas, beliefs and experience and experiences. Join us as we uncover the stories between the Canyon’s colorful walls. Probe the depths. And add your voice, add your voice. For what happens next to Grand Canyon. Grand Canyon. Hello and welcome. Kate. This is Jesse. This is Grace. This is Emily. And this is, this is Behind the Scenery. Hannah: To quote one of my favorite little humans, Sunny. Hello, everybody. I'm Ranger Hannah, and I'm excited to share this conversation I had with Amy Martin. I met Amy in my second season here at Grand Canyon summer of 2022, where she presented a photography project she did during COVID, where she talked about her connection to the canyon and how she uses photography to display that. That program is where I fell in love with her work and got to meet her cute kid, Sunny. I was ecstatic to learn this year Amy was coming back to present more of her work and that I could chat with her about all of it. I started writing questions I wanted to ask her and Sunny because Amy’s connection to the canyon started with her family, and I was curious what Sunny thoughts were about coming to Grand Canyon and being out in nature. So, without further ado, I'll let Amy introduce herself with my first question. Hannah: What are a few things people should know when meeting Amy Martin for the first time? Amy: I think a few things they should know. One is that I have a deep love for Grand Canyon, and I feel very lucky that I have been able to spend so much of my time here over my lifetime doing many different things and getting to know it and strengthening that connection of place. The second thing is that I'm a mom. I have a beautiful, spunky three-year-old daughter named Sunny, who I wish was here today. She was supposed to be, but things didn't work out. And so, yeah, I think those are two things about me. Hannah: Yes! So, what draws you to Grand Canyon? Amy: What draws me to Grand Canyon? Well, I think there are so many things. And I think that it's really that, like, combination of all those different things that really draws me and some of them, you know, it's such a challenging place. It is challenging physically and mentally. And I think that keeps drawing me back because you couldn’t explore it in ten lifetimes. There's always something to come back to that draws you back. And it's a place for growth because when you're challenge, you're always growing. And so I feel that pull. Another thing is that the space, right? So I think we're getting less of that open, quiet space where you feel small and humbled. You know, in our fast contemporary society. Hannah: Yes! Amy: And so it's that place that you can go to and you know, and have that connection to everything else. You know, you see that you're just a small piece of this. You know, greater landscape and greater world. And I think that brings out mystery and intrigue, also that sense of who we are, you know, in this universe. And so that brings me back as well. Hannah: What is your family's story of why they started coming to Grand Canyon? Amy: So my family, my dad grew up in Arizona. He was outside a lot. Adventured a bunch growing up. And his brother actually was a ranger at Phantom ranch and he was a boatman as well, a guide. And so my dad started coming to Grand Canyon with my mom, actually, they hiked me down when my mom was six months pregnant with me. Actually, my mom hiked me down, they didn’t. But then they hiked me down again when I was 6 months old and with my sister who came with me. So there's pictures of us feeding the mules and, you know, exploring Phantom Ranch and that just kind of yeah, that just kind of had that staying power. And I think that they were drawn there for the same reasons that I am. You know, it's of course, the adventure, the challenge, the place of growth, the place of peace, you know, all of these things all wrapped into one. Hannah: So and having that connection of having a family member formerly working at Phantom Ranch, do you think that influenced you to become a canyon ranger here? Amy: I think it did. You know, I never yeah, I never saw my trajectory this way. I always was going to go to medical school. And so.. Hannah: Oh dang Amy: Yeah I know and so I have a, you know, I have a pre-med degree. I always was thinking that. And so when I graduated, I was like, I just want a little bit of time. So I got my EMT still in the line of medical. Yeah. I worked PSAR for three years, doing a lot of medical work, both in the ambulance and on the trails and doing all the heat related illness. And so I never yeah, it never was the plan. It just kind of happened that way. And that's the same with my photography career too, really. But yeah, there was never a plan to become a ranger. It just, it just kind of happened and then I fell so much more in love with Grand Canyon, and it kept drawing me back season after season. And then there was the opportunity to work in the canyon. To work at Manzanita Ranger Station. Hannah: Yes! Amy: Used to be called Roaring Springs, so it’s hard for me to say Manzanita, but yes, at Manzanita I was there for three seasons, April to October and yeah, so that I think it was just my draw to place even more than it was to you know career. Hannah: Yeah. Amy: That brought me. Yeah. I think that had the staying power here. Hannah: Mm hmm. So came back every season because the canyon kept drawing you back. Do you think that affected your relationship with the canyon of how it kept bringing you back and how you were planning on doing a medical career instead? Amy: Oh, absolutely. It I mean, it's like getting to know the canyon more and more. You know, you realize that there's, that you could never like I said, you can never explore it like ten lifetimes. There's so many teachings that it has for us in all these different facets of life. It just kept getting deeper and deeper with the canyon, but then deeper and deeper with myself and when I went away, so I actually did leave. I was here for five seasons and I was like, okay, like I have an adventurous spirit. I never thought I would be in the same place for so long. Hannah: Yeah. Amy: And it's, you know, the Grand Canyon is what really kept me here. And I was like, I need to I need to get out. I need to do these other things. Still thinking in the line of medical work. So I went into the Peace Corps, got very far away from the Grand Canyon. I left for two years. During that time, I had dreams, like dreams almost every night. These reoccurring dreams about Grand Canyon, about the river, about coming back. And so when I was done with the two years, I was like, I need to figure out, like, what this is that's talking to me and see what it is that, you know what, like part of my relationship with the canyon, I need more of to be fulfilled. So what there was left for me? Amy and Hannah: Yeah. Hannah: So sounds like even after leaving, you kept coming back. And I know this next question is going to jump probably further in the future, but last year during your program, you talked about how you had lost part of your connection with COVID. So I'm curious how that affected you not being able to be at the canyon. Amy: Yeah. So, you know, that was really interesting. It was kind of very surprising too. So, you know, after I'd went to the Peace Corps, I'll just do a quick. Yeah, like catch up. So I came back, you know, I started working again. I worked another season down at Manzanita and I started doing a lot of other work too. Doing a lot of, like conservation work, doing fisheries work, and working on the river. And the year after my mom passed away and she was just a really she loved Grand Canyon so much and it was just a very, you know, hard like tumultuous time. Right. And the Grand Canyon had been this place of healing for me. So I felt this even stronger draw to be here. And so the year after she died, I spent I think 155 days or something like that down at the bottom of the canyon. Doing different things, mostly working. But also I was down with my dad fishing, and just hiking, and on the river and all sorts of things. But that really helped me. It helped me in so many ways to kind of grieve my mother, like to come to terms with, you know, her death. You know, I think a lot of it is that like, you know, finding our place in this in this greater, you know, world. And I never, I wasn't brought up with religion at all, like kind of structured religion. And so there weren't a lot of, you know, like readily available answers to me about that. And we in our society, we don't talk about death and dying, you know, and I think still grieving is very lonesome, you know. It's like, yeah, it's very, you know, kind of push it a little bit to the side of society. And so the canyon, like, just gave me that space to be able to really heal. And I will forever be grateful to it for that opportunity. And so that kind of brings me to COVID. So it was kind of crazy times for me. I was pregnant. I had my daughter, so I had a newborn during like when COVID started. Hannah: Yeah Amy: A lot of stuff, you know, there was so much just universal uncertainty and universal anxiety everywhere in the world, right? Like these times, none of us knew how to navigate them correctly, right? Lots of stress. And so I had planned to bring my daughter down in March of 2020 and into the canyon to be with our friend Della Yurcik who is just an amazing ranger Hannah: Yes! Amy: I've known her for, she and I and yeah, have been really good friends for a long time. She's just amazing. But so I was going to be her down even, you know, COVID happens. I couldn't get down into the canyon and the canyon was closed, you know, for a while. And so I was feeling all these like these things that I couldn't really deal with, you know? And so I took Sunny, my daughter, up to the south rim, you know, where I could go. We actually camped out at the Rainbow Rim, you know. Hannah: Yes! Amy: So we could at least look into the canyon and have that. But it really, I really knew that I needed to be like down in the canyon, especially during this time. So I was really fortunate to get a couple of trips over the winter of 2020 and the spring of 2021 to get back in to the canyon and that just, just walking down like I, I could feel like, you know, kind of that anxiety lifting. Like there was a sense that everything was going to, you know, that there's this these laws of nature. Hannah: yeah, Amy: And everything has an order to a certain extent. I really didn't feel like that at all, you know? Hannah: Yeah. Amy: During yeah, the anxiety of COVID. So yeah, and during that time I did a, a project, the photography project that kind of reflected what I was like going through. Everything was, you know, kind of foggy also as that, you know, as a new mom so wasn't getting much sleep too. There's like that fog, like all the change that was happening there, the worry about my daughter, like coming into this world where, you know, everything was totally a mess. Hannah: Yeah. Amy: And so my photograph project from those from those few trips was reflected that by being kind of crazy and dark and dreamy and blurry. Yeah. So it really did. What COVID did for my relationship in the Canyon was it really just like secured the fact that it is this place of healing, even in these the craziest times you can imagine, you know. Hannah: Yeah. Amy: That it still is this place and we need it. Like all of humanity needs it to be able to go to, you know, to help us get through some of these challenges. Hannah: Absolutely. Amy: Yeah. Hannah: So after the canyon being closed with COVID, how did it feel to bring Sunny to the canyon finally? Amy: Yeah. So that was so wonderful that experience. As I said, I had taken her to the south rim, you know, just looking when she was real little. And then we took her out over that summer, 2020, out to the rainbow Rim in the forest. And finally we were able to hike her down to Phantom Ranch. And it was just amazing to see her, you know, interacting with the space. I think the couple of the things I remember, she was able to feed the mules and that was so sweet. The other thing is she had just learned how to walk and I put her down on boat beach, you know, down at Phantom. Hannah: Yeah. Amy: And she just, like, walked as fast as her, like tiny little one year old feet could get her, like, towards the river. And part of me was like, oh, my gosh, you know, there's so much of me in her and like, I'm so drawn to water. And water is so important in this environment. And the other part of it was like, oh my gosh water so dangerous, cold and quick and everything. So yeah, it was like all those different realities all at once. But yeah, it was, it was beautiful. I feel so lucky. I feel so fortunate that my parents exposed me to these spaces when I was growing up that really created the space that I could go back to time after time, you know, for all of these different needs, you know, that I had, you know, that we have as humans. And I hope that I can give her, you know, a space to go to as well, because I feel, yeah, everything is just seems like it's speeding up, you know, in our society. And there really aren't a lot of spaces. And just to be quiet and reflect. Hannah: I'm excited that you have this space because I know we're really lucky to be in a space where we get to work here at the park or enjoy these spaces where a lot of people don't know these spaces exist. And I'm excited that your parents and now you're passing this on the Sunny, and I'm looking forward to hearing Sunny's answers and her experience while exploring Grand Canyon and other places with you. And I want to thank you for your time. Amy: Thank you so much. Thank you. Hannah: yeah Hannah: Now, after hearing Amy connection to the canyon, let's listen to some of Sunny's thoughts about Grand Canyon and what she likes about being in nature. Sunny: Hey, everybody. Amy: Okay can you tell me your name? Sunny: Sunny. Amy: Sunny, and how old are you? Sunny: There and three fourths Amy: You're three and three fourths. Is your birthday coming up? Sunny: It's tomorrow. Amy: It’s tomorrow, That's pretty exciting. We're going to talk a little bit about Grand Canyon today. Can you tell me a little bit about what you know? Sunny: I know they have different kind of layers and there's a river down there and is this kind of humpback trout in and there’s rainbow trout too. Amy: Yeah. Well, that's awesome. Do you like going to Grand Canyon? Sunny: I like see the humpback chub. Amy: Yeah. Sunny: When you go in the forest to be quiet. Amy: Why? Why do we be quiet, Sunny? Sunny: You can hear the nature. Amy: You can hear the nature out there. What are some of the things that you hear? Sunny: Birds. Amy: Yeah. Sunny: And the wind. Hannah: I want to express my appreciation to Amy for taking the time to sit down and chat with me. And thank you, Amy, for recording Sunny's audio, because her voice adds to her story and your story of how you both are connected to the canyon. We gratefully acknowledge the native peoples on his ancestral homelands we gather, as well as by diverse and vibrant Native communities who make their home here today.

Studying Grand Canyon with Dr Larry Stevens Apr 06, 2024

Dr. Larry Stevens has spent over fifty years as a boatman and researcher trying to understand water and life in the Grand Canyon. In this time, he has explored much of the change in important river and spring ecosystems within the desert. On this episode of Behind the Scenery listen as Larry shares observations on insect life, healthy seeps and springs, and the role hope plays in science.

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Larry: If we we're to start a first Church of the Earth, Grand Canyon would be the temple. And the story that Grand Canyon reveals about the tremendous expanse of time, life's role and change through that, through that process is the material reality that we have here and to drift off into other belief systems just takes us away from appreciation of this incredible green planet that we live on.

Behind the Scenery Introduction (multiple voices): Grand Canyon; Where hidden forces shape our ideas, beliefs, and experiences. Join us as we uncover the stories between the canyon’s colorful walls. Probe the depths and add your voice for what happens next at Grand Canyon. Hello and Welcome!... This is Behind the Scenery Luke: Hey Ya’ll, I’m Luke and Interpretive Ranger here on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. For this episode of Behind the Scenery I got the chance to sit down with Larry Stevens whose life and career has been heavily intertwined with the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River. I was curious to hear Larry’s perspective on the changes and development of the river and its ecosystems and where he sees us headed in the years ahead. Larry would you be willing to introduce yourself, please? Larry: Sure. My name's Larry Stevens. I'm the director of the Spring Stewardship Institute. Senior scientist for the Grand Canyon Wildlands Council. And I've got a Ph.D. in zoology from Northern Arizona University. I've been working in Grand Canyon since 1974. But in the landscape since 1970. Luke: Would you be willing to expand off of that and describe maybe what you're currently interacting with the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon with and maybe your past interactions as well? Just a brief discussion of your career. Larry: Okay. So in 1974, I became a biotech here at grand National Park, working on all manner of fire issues and insect life and bird life. Yeah, here at the park, back in those days, it was a pretty deep focus on natural history. And so as a biotech, I guess pretty much free roam of the collections and wandering around the park looking at the various organisms, did that for a year, went off back to my family farm in northern New Hampshire, uh, for a while and got a call from the Museum of Northern Arizona from Steve Carruthers, and he was looking for somebody to do an insect inventory of the Colorado River corridor. Knowing that I had that interest, he called me in and I said, Well, yes, I'm interested. And, uh, pursued the interview with him in which he asked, Do you want to do science or do you want to eat? And I said, Science, of course. I'm a scientist. So I spent two and a half years collecting, analyzing the insect fauna of the river corridor, and in that time period, learned just a huge amount, including how to row on the river and did that job as he has, he promised, I had $4.10 to my name, so I walked around Flagstaff to try to find somebody who would be willing to hire a kind of a mendicant boatman and stumbled into a company that was willing to hire me. And it launched my commercial river running career. I've done more than 400 trips on the Colorado River, commercially guiding, doing research, taking thousands of people down, many scientists, who really opened my eyes to all of dimensionality of the place over the last 50 years. And, uh, went on to get my master's and Ph.D. funding myself by doing commercial River guiding, uh, during the summer months, worked on issues related to Glen Canyon Dam. So how Glen Canyon Dam has affected the Colorado River Corridor has been a real focus of that research. Um, became the ecologist for Grand Canyon National Park in 1989, worked there for five or six years in that position, then moved on to work for the Bureau of Reclamation, Department of Interior, etc. and primarily working on dam management issues. Co-initiated the Grand Canyon Wildlands Council with Kim Crumble and Kelly Burke in 1998. Maybe so 25 years ago an effort to preserve the natural ecosystems and native species of the landscape. And that work has culminated just in the last, this last month with, uh, with completion of protected land surrounding Grand Canyon National Park. Work isn't completely done because kaibab national forest is not... the Teddy Roosevelt's authorization of that as a game preserve has not been reauthorized and that this is the last piece of the puzzle of trying to protect the area around Grand Canyon. Anyway. So it's been a 25 year effort to get that protection done. My typos show up in the enabling legislation for these national monuments, which is kind of strange, but good. And that's one of my one of the achievements in my life that I'm most proud of. Um, pursued many, many different topics, continuing the, you know, the biggest source of macro biodiversity of Grand Canyon is insect life. And my, my goal is to actually get a compendium of the insect life of Grand Canyon done, want to try to make as much headway as I can while I'm on the planet with that. With that effort, um, I started the Spring Stewardship Institute in part because of my interest in managing the Colorado River and all the different stakeholders that deal with it. And I serve as an environmental advisor to the Secretary of the Interior on management of Glen Canyon Dam through the Adaptive Management program. It takes decades to make headway in that program because there's so many voices and so much controversy about about the Colorado River. And in part in response to that, I began thinking more about springs, which are little points in the landscape that are incredibly influential biodiversity wise and have been widely ignored as conservation targets and so trying to bring attention to springs and better management of springs around the world. I work with about 100 different collaborators around the world who are studying the ecosystem ecology of springs, and I'll be headed to Italy in November, December to pursue a global think tank on Springs ecosystem ecology. And where we're going to go with that science. Luke: you mentioned several times now that, you know, either a focus or an interest in the insects of the environment. Is this just out of curiosity and just a passion of yours, or do insects play an important and vital role in understanding, you know, the Grand Canyon and the health of the ecosystem. Larry: Not just insects, but invertebrates in general. Remembering that the karstic terrain here is largely composed of decomposed invertebrate life. So our life has influenced Grand Canyon, you know, in ways that we scarcely think about. but the trillions and trillions of invertebrates that compose the kaibab limestone, the redwall limestone, and provide the concrete for things like the of the Coconino Sandstone And the amount of life that's gone into shaping this landscape is just incredible, very poorly known modern insect life. We don't we don't have more than one. Well, there are maybe half a dozen places on Earth where we actually understand insect biodiversity in detail. Great Smokies is one place where there's been pretty good headway made on that. But so I'm trying to bring that science up to snuff for Grand Canyon because it's such a tremendous landscape for biodiversity. We have so many poorly known species that are distributed in funny places, you know, three dozen species that are endemic to caves, for example, in Grand Canyon that we know of, not that we've explored more than a few of the thousand caves that we have in the park in terms of invertebrate life. But, uh, and then the meadows up on the north rim here support unique tiger beetles and just the list goes on and on and on. And so bringing attention to that level of biodiversity I think is important because these are pretty charismatic and sometimes just incredibly gorgeous creatures to understand. It is a passion, but it's also the role that insects play in our world is much underappreciated. Luke: I feel like I've heard a lot of times when it comes to insect understanding and knowledge, just, you know, a data deficient species is pretty frequent. Larry: Yeah, we're at, you know less than five. We know probably less than 5% of what we need to know about the insect world, for example. Some whole families of snails and, and mites and other critters, we might only know 5% of the species. Luke: Have you, have you found your research, your research into, you know, the insect invertebrate life around here, aiding you in other elements as well, like, you know, in your protection of springs or in, the ecology based around the Glen Canyon and its effect on the water. Does this, does this new amount of data that you are collecting go into furthering any other research or. Larry: Sure. Two examples of that. One is I discovered a previously unrecognized species of spring snail on the Hualapai reservation, went to the tribal council to make sure it was okay with them that I, that I named the species. The logic there is that this is an aquatic snail living at one spring in their landscape, but as a species that they can appreciate, especially because I named it after the tribe Pyrgulopsis hualapaiensis with several colleagues. Uh, that species can help protect not only that spring, but the water resource for the whole tribe. And so, uh, the tribal council agreed with that, and we went ahead and went ahead and named the species. And, um, that's one example of how a species can help protect water resources. It's been a huge controversy about insects in the Colorado River, in the post dam Colorado River, and why we don't have all these great critters like stone flies and Mayflies and caddisfly living in the Colorado River in post dam time, lots of them, lots of kind of murky uncertainty because we didn't do any surveys of the river before the dam. I didn't arrive in the scene until the seventies, which is, you know, ten years after the dam had been created. So by studying insect life upstream in, uh, in Cataract Canyon and, and Desolation Canyon and looking at the tributaries in Grand Canyon, we get a sense of what's not in the in the Colorado River. And these, these key groups of mayflies stone flies and caddisflies which are dominant in some of our cold water tributaries like Tapeats Creek. They don't actually occur in any kind of functional number in the in the Colorado River. caddisflies are kind of increasing in the lower most canyon. But that's a kind of an anomalous story there. So that kind of level of interest has sparked millions and millions of dollars of research on the part of the USGS to try to try to understand how to increase insect life in a river for fish as fish food base. The water that comes out of Glen Canyon Dam is cold, clear, fairly quite constant, you know, relative to the pre dam past. Luke: No. Yeah. Not what it would have been before. Yeah. Before dam construction. correct Larry: So now Glen Canyon Dam is acting as a spring in a way. The nearest natural analog to what's coming out of Glen Canyon Dam is Tapeats Creek. Water temperature is the same as what comes out of the dam in most years with enough water in the reservoir clear water, relatively little, relatively low flow fluctuations, order of magnitude, maybe about the same as the dam. And so I went into Tapeats Creek to understand why it's so richly endowed with aquatic insects in comparison with the main stream. And we did a flow fluctuation simulations to see if fluctuating flows were what were keeping insects out of the out of the picture in the mainstream, and also lots and lots of analyses of the sediment structure and whatnot. The story is actually quite simple in that the mainstream is managed for sand, for recreational beaches, for shoreline habitats, for for things like birds and whatnot. Whereas Tapeats Creek is a gravel based system, lots of interstitial space. And so that interstitial spaces is essential for aquatic insects and is not available in the mainstream. And it never has been simply because, you know, over geologic time has built a sand transporting river. So the answer is pretty simple. You can't have you can't manage for both fine sediments, sandbars and aquatic, you know, aquatic insects that are attractive to fish and useful for fish food. Luke: So the aquatic insects benefit from having more space between the gravel, which creating the space, but they. Larry: They need that under many of them are kind of full of negatively phototrophic they, they avoid sunlight, come out at night and so they hide under the in the interstitial surfaces. They can also answer some really just wonderful questions there. They can actually detect flashfloods coming in and sink down into the gravels. That story is only known for a couple species, but quite intriguing. Luke: So the original Colorado River ecosystem, would it have been more of a gravel structure because all of that sediment would have been moving downstream that's now collected behind the dam or? Larry: So that the dam did three things to the Colorado River, Glen Canyon dam did three things for the Colorado River. It pretty much stopped sediment transport. Sediment transport that was on average about 60 million tons per year. That's equivalent of a of a five ton dump truck going by every two and a half seconds. That much sand moving through the system, not a gravel based system, the biggest floods could certainly move rocks and cobbles, but the flecks of fine sediment coming through was just tremendous. There's always been sand moving through cobble, kind of a river system. Luke: So at this point in time, with the data you have, do you not believe the early Grand Canyon in the Colorado River to be a heavy insect life that would always have been based more around those creeks and streams that were, were tributaries of the river itself. Larry: Yeah. So the pre dam river was sediment laden. No sunlight reached the floor of the river and the level of the river fluctuated. The stage of the river fluctuated really wildly orders of magnitude, of course, over the course of a year. So therefore, literally no opportunity for plant life to develop on which the invertebrates feed and then the support fish. In July every year at Lees ferry the river water temperature reached 89 degrees Fahrenheit every year. That means on a low flow of summer year, the water going through Grand Canyon, by the time it reached the end of Grand Canyon, it might have been 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Really, really harsh. Luke: Extremely warm water. Yeah. Having been on the river recently. Larry: Yes. It is not that temperature now. Larry: And so the turbidity and water temperature were both, you know, affected by a Grand Canyon that we have more or less constant water temperature increasing now because of drought and the climate change a little bit. But nothing like the pre dam past conditions that would pretty much prevent anything insect life from living in the river, the fish in the river are all opportunistic feeders, and most of them spawn in the tributaries. But we have records of Colorado Pike Minnow running all the way up to Grand Falls, for example, in the little Colorado River and for humpback chub breeding quite successfully. And the other suckers are as well speckled dace all through the system, but spawning in the tributaries and returning to the main stream during the winter. Luke: So the constant source of insect life is more important to those introduced or invasive species that we have added to the river. Larry: Yeah, we’ve certainly changed the whole structure of the ecosystem, the river, the aquatic ecosystem really dramatically by introducing 20 non-native fish species turning the river into a clear water constant environment. That's what humans do is we turn our ecosystems into simple, simple systems. And so clear water, sunlight reaches the floor of the river, a whole raft of aquatic species, aquatic macrophites now live on the floor of the river that support some insect life. Midges mostly, but the sand moving through just prevents these more important aquatic invertebrates from being able to propagate in the river. Luke: Going back to something you had mentioned previously, you mentioned, you know, working with water resources and this the snail I believe you mentioned in your interactions with the Colorado River and seeps and springs how have the indigenous cultures that are associated with the Grand Canyon, have they been a support system for you? Have you had a lot of interactions with them? Can you go in a little bit of detail about that? Larry: Sure. Yeah. Pretty much every culture on earth except our own regard springs as sacred spots. Even Western Europe springs are places where miracles happened. There are places with revered historical significance, the socioeconomic value of them for subsistence existence of really farming, ranches, whatnot, are all very much reliant on springs water all throughout the world, all throughout the world. We just finished a paper on a conservation assessment of the springs of the world, and it's the same story everywhere that these are really important features of the landscape that have been pretty broadly overlooked by Western cultures, but are totally revered, revered by the by indigenous cultures. I have worked with the Havasupai, the Hualapai, with the spring snail story, the Zuni, Hopi, Apache, and Yavapai tribes on springs. Significance of water, especially in these arid landscapes, is just off the charts important to their to their cultures. Been a real pleasure to be able to work with the tribes on some of their spring related issues and doing restoration on quite a few of them. Luke: the Colorado River more so maybe than ever before is part of the zeitgeist these days, right? it's drying up. If you went on Google News and you typed in Colorado River pretty much every day, you're going to see brand new headlines popping up with more information and new media presence. Has this had an impact on your efforts, whether that's you know, you've been you've gotten more funding, less funding, anything. Has this had a significant impact with its new presence in the media recently? Larry: okay there's two sides to this sword. One is that we have shifted our national attention to the environment, to climate change, and rightly so. It's terribly important issues, vexingly complex, difficult to manage and, you know, really kind of conflict laden. But what we've lost is paying attention to the details. The spring's conservation work is an effort to bring attention to small points in the landscape that are incredibly influential regionally. We regard springs as keystone ecosystems, little patches of ecologically, highly interactive patches of the landscape that, uh, that influence the entire surrounding area. Here you go to Cliff Spring, for example, on Cape Royal there. It's a very, very isolated spring. Every bird in the landscape comes in there to water, many of them every day. I was there once we saw 35 species of birds come in for water in less than an hour. And so these little points in the landscape are playing a role not only internally within as it's kind of these small ecosystems, but also in terms of the overall landscape. And simply if that water wasn't there, the birds would not be there, literally couldn't be there. So all kinds of challenges with understanding the role of these little points in the landscape, but the way that the focus of national focus on climate change has shifted our attention away from the need to manage it and manage the pieces, as Aldo Leopold said, and not lose these pieces of the landscape while we're, you know, running around like chickens with their heads cut off, trying to worry about climate change that we really functionally can't do anything about, springs are manageable. We can understand what's going on there, understand how to protect those aquifers. And there, you know, many, many tens of thousands of aquifers that are that are feeding and feeding these millions of springs around the earth. Pay attention to that at that scale, as well as well as the global scale. It's also much easier to manage springs than it is global climate, of course, uh, much less controversial because everybody wants their springs to be functional for the future. What's good for springs is good for all things we say. So there's that kind of side of the story of the sort of how focus on climate change has influenced our work as it shifted attention away from, from the real, you know, kind of on the ground detail that people can actually appreciating and accomplish things out. The other side of it is, yes, organizations like U.S. Forest Service is now taking up a national interest in Springs. We've given them, we stimulated some of that by providing them with trainings about springs and through Springs Stewardship Institute, provide them with tools, and we manage all the data on springs from the National Forest Service on a national basis. So we're trying to encourage other agencies to take up that, take up that task as well. Park Service is a very divided organization, so individual parks one by one have come to us and we've interacted with them. But as a as an agency, Park Service has a Springs program nationally, but it's not very well integrated. What we're trying to offer is an integrated way of looking at springs. So you do understand that wet meadows are springs and that, you know, gushets pouring out of the cliff walls like Thunder River are springs that there are many different types of springs and it's expression of groundwater that is the key feature of these ecosystems that integrates the below ground of the underworld really with the above. Above ground. Yeah. Uh, part of the landscape is that linkage is, critical to the springs function. Luke: Is your spring stewardship program largely designed to help educate and bring knowledge about springs or are you also playing a data collection role with that, that particular organization? Larry: So, uh, the mission of the Springs Stewardship Institute is to improve understanding of springs as ecosystems and to help people manage them better and to do with the management part of it. We've developed a free, online secure and incredibly user friendly database for springs information as being the programs being used by more than 1500 users, agencies, counties, tribes, researchers, NGOs, etc. And the database contains information on more than 160,000 springs in West, mostly in Western U.S. But we're bringing in all the springs data for the for the U.S. into that system. You might think that because springs are often mapped on USGS topo maps that we actually know where they are. That's not true. And many, many springs are not mapped. Many springs that have been mapped are either dry or headed or were so mismapped that we can't even, you know, can't even figure out what they were talking about. And so bringing that kind of more accurate information together and this springs online database springsdata.org is a relational database as we're compiling information that we can't even ask., we don't even know which questions to ask about yet. For example, in many landscapes we've worked in, if you go to 50 or 100 springs, you detect more than a quarter of the flora in those settings in the province of Alberta. And for example, we went to 56 Springs and came up with a list of one quarter of the flora of Alberta of the province of Alberta. Total area we looked at was only about ten acres of habitat, but we came up with a quarter of the flora for the entire province. So we developed this relationship between the geographic data and all these species of invertebrates and fish and vertebrates and all kinds of things living at springs, snails, whatnot. And we can begin to put together stories of and relationships between things like slope aspect and elevation for literally thousands of species of plants. So in terms of understanding climate change, every species of plant has a relationship between elevation and aspect of ponderosa pine, for example, dominant plant here on the Grand Canyon. It occurs on south facing slopes at the highest elevations north facing slopes at lowest elevations, just kind of funny leech shaped spiral range as it wraps around from north facing to south, facing slopes across elevation. Every plant has its own relationship to that story and as climate change happens that shape of that relationship will change to a very funny geometry to try to put together to model. But it gives us a way to understand because elevation is such a key driver of climate, that we understand that if you want to understand what climate change is going to do, warming climate, just go down slope a thousand feet. Right? And so this is one example of a question that we are just were beginning to explore here. But we can begin to understand what climate change will have effect on, on pretty much all the species in the landscape, all the plant species or just a great many of them. Trees, shrubs follow this pattern very clearly. Wetland, vegetation, some of the species like helleborine orchids they have cutoff points. Strange cut off points, 6000 feet or so for helleborine and orchids, which are found only at Springs here in Arizona and in the southwest. So why is that happening? So those are questions to be to be answered. Is it a pollinator issue? Is it you know, what happened? Can you take a helleborine orchid and grow it at 8000 feet? We don't know. But some of our rare plants are, you know, very constrained elevationally. Many many questions like that within this relational database we haven't even begun to explore water quality relationships to plant diversity, for example, or to invertebrate diversity, trying to characterize the habitats of spring snails or fish based on water quality collected across, you know, many, many different springs all put into this relational database. We're getting there. And these are these are really exciting questions scientifically to be able to pursue. Luke: You mentioned, the ability to kind of at least get a rough understanding of what might happen as climate change continues to progress. And, you know, you go down downslope to kind of discover what will happen upslope as things warm and dry out. Has there been any other interesting or unexpected discoveries that you have had along this path, and along this changing data collection you've had that you know, we know climate change is a negative. It has a lot of negative impacts. Is there something else that came up that was unexpected? Larry: Yeah. There's a lot we don't know about climate change. And at these high elevations, the growing season has been quite short for you know under natural conditions as the growing season extends its duration. That's a, it's a big question. Um, another really big question is how to predict climate change impacts on, on discharge, groundwater discharge. Um, with climate change reducing the amount of snowpack, increasing sublimation, which is the transition of ice crystals straight to water vapor without going through the liquid. Hydrologically is this transition from ice out of water vapor without melting and a very common phenomenon in our snowpacks here we lose snow through that process. And therefore, not only is climate change kind of reducing snowpack overall, but it's increasing the loss of that snow through sublimation. So that will have an effect on surface flow. Uh, springs are contributing, you know, uh, many, many river systems are fed, base flow fed by springs, any river. For example, Colorado, 53% of the Colorado River is groundwater coming out of springs, not the base flow of the Colorado River. Yes, snowpack and rain contribute to it, but the base flow is 53% Groundwater at least. So it's climate change influences on discharge of springs is something that is statistically quite complicated. Hydrologists have traditionally wanted, you know, 30, 50, 100 years of data to be able to predict what's going to happen with groundwater withdrawal and an effect on streamflow. That's not the right approach we're beyond the envelope of understanding normalcy in climate and therefore smaller timeframes that are more reflective of current conditions are probably a better way to go and it's been a little bit of a little bit of statistical research in this, but, you know, intervals of 20 years might be more accurate for actually predicting what's going to happen in the future. There are big adventures to be had with understanding how to approach the study of climate change. Um, and some of, some of these are very basic questions that we have to, you know, devote more attention to. Having monitoring data on springs is essential for that simply because, we have to understand these statistical patterns over time and we don't have very much monitoring data on springs. Very, very few springs are monitored. You know, uh, Vasey’s Paradise [spring], for example, in Grand Canyon has gone dry during these dry years. This year it's really gushing really splendidly. Um, but the only way we're getting flow data there is occasionally passing by and evaluating how much water is coming out. So not very, uh, not very precise monitoring data on that very important site. That is the second highest concentration of land snails of any point in Grand Canyon, Thunder River, having the highest concentration. Yeah, many patterns that are kind of baffling and really kind of cool. Luke: I think that that gives us an excellent place to, you know, kind of wrap up and move forward. And I think I've just got one last question for you, and that is with all this understanding, right, you're developing and you’re continuing to develop further and further understanding more data leads to more discoveries for you. And you've had quite a significant career on the canyon as well as with seeps and springs. Knowing all of that, putting all of that together, is there something or maybe multiple things that give you hope for the future, that give you hope for the continuation of healthy ecosystems and healthy river ecology and seeps and springs in this area as well as beyond? Larry: Couple of things here. I'm a scientist. I take the charge of being a scientist very, very seriously. Uh, and uh, and hope is not necessarily part of science. Our job is to provide information that can contribute to a better understanding of the physical reality of the world that we live in. I'm going to launch into a little bit of a diversion here because, um, Carl Jung talked about peeling back the layers of the unconscious to, to really reveal the depth of human experience. And, uh, David Hinton talked about the yin yang issues with the fertile void and the material world splendid book called Existence, that I totally recommend reading, as well as the work of Carl Jung. Carl Jung is kind of an unraveling the union of human consciousness is something he wrote as an introduction to the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Both of those approaches fail to grasp the dimensionality from us going out into the rest of the universe and failed to take that into a serious enough context that this dimensionality that we live in, we see ourselves in the center of kind of a heliocentric or anthropocentric kind of perspective of the universe. It goes in both directions, both into our personalities and out into the universe. And by taking thousands of people through and many, many researchers who are focused on individual research topics, spiders, plant physiology, whatever this array of kind of people that have come through my life, through Grand Canyon and guiding on river trips, research river trips and, sometimes just as passengers, has just brought incredible insight into this dimensionality. As a scientist, I have to deal with the material world which both of those philosophies kind of ignore. Um, uh, the continuity of life on earth going back 4 billion years to the present that brought us here. To be able to appreciate Grand Canyon is just absolutely extraordinary. You know, we look at the canyon and the humbling effect of look of being able to see the place, understanding that our contribution to the universe is less than a grain of sand in the context of Grand Canyon is humbling. And, uh, and, and has given me a perspective that, you know, I can make my contributions in this life. They won't be very much, but I can try and that's kind of my job as a scientist keeping to the material world that I can study. Uh, is the, is the responsibility of science. A lot of people claim that science doesn't provide a moral compass for humanity. I beg to differ. Trying to stay open, open minded, and pay attention to the facts and be willing to change your mind about reality. If the data point in that direction is a tremendously important lesson for humanity. Um, if I could change anything, it would be human nature in this, in this landscape to get to take us away from a I me, mine kind of perspective towards compassion for the for the life, for the health of the earth, for the incredible insight that I'm being able to see. And appreciate each organism that we have that we come across each organism tells us so much about the world around us, uh, its own life and the path of evolution. If we we're to start a first Church of the Earth, Grand Canyon would be the temple. And the story that Grand Canyon reveals about the tremendous expanse of time, life's role and change through that, through that process is, uh, is the, you know, the material reality that we have here and to drift off into other belief systems just takes us away from appreciation of this incredible green planet that we live on. Luke: Well, I appreciate it, Larry. I think that is a wonderful way to sum this up. And I really appreciate your focus on learning to accept and appreciate change. I think sometimes we as humanity struggle to do it even though we're so very good at it ourselves. We can change on a dime. But we don't love to talk about it too frequently. Yeah. So anything else you'd like to share? Larry: Sure. Just to wrap up that question of what gives me hope. You give me hope. Luke: I appreciate that. Larry: Yeah. Luke, this has been a really great opportunity to speak about some of these things. I don't get that much chance to spout off on this, uh, this kind of philosophical, uh, perspective very much. And Uh, and the more we can teach the youth about, about this place, the better. And so this effort, I think, is really worthwhile. Luke: Well, thank you, Larry. I appreciate that. And I appreciate you taking the time to speak with us and being willing to record your thoughts on this. Larry: Totally. My pleasure. Thank you. Luke: Many thanks to Larry Stevens for sharing his stories and perspectives on the canyon. The Behind the Scenery Podcast is brought to you by the interpretation team at Grand Canyon National Park. We gratefully acknowledge the native peoples on whose ancestral homelands we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant native communities who make their homes here today.

First Voices - Gerald Lomaventema Mar 09, 2024

"It's so big and vast and especially in that area by Desert View. That's where we have shrines, and we still observe those shrines during our important religious activities that we have here. It's still connected to us. Every part of that Canyon is a very important part of our religious activities.” Gerald Lomaventema is an award-winning silversmith, a mentor to young Hopi artists, and a runner. He's also the great grandson of Olympic medalist Louis Tewanima.

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Gerald: It's breathtaking. Yeah, it's so big, you know, vast and especially in that area by the desert view. That's where we have shrines, and we still observe those shrines during our important religious activities that we have here. It's still, you know, connected to us. Every part of that Canyon is a very important part of our religious activities. Jesse: Hey, this is Jesse today on the podcast, we're featuring an interview that Phantom Ranger Ceili Brennan recorded with Gerald Lomaventema. Gerald is an award-winning silversmith, a mentor to young Hopi artists, and a runner. He's also the great grandson of Olympic medalist Louis Tewanima. Louis won silver in the 10,000 meters in the 1912 Olympics and set an American record that stood for decades. He was also a spiritual leader in his community. In this interview, Gerald talks about his art, his cultural connections to Grand Canyon, and running and Louis's legacy in the Hopi community. Enjoy. Gerald: My name is Gerald Lomaventema. I'm from Shongopovi, and of the Bear Clan. Our history, the Bear Clan, what the archaeologist say is that if was first inhabited here by the Bear Clan in 700. And I’m from that family, the lineage, and I've lived here all my life. Although I went to boarding school as well, in Riverside. My mom was deceased when I was very young so my grandmother raised me. But you know, throughout the time, boarding school and afterwards I went to trade school and then a few two years of community college, and then I had a family. So, I returned home and there was a silver smithing class that was offered by the Hopi Co-op Guild here in the early 90s and so I took that class and so now I've been doing it for a long time. And now we have our own shop. And I've traveled internationally talking about, you know, fake and imitation of hope art. Ceili: When is the last time that you were? At Grand Canyon. Gerald: I think in 2019, I think when they used to do the artist demonstration at the Desert View Tower. Ceili: OK, right. Yeah. So a couple of years ago. Gerald: Yeah, you know, I also mentor younger Hopi. They invited us, so there were a few of us that I took. And the good thing about that was they provided the housing, so we stayed the whole weekend, and it was like a free vacation for us. Ceili: Yeah, that's so awesome. And what was that like bringing the people that you mentor to Desert View? How would how'd that go? Gerald: I think they had their first experience, you know, how to talk to visitors about your artwork and a little bit of history that's involved. We tell them about how the Hopi Started doing their jewelry work in ancient times. They had adornment. They had turquoise, they've always had turquoise and shell and colored stones and hematite. So adornment was always part of our culture and even copper bells. Yeah. And the Grand Canyon is a spiritual place to us. We can't just go into the Canyon for some of us and we have to make preparations if we're going to do that. Ceili: Yeah, what was it like the first time you saw Grand Canyon? Do you remember? Gerald: No, but every time I see it, it's breathtaking. Yeah, it's so big, you know, vast and especially in that area by Desert View because that's where our spiritual… we have shrines down in there and we still observe those shrines during our important religious activities that we have here. So, it's still, you know, connected to us. Ceili: Actually, that's a good segue. You're an award-winning artist and you teach your art, you mentor. I'm wondering how your art is influenced by your home and you know the landscape around you. Gerald: You know, as an apprentice, when I was in my late teens the elders used to tell us that, you know, we can't just make jewelry with lines and circles and whatever. It has to have a meaning, so we get the inspiration from our culture Ceili: Right. Gerald: And our landscape. So, we're taking part of our culture and putting it into, you know, what's acceptable, into the jewelry. Ceili: Right. Gerald: And there's a line there that we don't cross. Some stuff that we don't talk about publicly or international, whatever. So, we all know that line that's not, you know, we can't cross because some of our culture isn't open knowledge, even to other members. You know it's not that tricky to know you know, I mean if you’re Hopi you know what that line is. Everything comes from our culture and the area we live in, even the Grand Canyon, so when we do our religious ceremonies, I tell our students that, you know, we have to pay it back. And so that's how I guess I feel better about, you know, sharing some of these stuff. When we participate in the ceremonies, some of them which are physically demanding, you know, and then fasting and all that, you know, so that we sacrifice our bodies for some of the ceremonies. But to me that's our way of paying it back. Ceili: You know, a lot of that sounds so physical. Like you said, you're paying things back with your body. So, I'm wondering about what your relationship is to running, and what the relationship is with running and your community. Gerald: Yeah, you know, we just had a ceremonial run this past weekend. Ceili: Oh, really? Gerald: Yeah. And I was excited because my nephew came in third. Ceili: Wow! Gerald: And I know that course and I used to run it when I was younger and some of those young guys like it's, you know, like practice to them. You know, they can sprint up that Mesa and some of them are pretty fast. But in relation to what we're doing here, you know it's part of our religion. You know, we're probably weaklings compared to our ancestors, because, you know, even though the Spanish brought the horse, you know, for transportation, they didn't readily accept the horse and the cow. They didn't like cows. But they like the sheep. Oh yeah, yeah. And so to me, that part for me is kind of like a therapy. Because it wasn't always like this for me. You know, I wasn't always like out there, you know, exercising or whatever. I tell my students that, you know, there's jewelry making, and there's our Culture, what we have to observe, and then there's our fields, and our family. And then the running is up to an individual. And if you could combine all that into your daily routine, there's no room in there for alcohol or drugs. So that's what a lot of us are vulnerable of, you know, to doing in our younger years. Some of my students were offered scholarships for their running. Ceili: Really? Gerald: Yeah, one of my students, I saw him run in state and he relaxed right at the end and he got beat. Ceili: Oh Gerald: So I told him “well, I saw you relax, you know, you thought you had it, but you didn't,” you know, and this guy just ran right in front of him and won. So anyways, I think running is a crucial part for me today. Although, I ran the Louis Tewanima a few times. I got two medals. I guess in my age category. Ceili: Ohh wow, that's pretty awesome. Gerald: Yeah. So I was surprised at that, but I had to push myself, you know. Ceili: So you mentioned the Louis Tewanima Run. Can you explain that for listeners that don't know what it is? Gerald: Oh yeah. Louis Tewanima was our great grandfather. Although my grandmother was adopted by her aunt, who has Louis Tewanima’s, was a wife, so she inherited the house that I grew up in after my mother's, when she died and my grandmother, you know, raised us in that house. Although I never met Louis Tewanima, I think he died in the late 70s or early 80s after a ceremony in the winter. But the reason why he went to the Olympics was because back in the 1900s, the early part of the 1900s you know the government had that forced assimilation of Native Americans. And one of the Presidents, I can't recall who, you know, said this but they wanted to “kill the Indian and save the man.” So throughout America, they were just, you know, separating kids from their families and sending them to boarding school. So he was one of them that, you know, they couldn't catch him so, you know, they had to use horseback to catch him. Ceili: Because he was too fast. Gerald: Yeah because he was fast. And him and another some other kids that were, you know, didn't want to go. And I believe that there were faster individuals here, but they weren't caught because, you know, they used to run to Winslow, which is almost 70 miles one way, 65 maybe, just to watch the train and be back for dinner. Ceili: That's amazing. Yeah. I was thinking about that when I was driving from Winslow. And I couldn't believe it. Gerald: You know the highway that's a longer the route, but there's a shorter route that you pass through a few springs. Ceili: Oh that's helpful. Gerald: Anyways, back then, I guess they were very strong. You know, because they were the last of the ancestors, I guess. That's the reason why he ended up going to Olympic because he was a resistor and he got arrested. They made them walk from here to Fort Wingate in New Mexico about, you know, in a car, probably 2 hours. Ceili: Yeah. Oh my gosh. Gerald: And then they put them on the rail on the train. And some of them got sent to Riverside, California, and some of them got sent to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and he was sent to Carlisle. And you know there are stories about him that he tried to run away a few times, but it was just too far and he always got caught or somebody reported him, you know, because there was a boy or a young man that was walking around and he wasn't from there. Ceili: Right. Gerald: So they always took him back. Finally, I guess he saw, you know, the track team and he went up to Pop Warner, the coach there at that time and he told him that he could run. He just looked at him and you know, they didn't believe him, I guess until he actually started, you know, practicing with him. And he became the teammate of Jim Thorpe. And they I guess there were only like a few members on the track team, but they competed against all those elite schools. Ceili: Yes. Gerald: And they, you know, they used to win. And when the Olympics came, he went to the trials and he was, you know, he became eligible and so I think in 1908 he ran the marathon and then again in 1912 he won the silver. So Louis Tewniam, you know, he set records. And how did he say it? He said “me run fast,” and he said “all Hopis run fast.” in one of the articles that I read. Ceili: Yeah. And especially because you said that, you know, there were faster people that were, you know, that just didn't get caught. So there he was probably running with faster people all the time. Gerald: Yeah, you know. You know when he returned, there's a story about him that there was a traditional race. And he got decked out in his track outfit. And he went out there and he ran and he got beat by about 3 of them. Ceili: Wow! Gerald: Yeah. So that's how we say he probably wasn't the fastest at the time. But I guess probably you know how runners are, competitive runners, they probably wanted to beat him. Ceili: Yeah, yeah, they were probably very motivated. Gerald: Yeah, and oh, there's another story, too, about him and another runner that were rivals. And they were always, you know, talking trash. And then there was an older man. He didn't like what he was hearing so he challenged both of them to the run, like a marathon. And he beat both of them. Ceili: Wow! Gerald: The older Hopi. Ceili: Wow. Gerald: And you know, later on, my grandmother, she, you know, when she was a little girl and she was born in 1925, but her great Aunt Blanche took her in. And so, they became the parents of my grandmother. And you know, Louis was quite famous, and he knew a lot of people. So, they built the little house there as in addition to the older part of the house. And that's where my grandmother grew up. And she always believed that that was her dad. But she had a, you know, she had a real dad that was her aunt's father. These were traditional people. But anyways, he became a religious leader, Louis did. He was returning from a ceremony held in the winter and his eyesight wasn't too good and he walked in the wrong direction and fell off the Mesa. Yeah, so I wish I would have met him, but you know he died around that time. And then his wife, Blanche she lived for a long time. And we don't really know how old she was. But she was one of the lucky ones that didn't get sent to a boarding school, so she didn't speak any English. She only spoke Hopi. I remember she used to pray every morning. And she wore a belt, a Hopi belt that she put on every morning, too. Ceili: They left a pretty big impact on the community. Gerald: The whole reservation, yeah, and even other natives that come here. And I guess internationally because we've had international runners. Ceili: And then for a number of years now, every year, there's the Louis Tewanima Memorial Run that's open to the public and is that an exciting thing for everyone? Is that something that people look forward to? Gerald: You know, every Labor Day they had it. Labor Day is when we usually have a harvest festival or not a harvest festival, a harvest dance. And, you know, that makes it more, I guess, exciting because the race is early in the morning and then whoever's speaking there, he invites the whole group or the whole crowd to come and enjoy the dance. Some of them stay, you know, some of them will stay and they check out the dance and mostly some of the pueblos from New Mexico. They enjoy those dances, so they stick around. Ceili: So it's like a holiday. It's sounds pretty exciting. Gerald: Yeah, it's festive and everybody's all happy. But you know, I guess it's competitive too in the morning. Ceili: Yeah, I can't imagine it not being competitive. Gerald: Yeah, it goes through some of the traditional trails, traditional foot race trails, some of it does, but most of it's a new course. All the memorabilia I have at the shop I bring out during the race. I set it up to where the runners can come and see it. A lot of people, you know, they surprised me, too because some of them take it spiritually, too, the running, and they pray when they go there to see some of that memorabilia. So, I think we have, you know, not only something treasured by the Hopi people here through the memorabilia, but also, it's a history for Americans. Ceili: Yeah. And like you said, the whole world really like it's Olympic history. Gerald: You know the thing about it is in back in the time in that era, Native Americans weren't American citizens. So even though they weren't considered American citizens, they still represented the United States. Jim Thorpe and Louis Tewanima. Ceili: So we kind of have one, maybe one final question. Here in Grand Canyon, on the trails like amongst all the tourists and you know the Ranger stations down in the Canyon, there's, you know, especially in the spring and the fall there's so many people that run through the Canyon and people have some varying opinions on runners in the Canyon. A lot of people say that you should be walking in the Canyon because if you're running, you won't be able to appreciate your surroundings as much and you won't be able to feel as connected with the place. And as a runner myself, I always think about this and I'm kind of not sure, like sometimes it's true for me when I'm walking, I am going slower so I have a different experience, but running is one of my favorite things to do and I often feel like that's the best way for me to connect to a place. So we're curious about your thoughts on that. Running in Grand Canyon and how it can affect your connection to the police. Gerald: I think you know because some of the religious pilgrimages that we, you know, in our histories to the Grand Canyon, it's all about running. Yeah, they can walk, but for us, you know, it's spiritual. I think early in the morning is, you know when we really feel that, I guess, urge because that's what our ancestors used to say. You know, before the sun rises, you're supposed to go to the shrines and pray and then, you know, on the way back then you take a bath in the spring. So that's what they tell us. And for the Grand Canyon, that places it's spiritual to us. Every part of that Canyon is, you know, a very important part of our religious activities which are in our prayers. So for a Hopi, I think, not all Hopis are runners. So anyways, I think in the morning is when we like to feel that spiritual connection to our surroundings wherever you are, I guess. When I was in Santa Fe I was up early Saturday, and I just walked and I prayed. Either way, you know, you still you still enjoy your surroundings and maybe walking you have a longer time to appreciate it. When you're running, you’re, you know, you're going by, but you're still appreciate appreciating it. Ceili: Yeah. Gerald: So, as a Hopi and people that like to run, I think in the mornings, you know It's good for runners to run, and if you're not a runner, you know, you can walk and enjoy the same surroundings. Jesse: The behind The Scenery Podcast is brought to you by the interpretation team at Grand Canyon National Park. Many thanks to Gerald for sharing his stories and perspectives. You can find Gerald his art and his memorabilia in his shop at the Hopi Cultural Center on Second Mesa, Arizona. We gratefully acknowledge the native peoples on whose ancestral homelands we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant native communities who make their homes here today.

Wild River with Wayne Ranney Feb 01, 2024

What’s it like to ride the rapids of the Colorado River through Grand Canyon National Park? Join noted geologist, book author, lecturer and guide Wayne Ranney, a veteran of over 100 Grand Canyon river trips, as he is interviewed on all-things Grand Canyon river rafting related.

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♫ Soft guitar and singing: Wild River (Just Float me away Wild, wild, river I’ll ride you some day Sleeping on sandbars)

Wayne Ranney: Every time I think about a Grand Canyon River trip, what I think about is how wonderful it is to fall asleep on those sandy beaches, looking up at the darkest sky you've ever seen, pockmarked with 4000 stars visible to you. It's just an incredible experience, I hope, if your finances allow your bucket list sometime down the line allows that you will put a Grand Canyon River trip on your list. It's really one of the most incredible trips a human being can take on this planet.

♫ Stars fill the sky The thrilling white water A Grand Canyon prize …

Grand Canyon. Where hidden forces shape our ideas, beliefs, and experiences. Join us as we uncover the stories between the canyon’s colorful walls. Probe the depths and add your voice for what happens next at Grand Canyon. Hello and welcome. This is Jesse. This is Emily. And this is: Behind the Scenery.

Ranger Doug: Hello folks. My name is Ranger Doug from the North Rim, bringing you another Behind the Scenery / Grand Canyon National Park podcast. The title is: Wild River, with Wayne Ranney.

Have you ever contemplated taking a river trip on the Colorado River through Grand Canyon National Park? How long does it take? How much does it cost? How dangerous is it?

These questions and more, will be answered by today’s very special guest. His name is Wayne Ranney.

Wayne wrote a popular book on Grand Canyon geology titled: Carving Grand Canyon: Evidence, Theories and Mysteries. He also co-authored another awesome book, titled: Ancient Landscapes of the Colorado Plateau.

He is a noted geologist, lecturer and river tour guide.

I sat down to interview Wayne in June of 2023, to learn about all things Grand-Canyon-river-running related.

The podcast title, Wild River with Wayne Ranney, implies that the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon is wild. It is indeed a wild ride, and the river and its many camps are in wilderness settings.

But technically, the river is no longer wild. Wayne will talk about two dams and reservoirs, one upstream, and one downstream from the park. And some of the rafts in the Grand Canyon are actually motor-powered.

Nevertheless, it is a very special treat to ride the rapids at Grand Canyon National Park.

So, strap on your life vest. Let’s jump into that river raft now. And hang on tight, as we ride the Wild River with Wayne Ranney.

Wayne: Hello listeners. My name is Wayne Ranney and I’m a geologist living in Flagstaff, Arizona. But I first got my introduction to Grand Canyon in the mid-nineteen seventies when I worked as a backcountry ranger at Phantom Ranch, Cottonwood Camp, and down in the lower gorge of the Grand Canyon. And after my backcountry ranger experience with the National Park Service, I went to Northern Arizona University and got a bachelor’s and master’s degree in geology. And I supported myself in graduate school by being a river guide in the Grand Canyon. And that’s how I became enamored with running the river and the Grand Canyon. And I’m happy to share my experiences with listeners out there.

I've been lucky enough to do more than 100 river trips through the Grand Canyon. I can't believe it myself, that it's been that many. My first 33 river trips were oar powered trips where I rowed a boat down the Grand Canyon. And I became a geologic educator on the river using motorboats. They tend to be better for educational trips through the Grand Canyon. And I lost count of how many exact river trips I did, but I know that it's more than 100.

Doug: Wow, that's pretty good. How many river miles is the Grand Canyon trip? And how long does it take?

Wayne: Well, between Lee's Ferry, where river trips begin and Pearce Ferry down at the other end, the Grand Canyon is 278 miles long. And the takeout place where the river trip ends is another two miles so conveniently the river trip through the Grand Canyon is about 280 miles long.

Doug: Wow.

Wayne: Fabulous trip, multi day.

Doug: So what's the average length of a Grand Canyon River trip?

Wayne: You know when you do a river trip, you can either go on an oar powered boat and river trips like that are anywhere between 12 and 16 days. And if you do a motorized trip, they’re anywhere between seven and 10 or 12 days through the Grand Canyon.

Doug: So how many rapids are there on a typical, let's say, when you go all the way through to Pearce Ferry, how many rapids?

Wayne: I have heard the figure that there's 165 named rapids in the Grand Canyon. I haven't verified that number.

I should also say that when Hoover Dam was finally built in 1936, that the water from Lake Mead backed up 35 miles into the Grand Canyon and drowned out at least three big rapids, two of which were considered the two biggest rapids in the Grand Canyon. And they no longer exist. This would be the rapid at Separation Canyon, where three of John Wesley Powell's men left the river trip in 1869 and then just downstream from there, six miles, was Lava Cliff Rapid, which was considered the most treacherous of all the rapids in Grand Canyon. But again, those rapids no longer exist. But the vast majority of Grand Canyon still has wonderful white-water experiences on the river trip.

Doug: How about with lower lake levels on Lake Mead? Have some of those reemerged?

Wayne: You know, we have been in this 23-year-long drought and Lake Mead is much diminished from what it used to be, however, the sediment that backed up into the Grand Canyon when the lake was full has choked those rapids, and they have not reemerged yet. And there's a big sediment pile of reservoir sediment that is still burying the rocks that used to create those big rapids.

Doug: Are there any hints that the rapids might be underneath the sediments? Boulders or anything?

Wayne: The boulders are still there, they're encased in reservoir sediment. The problem with those being re-excavated is that once the river leaves the Grand Canyon, it is running over what used to be bedrock high above the river. And there are some large rivers now down… , I’m sorry, large rapids downstream from Pearce Ferry. And so we've created a perched sediment pile back up in the lower end of the Grand Canyon.

So until the river can excavate that bedrock wall that the river now has to flow through, this reservoir sediment will stay perched and we won't have those rapids reemerging until the river can find its original river channel and then eat away at that soft reservoir sediment.

Doug: OK, so I know there's some legendary named rapids. How did the rapids get their name, and what are some of the legendary rapids?

Wayne: Grand Canyon is famous for its rapids and a handful of them were named by John Wesley Powell, and some of those still go by the names of Sockdolager Rapid, a really fun ride. Sockdolager is a 19th century boxing term for a 1-2 punch and apparently one of John Wesley Powell's men after running the rapid, turned to Powell and said, “that was a real sockdolager, Major”!

And other rapids that John Wesley Powell named would be Granite Falls at the mouth of Monument Creek. Lava Falls is considered the most treacherous rapid right now on the Grand Canyon.

Anywhere there's a side canyon that comes into the Colorado River is where we see these rapids located, and so a lot of the rapids take the name of the side canyon.

Doug: OK.

Wayne: Probably the most exciting rapid in the Grand Canyon today is Hermit Rapid at the mouth of Hermit Creek. And there you have a series of 7 to 9 roller coaster waves that at certain river levels can really give you a fantastic ride and everyone looks forward to riding the waves in Hermit Rapid.

Doug: And I know some rivers in North America using I through VI rating system, but the Grand Canyon’s unique. How are these river rapids rated?

Wayne: And one of the things that I've noticed, Doug, is that most of the boatmen don't really refer to the one to ten rapid rating in the Grand Canyon anymore and they don't really use the Roman numeral I to VI rating either because the river level changes and the way that the rapid appears to a boater also changes. And you know, on some of the trips that I do, the boatman will say this is a one-hander or this is a two-hander.

Doug: What's that mean?

Wayne: Well, what that means is you hang on with one hand or two hands (chuckles). And I've even heard the rating of robust two-hander and that might be a rapid like Hance Rapid. Hance Rapid has a lot of boulders where you need to maneuver. Now, if we were to use the Roman numeral I to VI rating for Grand Canyon, we have a lot of II’s and III’s, which would be one-handers. But Grand Canyon also can have IV’s and V’s, and that Roman numeral I to VI rating system each Roman numeral actually has a definition for what you will need to know going through the rapid.

For example, a Roman numeral VI means the rapid is un-runnable. It's too treacherous. You should not attempt it. But a Roman numeral V means you have to make two moves in the rapid to miss obstacles. And so the Roman numeral system is a much better way to rate rapids on rivers. But historically, that has not been used in the Grand Canyon. But today we can look at the rapids and we can say well, this would be a Roman numeral IV, or a Roman numeral III or whatever it is.

Doug: OK.

Wayne: Yeah.

Doug: So maybe list the top five or six well known and notorious rapids.

Wayne: OK, so the most well-known or notorious rapids, I think at River Mile 17, that would be 17 miles downstream from the start at Lee's Ferry, we have House Rock Rapid. Great big churning hole on the left side of the river there. Probably the next well known rapid would be Hance Rapid at River Mile 76. This could be considered a Roman numeral V especially at low water where you have to make a couple of moves it within the rapid to miss these obstacles.

Horn Creek Rapid just below Phantom Ranch can be a big rapid at low water levels and then we have Granite Falls and Hermit Rapid other really well-known rapids. And then of course we have Crystal Creek Rapid, which was created only in 1966, when 15 inches of rain fell on the north rim over about a 55-hour period. And it washed a huge debris fan into the channel of the river and Crystal Rapid is probably the second most treacherous rapid after Lava Falls, which is the one with the historic and the modern reputation as being probably some of the most treacherous waves in the Grand Canyon.

Again, if you run the rapid properly you might not even get wet going through it. But there are hazards and obstacles, and should you hit a hazard or an obstacle, this is where things can get exciting. And so a lot of times the rapids that have the higher rating can be run relatively dry because the boatmen have to be in the right place.

By the way, I should mention that professional boatmen in the Grand Canyon, a lot of them have run the rapids so many times they're very well experienced and professional about the way they run the rapids. There's also an opportunity to take your own river gear and do what is called a private river trip, and some of the people that do private river trips have a lot of experience running rivers. There's also people that on private river trips that are learning how to row rapids for the first time, and they might have more exciting runs in the rapids.

Doug: How does the Park Service separate commercial river trips versus private river trips?

Wayne: Yeah. When you think about people using the Colorado River in Grand Canyon, it's been regulated since the early 1970s because the demand was just growing exponentially. And the Park Service wanted to protect the river environment from too much overuse. So, in the early 1970s, there was the establishment of licensed concessionaires who can offer river trips to paying customers, and we call these commercial river trips in the Grand Canyon. And so you will pay a fare to one of 15 river companies that still exist here. They are licensed concessionaires by the Park Service. And they will take you down on either a seven- or eight-day motorized raft or, a 14- to 16-day oar-powered raft through the Grand Canyon.

And then we have the other side, which is the private river running sector. These are people who apply in a lottery to receive a permit to run the Grand Canyon. They either have their own river equipment and are experienced river runners in the Grand Canyon or other rivers, or they will rent equipment and go down and this is something that's become quite popular in the last decade or two because there's a couple of outfits in Flagstaff, AZ that rent complete gear and menu and food for these 16-day river trips. And you just write one check, and they'll give your private party six boats, all with the oars and the boxes full of food and a menu on how to cook the food. Those are the two ways that people access the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon, either on a private trip with friends or relatives, or paying a commercial outfitter to take you down.

Doug: So let's say I want to go down with a bunch of buddies and we're all experienced boat, boat people. When I throw my name in the lottery, what's the normal wait time to get a private permit?

Wayne: They get a lot more requests for these private permits than they have permits to give, and if I'm not mistaken, there are around 400 or 450 private permits given per year. And so you might have 8-9000 people who get on the list every year to try to snagb one of those 450 permits. The system that is set up now is that if you do not get chosen in your first year, then for the next year if you reapply, you will get two chances to get your number or name picked for a river trip that second year. If you don't get a permit the second year, then you get a third chance and you'll have three balls in the hopper, if you will, to get a chance, and so it's a weighted lottery, meaning that the longer you're on the list, the better chance you have to getting one of these coveted private permits.

The Park Service only allows the commercial river trips to run between April 1st and October 31st. And if you wanted to go in November, December, January, February or March on a private trip, there tend to be more openings. However, going down the river in the wintertime is a completely different thing than going down in the warmer summer season, or spring or fall.

Doug: So how many people typically get to run the Colorado through the Grand Canyon, combining the private and commercial trips every year?

Wayne: Given the current use, about 27,000 people a year are allowed to go down the Colorado River in Grand Canyon.

Doug: Sounds like a pretty exclusive club.

Wayne: It is a pretty exclusive club and you know it's too bad that it has to be that way. But on the trips that I do and I'm lucky enough to get to do two or three geology themed river trips every year. The passengers invariably will mention to me how clean the beaches are and we are sometimes camping on beaches that every night between April and October will have somebody camped on them. And my passengers will come to me and they'll say “I can't believe how clean this place is.” And the Park Service has very strict regulations about building fires along the river, you can build fires in your camp, but they have to be in a fire pan. All the ashes and charcoal have to be contained and packed out and this keeps the sand in the Grand Canyon from getting that dirty charcoal color and charcoal bits spread all over the beach. We always pick up our micro trash.

Doug: So talk about how you set up a typical kitchen on the river.

Wayne: This is another thing that the passengers are commonly surprised at. On these boats, whether they're the oar powered boats or the motorboats, there are folding metal tables that get brought off the boats and set up for cooking and serving meals. There's huge ice chests that are in these boats that can take refrigerated goods for up to two weeks in time. There are metal cans that bring canned items and packaged items like fresh bread and things like that. And people are always amazed at how good the food is on a Grand Canyon River trip, even after day 12 or 13 they may still be serving you sandwiches with fresh bread.

Doug: So how can they keep the beaches so clean when beaches are being used over and over and over again?

Wayne: We always encourage people to eat their sandwich down by the river's edge. So if you're eating a tuna fish sandwich and a little bit of a celery or the lettuce falls out of your sandwich, if it's big enough, we ask people to pick it up and put it in the trash receptacle. All the trash is taken out as well.

Also underneath the serving table and the kitchen table, these mesh mats are set up to collect all of the crumbs that might fall off of the table. And then when the camp is being broken down, these mesh nets are folded up, taken down into the river and shaken out into the river. So tiny breadcrumbs and potato chip pieces and little bits of relish that may have fallen on the ground they fall on this net and these nets are then taken down to the river when we leave the camp. And that stuff just goes into the river. And so that's one of the ways that the beaches are clean.

But one of the other things that's happened in the last couple of decades is that now the operations at Glen Canyon Dam allow for these controlled released floods that come down through the Grand Canyon. And if enough sediment has been washed into the main channel of the river these controlled floods will put this brand-new sand up on the river beaches.

That's the ethic of running the Grand Canyon. And the professional guides and the private river trips that go through here know that every little bit of trash that's left behind can become a problem. You know, we didn't always have these regulations in the early days and granted there weren't that many people running the river prior to the closing of Glen Canyon Dam in 1963, but human waste used to be buried in the sandy beaches and as river running began to increase in the 1960s, the river runners started to realize that the beaches were not as clean as they used to be. And so somewhat by self-regulating, but then also by Park Service regulations, it became such that we wanted to preserve these beaches in the Grand Canyon in as pristine a manner as possible. And again, I'm even amazed myself that when we go to these places, you rarely find any trash at all, even little wrappers.

Doug: So what's the ethic for human waste?

Wayne: So all river companies and all private trips are required to carry all human waste out. People are asked to urinate in the river because in this dry desert environment of the Grand Canyon, if you were to urinate on the shore, we don't have enough rainfall to wash that away. And so you can get odors that will develop. And so everybody as much as possible urinates right in the river. The volume of the river takes care of that, that urine waste.

And then the human waste, the solid waste, is in toilet systems that are contained during the day while you're on the boat. You never even know that stuff is there. And every night the toilet is set up in a secluded place on the beach and all of the waste is taken out of the Grand Canyon. Every bit of trash, every bit of human waste. And as we say, the urine goes into the river. So it's really remarkable how clean these beaches are, especially with the use that they get.

Doug: So tell me about a typical Grand Canyon toilet.

Wayne: A typical Grand Canyon toilet will be a metal can that sits as high as a toilet at home. It will have a toilet seat just like a toilet at home. And there is either some kind of powder or liquid that is included in the bottom of the metal can to disable the bacteria that can build up when this human waste is containerized. What that does is it allows for the human waste to be taken out and then it is disposed of at proper receptacles back in Flagstaff or Kanab or wherever the river company operates out of.

And so we follow standards where it would be like going to an RV park. And if you have a recreational vehicle that has a toilet, there is a known place where you can go and dump that human waste. Once the river trip is over, the human waste is dealt with in that manner back in an appropriate place back in the city.

Doug: OK. Is there a slang term for that toilet?

Wayne: Yep, we call that the groover.

Doug: And what’s origin of that name?

Wayne: (chuckles) The groover word was originated, there used to use these old ammunition cans that had sealable tops. We called them ammo cans or rocket boxes. And before they found out that you could put a toilet seat on top of you would sit right on the edges of this metal can. And as you got up from it, it would leave little grooves in your butt cheeks. And so people started calling it the groover.

Doug: I also thought it was named because sometimes some of the best views on the river is while you're doing your business, you can kind of groove on nature and enjoy the view.

Wayne: I had not heard that definition, but it's definitely true.

Doug: OK, so far out I can say to that!

Wayne: Yeah, one of the companies that I do my geology themed river trips on, they have an indoor toilet where they set up a small tent. And you can have some privacy in that groover.

But then they also have the scenic groover, which is a little bit farther away, but just set up in the great outdoors, usually facing the river as you do your business. And that's called the scenic groover.

Doug: OK, a special one.

Wayne: And I just completed 2 river trips in the month of May 2023, right after one of these high flood experimental flows and the new sand was just lovely to camp on.

I'm telling you, when you camp on a Grand Canyon beach down along the Colorado River, it's as nice as setting out your towel on a Caribbean beach. The sand is wonderful. It's great to sleep on, and this replenishes the sand and helps to keep it clean.

Doug: Wayne, how dangerous is running the rapids in the Grand Canyon?

Wayne: You know, there are some people who do have a fear of the rapids and the rapids are nothing to take lightly. But as I told you before, if you're going down with a professional guide, they often have run the rapids dozens, if not hundreds of times, and know exactly every rapid by heart.

There occasionally are oar boats that go over, really extreme rare cases when a motorboat goes over. And it's not a completely hazard free experience. Nothing in life is, but I'm really impressed with the professionalism of the commercial river guides. And also, a lot of the private boaters also have a lot of experience on the river.

There are guidebooks that tell you how and what you can expect in each of the rapids. And I would say overall, it’s an extremely safe trip, but one must always be aware that things can happen, and that's why in some instances it may be good to go with a professional group just because they have the most advanced first aid training and they travel with satellite phones should that be necessary.

I have flipped a boat once myself when I was an oarsman, and my boat went over. Fortunately, nobody was hurt. Everybody was safe. We did lose a little bit of gear to the river, but as I say, I've done over 100 trips and I've had one flip in my boating career.

Well, we're living in modern times. And so, as I say, all river trips, even the private ones, are oftentimes traveling with satellite phones. That if you can catch a satellite going over, you can make a direct call to National Park Service dispatch. If there is a medical problem that deserves attention, living in the times that we do, there are options to get people off the river in relatively quick fashion.

If the wind is blowing really, really strong, they won't fly the helicopters. If it's raining or there's a big storm coming through, that's another reason that might delay a helicopter rescue from the river.

Doug: What's the cost to do a commercial river trip or a private river?

Wayne: So how much does it cost to go down the Grand Canyon by river trip? You know, I wish this was something that absolutely everybody could afford. But you got to realize these are trips that sometimes last over 2 weeks, and the general cost is somewhere between $400 and $500 a day. So, if you go on a motorized rafting trip in the Grand Canyon, it's going to cost you about $4000 per person. And if you go on an oar-powered trip, that might last as long as two weeks, it might cost you 5 or $6000.

Doug: Wow, how about private … how about private trips?

Wayne: So on a private trip, if you. And by the way, private trips are limited to a maximum of 16 persons. One of those persons is designated as the trip leader. And one of the popular ways to do a private trip is just to rent all of the gear, all of the food, and even the shuttle from one end to the other. And if you divide that by 16 people, the cost is somewhere around $2000 per person, so probably about half the price for a private trip.

But then you have to do a lot of the things yourself. And hopefully there's somebody on the trip that has prior Grand Canyon experience, someone who knows the way, someone who can lead the others that may not have any prior Grand Canyon experience and that can also be a wonderful way to go down the river.

Doug: Sounds pretty spendy to pay for a commercial trip. Any thoughts on how it can be more inclusive for the everyday person?

Wayne: Well, I don't know how you could do that except to say that a lot of the river companies that if you can gather together a charter group, in other words, where you find all of the participants to go on a commercial river trip, a lot of the river companies will let the organizer go down the river for free.

So if you can sell 20 spots on a two-boat motor trip the river companies will allow one person, the leader of that group, to go down without paying a fare. So that's one way you can do it.

Another thing is that my wife and I have established a scholarship. Every other year, Northern Arizona University Geology Department does an alumni river trip. And people who have graduated from the program at NAU Geology, we get together and do a river trip. And my wife and I have established a scholarship for an undergraduate who wants to go into geologic education as a career. So there may be other ways that you can learn about scholarships that may be available to go down the river.

Doug: That’s great. I didn't know that. So what are some of the must see stops and side trips if you're doing the Grand Canyon river trip.

Wayne: You know, Doug, I can honestly say that it's not specifically the river and the rapids itself that has caused me to go down there more than 100 times. What really gets me to come back time after time is all of the side hikes that we can do from the river and going up into some side canyons in Grand Canyon. And you just can't believe the number of springs and waterfalls and side streams and places where there's ruins left behind by ancestral peoples that lived here 1000 years ago and hikes up to beautiful scenic temples and viewpoints. (Note: the word “temples” is used in Grand Canyon to denote prominent, high-standing natural landforms a d not religious temples).

There are tremendous opportunities to do off river hiking on one of these river trips. And some of the more enjoyable ones by myself would be up into North Canyon. That's a four-wheel drive hike, but it's only about a mile long and you get to a beautiful reflecting pool at the end of the hike where you see a beautiful view.

I also like to hike up into a place called Saddle Canyon, where there's a very remote and secluded little waterfall back in a slot canyon gorge, and the approach to the Saddle Canyon waterfall is through this most verdant green ground that you've ever seen with redbud trees and cat claw trees and oak trees. I love the hike at Saddle Canyon.

I love to do the little side hike up to the Phantom Ranch when we stop at the Bright Angel beach, and I just like to go up there and maybe mail a postcard to a grandkid or something like that.

One of the bigger hikes on the geology themed river trips is to start at Carbon Creek at River Mile 64 and hike up Carbon Creek about a mile and then look at the Butte Fault and then hike along the trace of the Butte Fault for about a mile and a half. And then you get to a place called Lava Chuar Canyon and you hike back down that canyon to the river. And that's one of the most incredible geology themed hikes you can do.

And then around the Tapeats Creek and the Deer Creek area, there are probably half a dozen different hikes you can do to these beautiful springs and waterfalls and side streams that are just not seen from the rim of the Grand Canyon but traveling along the river you really get a sense for how important springs and side streams are to the ecosystem of the Grand Canyon. And that's one of the neat things about these river trips takes you below the rim into the wilderness of the Grand Canyon, and you get to see the Grand Canyon from the bottom up. And the side hikes are a great way to do that.

Doug: Any special sacred or special places for indigenous folks? And how does the park manage visiting those areas?

Wayne: Yeah, we do have a number of these very special places to indigenous people. The first one that comes to mind is where the Little Colorado River comes into the Big Colorado River. And if the Little Colorado River does not have any runoff in it with brown mud, there is 13 miles of the Little Colorado River that is a turquoise blue color from dissolved calcium in the water. It literally is the color of turquoise. And this is where the Hopi believe that all human beings emerged out here into the 4th world. And so the Hopi have asked the National Park Service and the National Park Service has asked river runners to visit the Little Colorado River with respect. This is a very sacred spot to the Hopi.

At Furnace Flats, which is a very rich archaeological area because the Grand Canyon has opened up relatively wide and in about a five- or six-mile stretch, there's a lot of ancestral sites and Furnace Flats is a place that has been deemed [off-limits to visitation] just because of the amount of archaeological sites that are present there.

Also caves in the Grand Canyon are closed to visitation without a permit because of the archaeological and paleontological resources that can be found in them. In these dry desert caves, human items as old as 4000 years have been recovered from hunters and gatherers that used to live in the bottom of the Grand Canyon. They would leave these split twig figurines that were woven in such a way that they resembled a Big Horn sheep, probably made to invoke hunting magic for these hunting and gathering people, and literally hundreds of split twig figurines have been found in Grand Canyon caves. And so for that reason, caves have been deemed a place we should not visit without a permit.

Doug: Wayne, any favorite river stories you want to share?

Wayne: Oh gosh, there's so many river stories, but I guess the first one that comes to mind is back in July of 1983, when Lake Powell became too full, too fast, and there were not enough outlets at the Glen Canyon Dam to let out all of the water that was coming in. And so, with as much water as could humanly be released from Glen Canyon Dam, we saw a flood travelling through the Grand Canyon that mimicked the historic floods before the dam was constructed across the river. And river revels got as high as 100,000 cubic feet per second. That's about 10 times higher than what we normally see in the river through Grand Canyon. The Park Service temporarily closed the river because there were some accidents on the high water that was moving through. But they eventually just ended up telling people to please consider canceling your private river trips and commercial river trips were even halted for a short time.

A group of river runners and myself got together and we obtained a cancelled private permit. And we did an oar powered river trip 226 miles through the Grand Canyon in three days, a trip that normally takes 14 days. And we weren't trying to set a record. We weren't trying to go as fast as we could, we just wanted to see what the river looked like at that high river level, that high water volume. And it was striking how different the river is.

I mentioned to you earlier in this podcast about House Rock rapid at River Mile 17. I was a half a mile below House Rock Rapid before I realized we had already gone through it because the water was completely flat through the rapid, the volume of water had flattened out the rapid to a flat lake-like scene.

We spent four hours at Crystal Rapid trying to figure out how we were going to get around that big thing. That was really a memorable trip to travel through the whole Grand Canyon in just three days’ time.

Doug: So how do you get past the hole in Crystal?

Wayne: What we did is we pulled over on the right side of the river and we scouted the rapid for all of those hours watching other trips go through and we finally just decided the best way through was to hug the right-hand shore and go right over the tamerisk trees that were being bent over by the river current in the downstream direction. It was actually quite easy to run Crystal Creek Rapid because there was so much slack and slow water up against the right-hand shore. But God forbid that you should ever be pushed out into that current in the middle, because that big hole just got bigger and bigger and bigger as the river volume got larger and larger and larger.

Lava Falls, the biggest rapid on the river we also scouted that. That was not really a concern because these gigantic V waves, as we call them, we're just coming off of both shores right and left, just meeting in the middle. And it was just [so] easy [to] ride the wave train through the great big rapid. That's one of the stories that comes to mind,

But you know. Every time I think about a Grand Canyon river trip, what I think about is how wonderful it is to fall asleep on those sandy beaches, looking up at the darkest sky you've ever seen, pockmarked with 4000 stars visible to you. It's just an incredible experience. I hope, if your finances allow your bucket list sometime down the line, allows that you will put a Grand Canyon river trip on your list. It's really one of the most incredible trips a human being can take on this planet.

Doug: Very good. Thank you, Wayne.

Wayne: Yeah. Thank you, Doug.

Doug: The Behind the Scenery Podcast is brought to you by the interpretation team at Grand Canyon National Park.

For more information and a list of approved National Park River outfitters, google Grand Canyon river concessioners.

We gratefully acknowledge the Native People on whose ancestral homelands we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant Native communities who make their home here today. Thanks for sharing your homeland with us and being good stewards of the land.

Thanks to ranger Dave for podcast editing. Thanks to Ranger Hannah who will join ranger Dave and I for our ending parody song, with apologies to Keith, Mick and the boys!

Now’s where my guitar?

♫ Guitar and singing:

I saw the river Far, far, below Strong current cold water A powerful flow

Muddy river Filled with silt Frothing, tumbling, buddling A challenge to the hilt

Wild river Just float me away Wild, wild, river I’ll ride you some day

Rapids ahead Dangers abound Horn Creek and House Rock I prey I don’t drown

Hance and Hermit Grapevine and Soap Crystal and Lava Let’s hope I can cope

Wild river Just float me away Wild, wild, river I’ll ride you some day

Sleeping on sandbars Stars fill the sky The thrilling white water A Grand Canyon prize

Inflate your raft Prepare for some fun Let’s do some livin’ On a river run

Wild river Just float me away Wild, wild, river I’ll ride you some day

Collaboration on the Colorado River with Rob Billerbeck Jan 06, 2024

"This is the drier southwest, so it's not surprising this is the place where the effects of climate change are first really coming to a head. Do we pull together as a team? Do we figure out how to adapt? How to be able to balance water use between cities and agriculture, between different states? Or do we fail?"

Rob Billerbeck is the Colorado River Coordinator for the National Park Service. Rob highlights the challenges facing the Colorado River and why he still has hope for the future.

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Ceili: Hi, I'm Ceili, coming to you from the Phantom Ranger station at the bottom of Grand Canyon. What do Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, Curecanti National Recreation Area, Dinosaur National Monument, Canyon Lands National Park, Arches National Park, Rainbow Bridge National Monument, Lake Mead National Recreation area and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area have in common with Grand Canyon and with each other? These places are in three different States and look vastly different, but are inextricably connected by nearly 1000 miles of the Colorado River and its major tributaries. They're also all managed by the National Park Service. In 2022, they welcomed more than 17,000,000 visitors and contributed more than $1.8 billion of visitor spending to local and regional economies. The Colorado River is contentious. Managing 277 miles of it through Grand Canyon between two of the biggest dams in the country is complex. There are hydropower needs, sediment loads, threatened and endangered fish recreation groups, and many other aspects of river management. But because the river flows through such a huge swath of the dry desert southwest, it needs to be managed as a bigger whole system, making it even more complex. Complex enough that coordinating the needs of these Park Service units as they relate to management of the Colorado River is someone's whole job. Rob Billerbeck is the National Park Service’s Colorado River coordinator and I got to talk to him when he was visiting Lees ferry, Arizona, the launch point for river trips through Grand Canyon. The places he works to protect now, the places through which the Colorado River flows, are what first brought him to his home in Denver, CO. Rob: The reason I live here is because of my very first trip west when I was 20. You know, I saw Rocky Mountain National Park. And on that trip, I also met, you know, the woman who would later be my wife because she had a flat tire driving between national parks like I was. And so those were the two big loves of my life, Rocky Mountain National Park and my wife. So that brought me West. Now that I've been in this role, you know, even though I have had some incredible experiences in Dinosaur, I love Black Canyon of the Gunnison, I have spent nights in Canyonlands where you get up in the middle of the night and you can see by the light of the Milky Way, I still would have to say, you know, the Grand Canyon is a place for me that just prompts a really deep spiritual feeling. You know, when you are down at the bottom of the Canyon looking up, you really do feel like you are one tiny piece of a great, huge, amazing natural place and you know for me that experience, that feeling of spirituality in the Canyon makes me have to say Grand Canyon is my favorite spot along the Colorado River. I'm Rob Billerbeck and I'm the Colorado River Coordinator for the Park Service. Ceili: I had not even realized that the Colorado River had its own Park Service Coordinator, and I wondered if any other rivers had their own coordinators. Rob: There are some other river coordinators. There's one for the Mississippi and the Missouri because that's a really huge river as well. That's the only other one that I know that's specific to a river. There are other folks, of course, in our water resources division who cover a lot of different rivers. There's been a lot of work done on the Rio Grande but that doesn't have a specific coordinator. So, for the Colorado River the reason my job exists and has since the year 2000 is because Colorado River is just incredibly complicated, legally, politically. It's been quoted by many as the most complicated river in the US. That's really because it's providing water in the southwest. The dry Southwestern United States. So indeed, it is, you know, water is for fighting over. So, you know, in this arid landscape, the river corridor is incredibly important for wildlife. Even though the riparian areas, you know, make up maybe 1% of the landscape. For wildlife in these arid landscapes, 80% of the species have some critical part of their life cycle that occurs in that river corridor. So, you know, water is life. So, for the Park Service, it's incredibly important for us to interact on these river issues. In fact, you know many of our most iconic and most visited park units are here in the southwest. So of course, the Grand Canyon that we, you know, we'll be looking down towards when we're at Lees Ferry. But you know Glen Canyon National Recreation Area where Lake Powell is has incredibly high visitation. Further downstream, we have Lake Mead and then up on the tributaries upstream of us, you know, we have places like Dinosaur National Monument, Black Canyon of the Gunnison and way up at the headwaters, Rocky Mountain National Park. So for the Park Service, that's a pretty heavily vested interest given the importance of the water to our resources, given how many people want to come and have that visitor experience, then it's very important. And because it's so legally and politically complicated, what was found in the year 2000 was we really had to coordinate between the park units to determine what it is we wanted to ask for, what our positions were. So we had to make sure literally we were all rowing in the same direction within the Park Service. And then needed a coordinator to really interface with all of the partners. So, if you want to do anything on the Colorado River, you have to meet with seven states with a large number of tribes. If you're looking at the whole river, you know that can be as many as 30 tribes. And if you, you know, are talking about doing anything that would alter the flows, then you really have to talk with the Bureau of Reclamation, Western Area Power, about the dam operations. And then talk with many of the users and interest groups on the river, whether those be hydropower, interest groups, fishing groups or, you know, boating, rafting groups. So, a lot of partners to meet with because so many people use or receive this water. Really the water in one way or another gets to 40 million people and produces billions of dollars' worth of, you know, business and enterprise all along the river. Ceili: So many people rely on and care a lot about the Colorado River. Because Rob's role is about coordinating the National Parks on the Colorado River and communicating with the many management partners he often travels to various locations on the river for meetings. On this day, we both found ourselves just upstream from Grand Canyon National Park. Rob: We're at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area headquarters and I traveled here from the Denver Regional Office of the Park Service where I work now to here to meet with some of the park staff and some tribal representatives, and we're going to talk about a set of vegetation projects that we do below the Glen Canyon Dam and the vegetation projects really mitigate the effects of the Glen Canyon Dam on the river corridor. So we were able to get money starting in 2016 for that vegetation project really through the Bureau of Reclamation and the Adaptive Management program that was formed below the dam to comply with the Grand Canyon Protection Act. So, because of that law, we were able to get money to mitigate those effects, like I said, and do this big vegetation project that involves removing invasive plants, replanting native plants, doing some great restoration work, and keeping the campsites along the river, viable by clearing away vegetation from them by working with partners to grow native plants. So, we're really excited to meet with tribes today, talk a little bit more about the project. You know, we're a few years into it, and I've been partnering with them, but this is a good opportunity to walk around, show them some of the work that's happened, some prescribed burning, some replanting. Ceili: It is not always vegetation that projects are focused on. Rob needs to be familiar with all of the many aspects of the Colorado River. Rob: So, you know what has occupied most of my time is has changed over the 12 years I've been in this role. You know, in the past I worked a lot on Glen Canyon Dam operations and what was called the LTEMP the long term experimental and management plan. And you know, that looked at ways to do some occasional high flows out of the dam to rebuild beaches and sand bars that are part of the habitat, part of what protects the cultural resources by keeping them covered, and provides a way to simulate what used to be the natural spring flooding in the Canyon. And that maintains nice sandy beaches that, as people do their lifetime experience, you know, rafting through the Grand Canyon, they can camp on those nice sandy beaches. So, I spent many years on that, have spent many years since then, you know, balancing between working on some Grand Canyon and Glen Canyon issues and some of the operations in the Upper Basin. So how flaming Gorge Dam is operated, that dam is right above Dinosaur National Monument, so that affects, you know, the river corridor, the Green River that goes through Dinosaur and then down into Canyonlands. The Yampa, which is one of the he most free flowing rivers left, that's a major tributary of the Colorado, it meets the green within Dinosaur. So, it's a unique place, kind of a living laboratory in a way because we have this managed river, you know the upper Green coming together with a much more natural, free flowing river and then they flow down together in a semi-managed, semi-wild state down through Canyonlands. So, you know there and on the Gunnison, where we have the Aspinall Unit, a series of dams, you know, between Curecanti and Black Canyon of the Gunnison, we've worked a lot there, you know, particularly our water resources division folks like Mark Wansel, have really worked on trying to maintain those water regimes in a way that's as close to natural that maintains most of the river dynamics there. So, what we try and do at those places is push a lot for big spring peak flows. And that runs counter to some other stakeholders, so, it takes a lot of work, but it's really what's best for the fish, best for maintaining the river channel, the habitat overtime for fish and others, it maintains a wider channel which is better in terms of flooding issues than a narrow densely vegetated channel. So that's what that's what we've been working for in the Upper Basin and working closely with the endangered Fish Recovery program up there. In the last two years since we've had this really major change in hydrology and big drops in the amount of water that's really tied to hotter temperatures, more evaporation and drier soils. And that has meant that even when we're getting close to normal levels of precipitation in the form of snowpack, which is where most of the water comes from for the Colorado River, we aren't getting the normal amount of stream flow because the soils have turned into kind of a giant sponge. They're so dry that when the snow melts, it runs back into the soil instead of super saturating and running off into the streams. So, with that water level drop, Lake Power level has dropped significantly and as that has dropped, it's creating a fish problem for the Grand Canyon and that problem is because there's a lot of non-native fish in Lake Powell. There aren't a lot of non-native fish below the dam in Grand Canyon. So, in fact, that stretch of river below the dam has been the longest stretch of the Colorado River without a lot of nonnatives. So, the natives have been doing really well, especially the federally threatened humpback chub. So, what has happened is as Lake Powell has dropped, there's a top warm layer where the fish, the non-native fish, are now starting to pass through the dam in large numbers down into the Grand Canyon. And that is bad. Especially because it's also passing warmer water. So as that top warm layer is dropping down it's reaching the main outlet for the dam, where the pen stocks are the turbines that generate hydropower. And that water is passing through passing the fish, and then they're now able to breed below the dam. So, we are really worried as the Park Service about what that's going to do to the whole aquatic community that's been pretty protected in the Grand Canyon. Will we be able to prevent those non-natives from establishing a large population and start really impacting those native fish? We're not sure. We're doing some actions, but we really need some other agencies to do actions you know as well and together we hope that combination of actions will be enough. We’re at the early stages of invasion, so I'm excited and hopeful that we can change the course of this. But it really will take a lot of action in these next few years. So that's occupying a great deal of my time right now. I feel like that is the biggest resource change on the river that I have seen, you know, during my career. And so, I am really focused on that with the hope that we can turn that ship around, make a difference there and protect those natives. Ceili: It sounds like things are changing fast in the Colorado River. What should we know about these changes? Rob: The Bureau of Reclamation, you know, is the federal government agency that really, you know, decides how to operate the dams. They've got to work within the law of the river, so, the compendium of different laws, starting with the Colorado River Compact and many other laws that modify that. What is clear is over the last 22 years there has been a greater amount of water used than we have received into the system. So, supply and demand has not balanced for 22 years and that has taken Lake Powell and Lake Mead from almost all the way full, about 95% full in the year 2000, down to where they are now which is about 25% full. So, they're hovering just above the place where they can still continue to produce hydropower. So that overuse is a really big concern. And so, for the public, I think that's something they really need to know and participate in. Right now. There's a Bureau of Reclamation planning process that's evaluating ways to address that supply and demand issue. And I think you know, that's a very important, it's the supplementary EIS for the 2007 guidelines. So, it's a mouthful. But you know if the public really looks at that process and Reclamation is doing a great job of explaining that to the public, then they will understand that for the future, if we want to keep both lakes above power pool, keep them where they can provide recreation, and you know, currently they provide recreational impact in the billions between Glen Canyon, Grand Canyon and Lake Mead. We really need to balance supply and demand. And you know, it's important for folks living in cities to consider how they use water and do water conservation on things like lawns and golf courses and things like that. But the even larger component of this is agriculture, and that's what I think the public doesn't understand, maybe, is how much water in the Southwest goes to irrigated agriculture. And so there are some big, difficult, complicated choices associated with that and would really encourage the public to interact on that planning process and try and understand the full implications of all of those decisions and participate in them, because this is the critical crux moment for the whole system, where either we may fall below these levels at which we can operate the water system well, or we figure out how to balance supply and demand, make some tough choices and really maintain the water system and our national parks for the future. So, I think that's really what public needs to understand. The other thing I would add to that is just the press often reports this as the result of a drought in the West. And based on, you know, the science that we understand as the Park Service we understand this not as a temporary drought but as the result of climate change, increasing temperatures and evaporation, and so a more permanent process called aridification, rather than drought. Drought is are really a temporary reduction in precipitation and that's not really what we're experiencing in the West. So, I think that's another important thing for the public to understand is this isn't going to return to normal. We're on a one-way trend and we need to plan for that. So that we can have water for people and water for beautiful natural places as well. Ceili: Rob spends so much time thinking about the well-being of the national parks and the communities along the Colorado River, and I wondered how it felt for him to see how climate change is affecting them. Rob: Climate change weighs heavily on me, really understanding how this works, and it can start feeling a little pessimistic. So, when I feel that way, of course, what do I do? You know, I go recreate in a National Park. I was feeling kind of at a low point with climate change concerns, you know, last fall. I had to take a day off of work and go take an 11-mile hike up steep hill in Rocky Mountain National Park and just remember that you know the size, the scope of these natural areas is large, and Mother Nature is resilient. You know, many of the things that will be first affected by climate change are human structures, our cities on the coast, things like that. But Mother Nature is, life is resilient. Natural places are large, and I think that helps me feel more optimistic. And the other thing is just, you know in my personal life, like I got solar panels a couple of years ago, I just got, you know, a heat pump for my house so I can stop using so much natural gas. And I feel like the solutions are out there for how we make changes to how we do things that have created this. We have now an electric car, well, a plug-in hybrid. So those combinations of things are available to everyone now. So again, when I feel pessimistic then, you know, it makes me feel just a little bit more in control to know that I can start doing things and maybe be an example to others of how we can change to adapt to where we are now. I think there is a way to turn the big boat around too. Ceili: The future of the Colorado River remains uncertain, but Rob Billerbeck has hope. Rob: I think I mentioned how the Colorado River provides water to 40 million people, that's 1/8th of the United States. This is just a historic time that people will look back on where we made decisions that will greatly impact the future of the Southwest and will even affect the food supply for our country and others. And so, I would really encourage the public to really try and read beyond just the headlines, read beyond just a few news articles and try and really understand what's going on, because this is very significant. We have to figure it out here. This is a harbinger of the future for, you know, the whole rest of the country. This is the drier southwest. So, it's not surprising this is the place where the effects of climate change are first really coming to a head. But how we deal with it here, you know, will be a good case study. Do we pull together as a team? Do we figure out how to adapt? How to be able to balance water use between, you know, cities and agriculture, between different states to get kind of out of our corners and work together? Or do we fail? Because the time scale of this is so rapid. Many of the old ways of doing things where we take 5 or 10 years to figure out a solution just aren't going to work. So, I think we're entering a new time and we're smart creatures. We've got big brains. We can build suspension bridges and sing gospel music together. So, we have the capability of doing this, but we really have to think about it in a new way and think about it on the time scale that matters. That's what I would leave it with is it’s an important time where I hope we become the case study of successful adaptation to climate change. Ceili: What's around the bend for the Colorado River in the face of a changing climate? What's in store for the communities that we all live in? Think of a time your community has pulled together as a team to adapt to a change and take care of each other. These are the stories that will help us move forward together. Jesse: The Behind the Scenery Podcast is brought to you by the interpretation team at Grand Canyon National Park. We gratefully acknowledge the Native peoples on whose ancestral homelands we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant Native communities who make their home here today.

Your Questions Answered 2 Dec 02, 2023

What's the best place to see sunset? What do I do if I get stung by a scorpion? What footwear will help me break Jim Walmsley's R2R2R FKT? You ask - we find the answers together! After google-ing what the most common questions people were asking about Grand Canyon in online searches, rangers Kate, Jeremy, and Brendan do their best to answer them.

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Kate: In this episode, we're exploring all of the different questions visitors ask us here at Grand Canyon National Park.

Brendan: My name is Brendan Oates.

Kate: My name is Kate Hensel.

Brendan: And we have a special guest, Jeremy.

Jeremy: Jeremy Childs here from Interp on the Rim.

Brendan: Yeah. Good to talk to you here, we don't really get to talk to people on the rim that often, so it's good to have you! And we were thinking about it, I think out of all three of us, you've probably answered the most questions if you counted them all up.

Jeremy: Per capita?

Brendan: Yeah, Per Capita.

Jeremy: Yeah- all those shifts working at the VC. Definitely. Yeah, I miss those days, honestly. But yeah, some days we'd have a line out the door all day long from open to close, and so not unusual to do 5 or 6 hundred visitors a day.

Brendan: Wow. And how many questions do you think that would add up to?

Jeremy: Three or four different questions.

*laughing*

Jeremy: Yeah, no it's... It's, you know, first time here, what do we do? And then you go through your spiel. The second most question is where's the glass walkway thing? And then of course, where's the restrooms? Big one too. But literally, I mean. It's whenever someone asks a really good question like I saw this flower and they describe it to you and you're like, thank you. You're my favorite visitor of the day. Because they ask something unique, and it gives you an opportunity to think a little bit. And to expand your repertoire, rather than just your normal spiel like you know the shuttles are free, blah blah blah...

Brendan: Well, Jeremy, we have a bunch of different questions we pulled from a bunch of different sources, usually not as much asking where the bathrooms are, but more of an opinion. And you've probably heard a few of these before. So - Dive right in, Kate?

Kate: Yeah, So the first question is where is the best place to see sunset?

Jeremy: So, this is interesting because we really wanted to get to the bottom of this and so we had Rangers go out to every of the most popular spots; down the Hermit Rd. Down desert view drive, Mather Point, Yavapai Point here in the village, and we had kind of a bracket style, you know, final four type of thing, Sweet 16, where every couple of days. We would put up a new spot and the photograph and then the public, via Facebook or Twitter, would get to vote on which spot was their favorite. And our typical answer over the last few years has been Hopi point. It's the most popular by far, not unusual to get 4 or 5 hundred people out there on a good summer day. But we were thinking maybe there's something else, you know? And so, we use some North Rim spots, Desert view, you know, all over the place. And after all of that. The one that came in first was Hopi point. So, we gave them sixteen options over the course of two weeks, and the public voted, and they still chose Hopi point. So, we can at least say everyone's going to have their own. Obviously, I have my own. It's not Hopi Point, but I'm not going to share my own, because of the -- one of the reasons I love it is because it is secluded. And that's the great thing! You can find those near Hopi Point. You just walk along the rim trail in either direction for 5 minutes and all of the sudden, you're by yourself. And that's the beauty of it. It's really nice. But there's going to be lots of differences, but we tell people now that it has been voted on and decided by the public that Hopi Point is the crowd favorite at least.

Brendan: Yeah, I remember that was, when that was decided once and for all. And but were you part of that bracket? That final Four?

Jeremy: I didn't take any of the photographs, but I was voting for sure, but no, they we had a large amount of seasonals that were here. They arrived in March and literally we had two days of working the visitor center before we shut things down.

Brendan: Oh, man.

Jeremy: They were scrambling for things to do, for projects to do, and that was one of them that they came up with. I thought it was pretty cool.

Brendan: So, the next question is another one you've heard before is how many people visit Grand Canyon per year? I think it depends on the year, especially now...

Jeremy: We had our busiest year ever just two years ago, which was I think 6.38 million visitors. It's a huge number of people. Honestly, that was about what we expected. 2016, we thought it was going to be a big year and it was not quite as big because of the Centennial for the National Parks Service, and then the 2018-2019 season we thought because of our Centennial as a National Park, but it actually ended up going down just slightly from the 6.38 in that year. So, 6.38 million is the most that this park has had, and it has been hovering around 6,000,000 for about a decade now.

Brendan: And would you say we are the most visited National Park? I know, I know that's a tricky question.

Jeremy: So that that, yeah, that depends on who you ask. So, there's a lot of different ways you can look at this. So, Great Smoky Mountain National Park, they get close to 11,000,000 visitors a year. That said, they have a highway that goes through the middle of the park, and it is oftentimes the only way to get from Tennessee to North Carolina and back, and they count every single car that drives down that as like 2.3 visitors or something in their algorithm. So that's how they get to their 11,000,000 visitors per year. Now, how many of those people actually getting out of their vehicles and enjoying the resource? Not sure about that. So Great Smoky Mountain National Park can say they're the most visited National Park. There's also Golden Gate National Park in San Francisco, but they count every single concert, every single boat that comes up to a pier, every single... You know, there's... there's a lot of different ways to look at this, but if you look at people on the ground, boots on the ground, visitors that are enjoying the park in a meaningful and interpretive way, then I would say the Grand Canyon. It's typically about 2 million visitors more than its closest competitor, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Zion. Those places which average between 4 and 4 and a half million visitors a year.

Brendan: So yeah, and I think we see a very specific view, because you're on the South Rim, but in the Canyon, I think we've had also record numbers the last couple of years. I think the saying goes 1% out of all the Grand Canyon visitors visit the Canyon, but we've had a lot of Rim to Rim or Rim to Rim to Rim runners come the last few days.

Kate: Yeah. And we've also been seeing, as the years progress, that our Rim to Rim or Rim to Rim to Rim season are getting longer and longer, so we're seeing more people that way too. In talking about different ways of getting around the Canyon, can I bike at Grand Canyon?

Jeremy: Absolutely. It's a very bikeable park. There's basically about... I'm going to say 8 miles ish on the Hermit Road and that's nice when it's closed to traffic, because it's only accessible via the buses or walking or biking. For the majority of the year, from March 1st to the end of November, it's shuttle bus only on that road. And that means that you can bike it and it's so wonderful. They do ask that you pull off the road if a shuttle bus is coming, but they only come by every 15 or 20 minutes. So, you basically have it all to yourself. It's a really nice, paved road. You're right on the edge of the Canyon. There's lots of opportunities to stop along the way and enjoy the views. Uh, But it's safe. It's family fun. Uh, we do have the Bright Angel bicycle shop here in the park and they do a lot of tours where they will take you out in a van and they have guides that can tell you that some of the history about what you're looking at, but it it's a, it's a historic road that dates back to the early 20th century and it's since been improved several times. Wonderful ride. There's also a Greenway system that runs throughout the park. So, if you wanted to, you could bike just about the entire village area without ever having to touch a road. And that's important to us because the drivers here, they have vacation brain, they're oftentimes distracted by animals and pretty views. And so, they're not looking at the bicycles that might be on the road with them. So, we've offered a wonderful alternative to riding on the roads with all the greenways that we have here. And you received the map at the front entrance station and all the green dotted lines, those are bicycle friendly greenways. All the black dotted lines, those are pedestrian only, the solid black lines are roads, so we encourage you to take the greenways or one of the roads that are close to personal vehicles.

Kate: Yeah, switching over to the other Rim, so over on the North Rim here you can bike the Bridle Path, which takes you from the Backcountry Office area down to the visitor center. So that's a great way, if the parking lots are really full, and you can park somewhere else and then get down to the rim views near the visitor center that way. And we also have the Arizona Trail that comes through Grand Canyon, so you can bike up to the rim on the Arizona Trail. But once you get to the Canyon edge, you have to carry your bike across the Canyon, and you just told me, Brendan, that you saw some people carrying their bikes this past week.

Brendan: Yeah. No, I actually saw a guy about an hour ago carrying his bike. He started at the border between Mexico and Arizona about 18 days ago, and he was having a good time till it started snowing because he had a lot of snow in the past two days. So, he looked kind of sad because I told him there's a foot and a half of snow on the North Rim, and he has to go up through there. Yeah. But yeah, you have to carry your bike and people do it every year. Rim to Rim with a 30-pound bike and all their stuff. And we have had a few folks who missed the signs this year and ended up biking all the way down to the river. And then they were told they had to haul their bike all the way back up, so...

Jeremy: Yeah, and that's an important point to make for all wilderness areas. And it's not just Grand Canyon, but any place you see a wilderness designation in a federal land, that means that no bicycles, no motorized vehicles are allowed anywhere in those. And so, if you are riding your bike through an area, you will have to carry it through the wilderness area, so as to leave less impact on the territory.

Kate: Could I bring my dog, cat, or iguana to Grand Canyon?

Brendan: Were you there for the iguana at the visitor center a while ago?

Jeremy: Yes. Yeah. I've also seen potbelly pigs. Someone had a parrot on their shoulder not long ago. So, yeah.

Brendan: Oh, I remember that one yeah.

Jeremy: Long story short, most pets are welcome at Grand Canyon. You have to have them on a leash, and I believe the leash cannot be any longer than six feet. There are rules in place, but anywhere on the on the rim of the Canyon is typically appropriate in an outdoor setting, every building has a little different rules as to whether they allow pets inside. That said, just like bicycles, pets are not allowed below the rim of the Canyon, so you're welcome to bring your dogs on the greenways and some of the rim trail absolutely welcome on that. But pets of all kinds are not allowed on Inner Canyon trails.

Brendan: Yeah, with the exception being services, specifically service animals or livestock.

Jeremy: Right. And so yes, if you if you have a horse or a mule that you feel is capable of handling the terrain at Grand Canyon, then, yeah, absolutely. Go for it. Are there any special permits that are required if you're going to bring pack animals in?

Brendan: Uh, so Kate Hensel and I got to do a walk with a bunch of mini donkeys a few weeks ago... it was pretty awesome. I had a donkey named Winky.

Kate: My donkey was Pearl.

Brendan: Yeah. And with... there are certain things. If you're going backpacking with your animal, just like anywhere, you need to get a Backcountry permit from the back country office. But if you're doing a day hike with your donkey or horse, you those are...or mule, you can't. Those are the big three. You can't take goats and you can't take llamas, which are used in other parks. Just let people know because there's also mules and lot of traffic, but you don't need a permit. But it is good to get informed before you bring an animal down into the Canyon cause it's pretty rough in a lot of ways.

Jeremy: It is. Now, If you're going to stay in the corridor, there are special campsites for pack animals, right? That will provide a corral type of environment.

Brendan: Yeah, the stock sites are available.

Jeremy: Great.

Kate: And we have a stock site at Phantom Ranch as well as at Cottonwood.

Jeremy: and we also have them up here on the rim at the campground here. So, you could plan a whole trip around it. Pretty cool.

Brendan: Do you want to the next one, Jeremy? Or anyone... pick whatever you want.

Jeremy: What best footwear...? What is the best footwear for doing a Rim to Rim? Well, I've done a few of them and again that's a matter of personal taste. I've seen a guy do it in flip flops, house slippers, chacos, you know, stuff like that. I would never do that. My feet would get torn up I think doing that kind of thing. Plus, there's a lot of ankle twisters, a lot of opportunities to twist your ankle. And uh, that's no good. So um, the first time I hiked I wore boots with kind of a taller ankle support system in place. They're a little heavier, they're all Gore-tex, and you know, waterproof and everything you know. And that was a mistake for me. Now other people you maybe you have weak ankles. Maybe you have ankle injuries in the past and you need that, for support then I support your decision to do that. For me now I use a trail runner. I don't care if it's waterproof, I'd prefer that it be breathable because 99% of the time you're going to be hiking in a very dry, arid situation. If it's anywhere between March and October, it's going to be hot, hot, hot in the Canyon. So, you want breathable material, lightweight, flexible type of stuff. So that's what I go for now. That's my ideal rim to rim footwear, but again it's personal preference and I support anyone wearing anything they feel safe in doing it. That's the key-- is uh, honestly, a lot of the time when we do search and rescue operations, when we have to extract someone from the Canyon, inappropriate footwear has been an issue in those rescues, so.

Brendan: Yeah, I would say at least in my experience like it is more often big, heavy boots. I would say which end up being a search and rescue or a trail response or a hiker assist. I have seen a lady in high heels, and she did river and back and she was totally fine. I think that's the exception. I don't recommend that, but it is interesting how all the different footwear you do see down here, and I think in my experience I've seen so many different shoes. I'd memorized the tread of a lot of them, but you know.

Jeremy: Right.

Brendan: Maybe that's just says more about my background than anything. Yeah, what about you, Kate?

Kate: I also really like to wear trail runners for their lightness and breathability. They're also nice for doing the corridor trails at Grand Canyon, because it is really nice to be able to just, like, jump into like a Creek to get cool. And that's like the easiest way to stay cool at Grand Canyon is to just get your body wet. It's nice not having to worry about soaking your shoes because you'll know they'll be drying in like half an hour to an hour.

Brendan: Yeah, but today the entire top part of South Kaibab is completely iced over. So, keep that in mind too.

Kate: Yeah, I mean, I normally wear trail runners, but I'm going to wear my nice waterproof leather boots hiking in today.

Jeremy: With traction devices, yeah.

Kate: With traction devices, Yep, you know, wear micro spikes.

Jeremy: Yep, and that's important to remember too. If you are going to be here in the wintertime, chances are even if it hasn't snowed in a week or two, the tops of the trails like Kaibab and bright Angel, they... that ice will stay there for months. And it will be the more it gets compacted down by humans and mules walking on it, it's almost like a Zamboni drives down at every single night because it gets, like, re-iced from the melt from the top. It kind of slicks over, and then the next morning, it's like, really super slick. So, traction devices are really absolutely necessary for going to be here in the wintertime any time after the first snow. Which we just had a couple of days ago.

Kate: I'm a big fan of trekking poles too? Trekking poles.

Brendan: Yes.

Jeremy: Better to have four legs than two. Yeah, absolutely.

Brendan: You're the only thing with two legs down there. Everything else is four, I guess... and birds... whatever. All right, so what is the best trail in Grand Canyon?

Kate: So hard to answer... Of the corridor trails, I think the South Kaibab is my favorite. It's just super pretty. That said, it's like really brutal to be on it for most of the summer. So, you really need to plan what time of day you're hiking and how fast you can hike on that trail. But I really like that trail. Going off corridor, I really like... Like underneath Thunder River area on the Escalante, a layer that's a really pretty trail.

Brendan: Yeah, I would say mine is the Tanner Trail. It was the 1st trail I hiked in Grand Canyon, which is... which shouldn't be your first trail in Grand Canyon. And I got absolutely wrecked and the last mile through the Coconino sandstone, I was taking naps at every end of the switch back switch back so. It definitely impacted me, and it was definitely the hardest I've ever done, but it is a beautiful trail. I have a lot of memories on it.

Jeremy: It is I... Like Kate was saying, it depends on the time of year, and it depends on the time of day you know and it also depends if you're going down or coming up. That has a big effect on which one you should choose as well. Some are longer, which means they're not going to be as steep. But I really like the hermit area that whole the Hermit basin is just amazing. There's several different trails. Uh, the Silver Bell Trail, which is a really, really old trail. If you could connect that down to dripping spring and then come out the hermit area, to hermit's rest. That's one of my favorite day hikes to do down there, but just getting all the way down there to the other spring, Santa Maria Springs and then the, The cathedral stairs. I mean lot of really cool stuff in there. There's a reason that they had a camp at that place for decades because it is so beautiful down there and it's not grueling, it's challenging just enough, but they have rip rap paving on a lot of the trail, so you don't have to worry about twisting your ankle too much. You do get your trekking pole stuck in, between those which I hate but.

Brendan: Ohh man.

Jeremy: But it's still better than getting your leg twisted up in that so, but yeah, the Hermit area is I just love that, that area. That's one of my favorites. And there's very few people. It's kind of off the beaten path that even as accessible it as is you won't see, but a fraction of the visitors out there.

Brendan: Nice. Yeah, and on the other side of it, is there a trail that either of you do not like.

Kate: Beamer.

Brendan: Beamer, oh why?

Kate: It's just you're hiking, and you don't get a lot of different views for most of the length of it, and it's like that weird angle where your ankle is always like, just tilted a little bit and you're just doing that for miles, so.

Jeremy: I have the same complaint. When you go down Grandview, you go down about a mile and a half to two miles. You hit the saddle. That's gorgeous. It's a challenging trail. It's super cool. You're kind of in awe that they used to take little Burrows down there all the time and pull copper mining ore out of there, but then you get to that area between Horseshoe Mesa and the saddle. It's just that straight right off the side and it's it is just slightly slanted and so, you're kind of doing this number the whole-time walking, you know, kind of cocky. And there's not a whole lot of interesting things to look at because you're kind of in a side Canyon and it it's just, yeah, there's no shade at all. And so, yeah, summertime, that's definitely my least favorite couple of miles in the Canyon in this area, at least.

Brendan: I would agree with Grandview because I feel like I always almost get hit in the head by a rock every time I'm there.

Jeremy: There's that too.

Brendan: Yeah, it’s just like clockwork, hit a certain section of the trail. And you hear the sounds of the rocks bouncing, and you're like, oh man, I should just wear a helmet next time I hike that trail. I get, I get this one asked a lot, usually by visitors, and it is what is there to do at Grand Canyon at night? I think what they mean by this is like what do I do like after work? Like what's like, the Grand Canyon nightlife? And I don't think there really is any.

Jeremy: Again, it depends on where you are. But yeah, normally there's a couple of pubs. There's some live music that happens at the Bright Angel Lodge. Sometimes, Rough Riders on the North Rim is a cool place to hang out and kind of you meet the local, you know, mixed in a little bit with the people that are traveling from all over the world. So, it’s - Grand Canyon is kind of like being at an airport.

*laughing*

Jeremy: You know, it really is because you, you get to meet people, you know, 40% of our visitors from foreign countries and that's amazing. You know, you hear dozens of different languages every single day. And there are things to do, you know, the. Bright Angel Tavern, El Tovar, Yavapai Lodge, the Yav Tav. You know that's a great place to go and meet people from all over the world and you share your stories about your hike you did and how tired you are, and you get to laugh at people that are doing the Kaibab shuffle. You know you can, those are the ones that just came out of from Phantom.

*laughing*

There is stuff to do here normally, but even without the social aspect, there are things to do. You can take a drive down Desert View and find a quiet spot and watch the Milky Way come alive, watch the shooting stars, watch the full moon, come up over Shiva temple and stuff like that, you know. So, there's lots to do here at night that doesn't involve a lot of socializing.

Brendan: I think a lot of people have Vegas on the brain when they come out here because Vegas is a pretty major airport to us, yeah.

Jeremy: Absolutely. Absolutely yes.

Brendan: And I would agree most of my evenings are looking at stars or looking at bats. And yeah, not traditional nightlife stuff.

Jeremy: Looking for scorpions with the black light.

Kate: Oh yeah, yeah.

Brendan: Speaking of Scorpions, how many people get stung by Scorpions, and what do I do if I get stung by one? I don't know if you get this question in time, but we get this everyday

Kate: “Is this a scorp sting?”

Jeremy: Yeah, we don't have the scorpions on the on the rim so much so.

Kate: Yeah, we get asked about them pretty often at Phantom Ranch. Because there's a lot of places there that will hang out. I mean in, the Canyon in general. And it's fun. After programs down there, we'll go out with a black light and look at, like the good, sweet spots for finding scorps, and we'll get a lot of questions then about like, what does it feel like to be sung by a bark scorpion, which I've never been stung, but I've heard it described as having, like, a feeling of TV static, just like going up your arm from where you were bit or your foot or wherever. But generally, it's not too dangerous to be stung by a scorpion. It'll be a little unpleasant, a bit painful, but otherwise you don't have to worry too much about it being a life threat. With a few exceptions of really young kids that can get pretty serious quickly, but you probably know more about that.

Brendan: Yeah, with young kids, it's scary. We're hear a few people say they're allergic to scorpion stings, and there's, like, not a ton of research about if you're and you can have anaphylaxis through scorpion stings. But kids will do this weird thing if they get stung by, like, foam at the mouth and stuff, and that's really freaky. But the only danger is if you were very, very young, old, or you know, have an immune deficiency where the scorpion sting can be very serious. That being said, our volunteer down at Phantom, Sjors, said you have about 1 in 1000 percent of 1 one in 1000 chance to being stung by a scorpion, because you have about one sting per week, and there's roughly 1000 people who stay at Phantom between the campground, the staff, and the ranch. But I would say if you get stung, Sjors has told me to cowboy up, or cry and feel bad for yourself. So, you can, you know, go either direction. Really.

Jeremy: And, and both.

Brendan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're not mutually exclusive. Yeah.

Jeremy: No, they're not. Kate:

Brendan, what's your favorite snack food to have in the Canyon?

Brendan: Well, I don't have access to restaurants, and I've eaten some pretty disgusting things over my years. I would say the classic is mixing ramen noodles with instant mashed potatoes, which is referred to as a ramen bomb in many places. And yeah, I would say I also don't typically carry a stove in the Canyon. I would cold soak it in like a jar of sorts like a peanut butter jar with a lid. And I think I've horrified several people eating this weird combination of foods, but it has a lot of salt, which is very important in the Canyon and also a lot of calories.

Jeremy: Salt and carbs.

Brendan: Yeah. I would not say that's a good long term nutritional plan, but that's what I eat a lot.

Kate: Yeah, I actually do like to carry a stove because I really like having tea when I'm backpacking in the morning, it's just super awesome to be able to like, sit on an edge overlooking the Canyon and just drink some tea. But generally, for just eating, ramen's really handy to just like have emergency packs of in your bag, once again for that salt. And though it's super tricky to eat in the Canyon I do often go through the struggle of bringing chocolate down in the Canyon and eating it and having it melt everywhere.

Brendan: That's high risk, yeah.

Kate: It is but, high reward.

Brendan: Well, you're now officially in like chocolate bar season where it's not 115 all the time. My Snickers bar froze today, so if that makes you feel better on your hike down.

Jeremy: I like jellybeans. That's my sugar fix. When I'm on the trails that that works real well because they don't, they don't typically melt, but they might stick together a little bit, flavor combination.

Brendan: I know one Ranger where she has a like a pocket where she just loosely stuffs jellybeans and Skittles, and I think she has the caffeinated kind, so she's the fastest hiker I know of in the Canyon.

Jeremy: Yep, plus it kind of keeps your mouth moist.

Brendan: Oh, yeah.

Jeremy: You know, if you have something kind of suck on like that. So even when it's super-duper hot, it's oddly soothing to have something like that so.

Brendan: I haven't hiked with jellybeans, but I'll have to try it.

Jeremy: I like the sour ones.

Brendan: Ooh. Alright. Well, Jeremy, thank you so much for helping us out and answering a lot of questions.

Jeremy: Absolutely. I had fun.

Brendan: Yeah. And Kate, if people wanted to ask questions, what's the best way?

Kate: When the visitor center is open, that's a great place to come talk to us. Down in the Canyon, we have contact stations, so that's great. And you can also reach out to us on Facebook and our other social media accounts. And then you can also call the park for general questions.

Jesse: Behind the Scenery is brought to you by the interpretation team at Grand Canyon National Park. We gratefully acknowledge the Nativ People’s on whose ancestral homelands we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant Native communities who make their home here today.

Brendan: Hello, I just hiked out of the Grand Canyon, and I smell bad.

First Voices - Colleen Lucero Nov 11, 2023

Colleen Lucero is the managing director of the Hopivewat Learning center and the founder of the Hopi Harvey Project, which preserves the stories of Hopi elders who worked for the Fred Harvey Company and helped to shape tourism at the Grand Canyon. On this episode, listen as Colleen shares stories about what inspired her robust career and speaks about her efforts to document, share, and preserve familial histories of Hopi elders through the Hopi Harvey Project with the help of cantaloupe a-la-mode.

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Elle: Welcome to the Behind The Scenery podcast. Today, we'll be chatting with Colleen Lucero, a woman who has played a major role in showcasing the historic roles of Hopi women in the Fred Harvey Company.

Colleen: (Introduction in Hopi) My name is Colleen Lucero and I'm from the village of Hotevilla, and I'm Katsina clan. Yeah, and currently I'm the managing director for the Hopivewat Learning Center. It's a historical project that we revived in trying to create a Hopi cultural Education Center for the Hopi people. The Hopis have been trying to build their own museum / Learning Center for about 40 years. I actually changed careers, I went back to school, and I came back and kind of dusted off the old plans with a group of other individuals, and we asked tribal council if we could revive the project, but with emphasis [that] we would become a nonprofit. So that happened in 2007 - so I'm just happy, and I've always loved history and I've always loved sharing about our culture and so it's just nice - to be - to have what I enjoy fit into a career, so to speak, yeah.

Elle: Absolutely.

Colleen: The Hopi Harvey Project is a traveling exhibition that showcases the contributions made by the Hopi people, and in that is their stories, their oral histories, talking about when they work for Fred Harvey, and then also historical photos that have been shared with permission to share and to show other people that this is who they were at that time. And then also, donated items to The Harvey Project, such as vintage brochures, we have glass plates used to make postcards with a Hopi image on it, and even some restricted items that are not appropriate to share. But a lot of people have been donating items toward the project because they know that family members might not appreciate them later. So, in a nutshell, that's all that's included in the travelling exhibition, and it continues to grow. And then we're hoping to house all this material, the interviews, the photos, the collections material, at the Learning Center someday and let it be a part of that era of our modern histories.

Elle: Yeah, that always makes it very helpful. So, the Hopi Harvey girls Project is something that you did within The Learning Center. Can you tell me more about it?

Colleen: Yeah, well, actually, I did it when I was going to school.

Elle: Oh.

Colleen: I was attending the Institute of American Indian Arts, pursuing my degree in Museum Studies and so we had to pick a senior thesis, senior project. So, I was gearing up toward it. My grandmother, I'm really close with my grandmother, and when we used to go to our town days, like from the reservation to the next border town, she would always tell me these stories about when she worked at the La Posada. And as I got older, I tried to do the research myself, read books that were written about Fred Harvey. But our histories were never in those books. They were always about the other perspective and so, I thought about it, and I said, wouldn't it be great to have - do a mini exhibit about this because Harvey girls are only supposed to be known as white Anglo women, nobody of color? And so, it was kind of hard to believe when you would ask somebody else about it. And then, sadly, my grandmother died my junior year. And in Hopi we respect the dead, and we’re not supposed to talk about them, we're not supposed to bring them up if it's going to cause us discomfort, or, there's just certain cultural protocols about that. So, I thought maybe, I shouldn't do it. And um - but in going through her things, I found all the stuff she would talk about. All her friends, pictures and it kind of just, I felt like it was tugging at me like, you know, you really should just - this is for you now to share with others. And so, I decided for it to be a memoir to my grandmother. And as I started to do more research as to who those people were in there, she wasn't the only one that worked for Fred Harvey from the Hopi community, there was actually a lot of people, men and women.

Elle: Yeah.

Colleen: And so, the more and more I explored, that's when I decided to call it the Hopi Harvey Project and just showcasing all the elders and their contributions to at Harvey Company. And like I said, you know, a lot of stories were told at the other side of the tracks, but never ours. And so yeah, that's how it all began.

Elle: That’s a really beautiful story. Really touching.

Colleen: Yeah, it was hard for me at first, but I know I found strength in the other people who were still alive that, that should be shared also and so they comfort me a lot. And my mom used to say, “All you ever do is hang out with old ladies.”

*laughing*

Colleen: But yeah, it was a lot. There was a time there that I would go see this person, that person, and you know, you kind of get attached to them, and they were happy too that somebody was taking an interest in that time period because, it was way before my time, yeah, I’d only known of it because of my grandmother. Yeah.

Elle: Did you ever find that anyone would push back against wanting to share their story or most or were most people really excited to share?

Colleen: I think at first, that's always the case with native elders because they have a lot of trauma with like people being invasive, people not accepting them for who they are. And so, I think it was important for me to show them who I was, what village I was coming from, who my family was, and most importantly, the story of my grandmother, that kind of helped break down those barriers, you know. I wasn't just somebody who was basically demanding information from them and making them uncomfortable, and I wanted to be an advocate for that. Like, so at first it was just reassuring them that this is what I would do, that what I was trying to do, and I wasn't going to exploit any of the information and if there was something that they didn’t want to be shared, then I would respect them.

Elle: So,do you think that doing this project was kind of a path of healing for you and for you personally with your grandmother, with the loss there and with your community as a whole?

Colleen: Yeah, most definitely. And it helped ensure all our values that we talk about in Hopi and that's that they live on within us. They live on with what we were taught. And so, it just reiterated what I'm sure she probably would have wanted it for me, and a lot of times when we miss people that are gone, we have to kind of look for the different signs and the different ways in the air, or just that feeling of comfort. So, I saw that a lot of the other people that were becoming a part of the project too.

Elle: Yeah, absolutely. So, circling back around to the project itself and thinking about the stories of these women, how did they manage the intersection of working for Fred Harvey with their cultural traditions?

Colleen: The good part was that these women, the locations weren't so far, you know, they were working at Winslow, they were working at Grand Canyon very seldomly, they would get shipped out to like Death Valley or Seligman. And so, these areas were relatively close to home. So, they could go back and participate like when ceremonies would come up. But I also want to mention that you know they were the first, I guess, to really step out and be able to show us that we could balance both worlds by having a working profession and skill. Being a part of our culture and carrying that on, I think it was really important to acknowledge them as them taking that step instead of not trying to make a means for themselves. And whatever they made, they always brought it home and put it towards something toward the community or to help their families. It helped them be more self-sufficient.

Elle: Yeah. When you said like shipped off per se to further away locations, did they have autonomy to choose where they got to work or did they just sign up to work for Fred Harvey? And then they got put where they were needed?

Colleen: Yeah, I believe it was that way. And I think when they got signed up, everybody saw a potential in them and then said there were these other job opportunities and so they would go. Because I never heard anyone of them say, “well, we were forced, and we had no choice but to go.” You know, it was an option for them to advance, they thought of it. So, I don't think there was, I don't think they were forced to go, it was just what opportunities were available to them.

Elle: Absolutely. What started you down this path of research and storytelling? You talked a little bit about your grandmother and your senior thesis.

Colleen: I at a very early age, I went to a museum in New York. And it was a new Native American museum, you know, and we went there, and I came across my tribe, and it was just one little thing. And I told my friend who wasn't Hopi, I told her at the time she was my sponsor, I said “God, you know, there's so much more to us than this.” And so, at a very young age, I wanted to change that narrative. I wanted to be able to tell people about us in a more respectful way because, it's always just like bits and pieces and it's, like I said earlier, it's always demanded what people want of us to learn about our tribe, the Hopi tribe. But it's never what we want people to learn about us, and so, I was only like a freshman, and so I was like, man, I need to work in a museum, change this. And so, for me, it was, been a long time coming and you know, I was already setting this avenue. I had a few setbacks here and there, but ultimately, it always came around and so and now I'm dedicating mostly all of my time to helping preserve these histories, helping to share them. Um yeah.

Elle: That’s an awesome story. It's always fun to be young and -

Colleen: Yeah, it's you know.

Elle: Like, just see it clearly laid out in front of you.

Colleen: And then we just always had a funny saying between me and my friend, like, “well, what do I know? I'm just an Indian, you know.” But yeah, there's truth to that in some sense. That's how we feel sometimes in these spaces, that we're not allowed to have that voice. Yeah, yeah.

Elle: Yeah, with somebody else writing your narrative. What could you know about telling her?

Colleen: Yeah, or totally ignoring you altogether, um, until they want something from us, then being more important again.

Elle: Yeah. Yeah, of course. So, what do you wish that people knew about the Hopi?

Colleen: Uhm, I think I think more, um, there is more to us than black and white photos – uh - Katsina dolls and pottery. You know, we have modern histories ourselves, and we're just trying to maneuver through all the times, just like everybody else. And I want people to be more of a bit more respectful about what we choose not to share. I think that should be more common ground, then what I need to know “I'm going to go search on YouTube” or “I'm going to find a way to find out." Because a lot of that information that people are seeking about our tribe, our culture, that’s earned knowledge that even we have to work for. And so, I just wish people would understand that more and realize that we're not just the people in those photos still, because I think there's a lot of misconception that we still live on the mesas, we don't. We're not trying to build museums, you know, stuff like that. But we're also mothers, we're also fathers, family members, we’re just like anybody else, you know, so.

Elle: Yeah, absolutely. Um, I know that you've been able to travel around in sharing the Hopi Harvey Project, what's been your favorite place that you've gone to share it?

Colleen: My absolute favorite was doing a home exhibit for one of my elders, for one of the ladies that were participating. She was a really shy woman; her name was Dolores Komaquaptewa and she was just so kind, but she was a little shy and she had fell, and so she was kind of scared to go anywhere. And so, she missed the opening. And I said, “Oh, don't worry about it, I'll bring it to you,” because it was a traveling exhibition and that was the main my main goals was to bring it into the community rather than having it at these venues, that was not realistic for any elder out in the Hopi Reservation. They go to dialysis 3 times a week, some of them, and some of them don't have means of transportation. And then they got to dress up and feel, you know, it was just so I brought it home to her home. We set up the exhibit panels, we put it under her TV or the DVD, and she invited her most closest relatives, and they watched it together. And there was also a lot of laughter, giggling about it, but then at the end they talked about their family values, about how their father, who was one of the first chairmans of the Hopi tribe, was always in favor of progression, was always in favor of moving forward and working hard. And so, they just kind of reminded each other about that and, to me, that was really fulfilling because like, you know, nobody ever tries to accommodate them, you know, they're always rushing them around. They're always like, hurry up or like it's a burden. And so, now that she's not here anymore, you know, I have really fond memories of her like that, and with her family. And so now we share them with the next generation, you know, so I think that was far better than any opening you know on opening night where we're all just up and having hors d’oeuvres or whatever. It was just in her home, bringing it to her and letting her take it in for what it was. For them, not anybody else, and that was just like the best thing, the best. Yeah, and I would like to do more of those.

Elle: Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah, that’s a great part about traveling exhibits is they can move around.

Colleen: Yeah, and then we don't have a museum in Hopi. And so, I did it at elderly centers, I did it at schools, I did it wherever I could, wherever there was a place for me to plug in I did it over there and so, I wanted it to come home first, then let it travel out in the public so that way I got, I guess confirmation for me, and then any suggestions that the community had that I would bring that out to a wider audience. And so that's when we started doing more outside presentations at different venues.

Elle: Yeah, absolutely. What was the most impactful story that you heard?

Colleen: Gosh, like I said, you know, it started off as a memoir, but later on, it was so important about how much this topic leads into other dialogue, important dialogues such as commodification of our culture and then the major contributions that the Hopis brought to the railroad. And then, of course, cultural misappropriation. A lot of things were misappropriated at that era, and it's kind of cringe worthy, but like it was what it was. And then how very early on we were already had our foot in the door of cultural tourism. Like, those are some of the main topics, but also like the softer side of things about friendship, about collaboration, and then the resilience of our culture, we were still maintaining our culture and sharing it through a modern avenue of things. It wasn't no longer people coming to the village, it was us doing performances outside, sharing things with the outside audience, at like the Grand Canyon, per say or Hopi House, so those are those different venues. We never stopped being Hopi and we never died out. You know, like a lot of people thought, oh, let's collect all of this stuff and let's you know, recreate this these things because the Indians are going to die out, they're all going to disappear, you know, and so I think that was the bigger picture that this project has brought me. We need to have those conversations on what it was then and where we're at now, you know. What was good about it? What was bad about? And keep pushing forward and sharing that with our younger people and telling them that some things are not appropriate, but we also have a responsibility, because we were also doing the same thing as far as selling our items and how they became tourist items as down the line from like a utilitarian type of art or craft, yeah. I've gotten to know the Fred Harvey family and their grandchildren and it's kind of like, you know, we all connect on the same thing like, but they're like a whole other different family. But like, we relate to what we're talking about and they always say, “Blessings from your Harvey family,” you know, and I'm just like, wow.

Elle: I'm sure.

Colleen: I don't even know Fred Harvey would have even thought that either that his grandkids would be still making those connections with people at Hopi and visiting Hopi and sharing stories. You know, it's just all a bigger picture.

Elle: Yeah, that’s really cool.

Colleen: Definitely, yeah.

Elle: UM, have you kept in contact with any of the folks you interviewed?

Colleen: Yeah, all of them. Until they all passed away. My last lady to pass away was Olive, and she worked for Fred Harvey for 30 years.

Elle: Oh, wow.

Colleen: A long time. And she was just the sweetest person. And she came home to take care of her parents. And uh, she was, she lived up to 100, so a lot of these people have since gone, but I try to keep in touch with their families, and they appreciate it when they have somebody else acknowledge their family histories and that was important thing for them. They were my ladies up until they left here, but I like to think they're still guiding me, especially when I share the funny things that they would talk about and just enjoying each other's company. I think also that’s the thing that we all enjoy within each other.

Elle: Yeah.

Colleen: Yeah, and I'm going to make it a goal, and a personal thing to make sure that all these stories, all the memoirs, all the photos are going to be in an archive, and other people are going to be able to utilize those as a resource when they want and when they need it.

Elle: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Did a lot of these, women know each other before your project, before you started interviewing them - Were they like a pretty tight knit community?

Colleen: Some did some know of each other, but some had only heard of each other because we have 12 different villages out in Hopi, and you know they always know, if they didn't know each other directly, they knew somebody who knew them, you know, and so I think it was safe to say that they were all connected at some point.

Elle: How has doing this project benefited your role in your community and then going on that as well, how has this project benefited your community as a whole?

Colleen: The Hopi community is an oral history community, so a lot of our history, a lot of our teachings are done from word of mouth. But the times that we're living in now, we have to find that in between on how our younger people are learning as to how the older people are learning and finding in between. So, we're hoping that this Learning Center will be a place to do that, and not necessarily take over the traditional roles of the villages and their learning circles, but just be able to house those resources when we need them. Yeah, so I think, there’s just a lot to it with having a cultural Education Center and how we are going to manage our cultural resources ourselves. Because we don't have this place, everybody's doing that for us and it's not necessarily how we would like it or it's not necessarily within our values. I think that's going to be huge. That's the biggest impact because Hopi isn’t about ownership, it's more about stewardship, and the museum's perspective is that while these collections are ours, these collections don't have a life. We manage what we want to do with these collections, not the people that were it came from. Yeah, you know, so, I think that's the bigger impact is just being able to manage our cultural resources on our home.

Elle: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

Colleen: A lot of times when people want to talk about native culture, native subjects, they're not native themselves, so for us being able to provide our own narratives is a huge goal that we're pushing forward and wanting that to happen more, rather than people researching us and being self-proclaimed experts when they've never lived our life, and they've never endured all the traumas.

Elle: How do you suggest people from anywhere can create tighter knit intentional spaces within their communities?

Colleen: I think we; I think the most important thing is you need to fall back on how your community exchanges knowledge. How is that happening? Take a take a deeper look into that rather than bringing foreign methods, foreign research, into that particular community and it not working out. I think people tend to go by structure all the time, rather than having it happen organically. And so that's just my suggestion that like, you know you have to study how knowledge is being shared first before you try to step into that community and say, well, this is what I want for you or from you. And then not only that, we just need to be respectful. And I'll just, you know, circle back around to, about how there should be a need not to know like, whatever we decide that we don't want to share, that should be respected. Just because of how things have happened in the past. You know, we Hopis tend to be prisoners of their own hospitality. We go in with a good intention, sharing stuff with people so they'll understand that moment and that time of what's happening. But the other person, outside of our community like, “oh well, he shared that with me. It must be okay. And I'm going to write a book about it and talk about it and maybe romanticize it a little bit so it could sell.” You know, I think I think that's wrong. A lot of things have been romanticized about tribal history and you just have to see what's appropriate within those communities first. Yeah, and there's no right or wrong way I thin. There might be protocols, important protocols like forms of release and copyright and all of that, but I think for the most part, some of it has to most of it has to be done organically.

Elle: Yeah, absolutely.

Colleen: And sometimes I even serve cantaloupe a la mode because that was something that the ladies talk about, the different dishes they talked about and stuff. And so, I think to be immersed in something and be able to experience it, we have to have all of our senses involved ourselves.

Elle: Yeah, absolutely. Colleen: Whenever I do that, it’s always a hit.

*laughing*

Colleen: You know, people might not remember the Hopi Harvey Project, but they'll remember that cantaloupe a la mode.

*laughing*

Colleen: So, yeah.

Elle: Oh that’s so funny. Thanks for joining us for this episode of Behind the Scenery. Special thanks to Colleen for taking the time to speak with us today, and for sharing these critically important stories. See you next time on Behind the Scenery. We gratefully acknowledge the native peoples on whose ancestral homelands we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant native communities who make their homes here today.

First Voices - Ancestral Lands Conservation Corps Crew 663 Oct 08, 2023

The Ancestral Lands Conservation Corps is an indigenous nonprofit that completes conservation projects throughout the Southwest. We sat down with Crew 663, out of Zuni, New Mexico, to talk about the work that they had done, their connections to the Grand Canyon, and to learn about their culture and heritage and what motivates them in their work and their daily lives.

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Crew 663: Keshi! (Hello in Zuni)

Dave: Hello. I'm Ranger Dave. And also on this episode is former Ranger Lauren, who now volunteers for the park and works at the Grand Canyon Conservancy, which is the nonprofit that supports Grand Canyon National Park. The Conservancy sponsors many programs. One of them is the Ancestral Lands Conservation Corps. We interviewed this group from Zuni, New Mexico, crew 663. This Indigenous group works on conservation projects. They call each project a hitch this lasts eight days on and six days off. Each hitch is a different park and a different job. We caught them on their last day of work at the North Rim. Here's what they shared with us.

Crew 663: My name is Robert Riley. I'm the crew leader for 663.

Crew 663: Jerick Yuselen King Junior. I'm a crew member for Crew 663

Crew 663: Tyrese Marza. I’m also a crew member of 663.

Crew 663: Hello, my name is Darian Seowtewa, and I'm also a crew member with 663 out of Zuni, New Mexico.

Crew 663: Hello, my name is Brooke Seowtewa. I am from CREW 663 and from Zuni, New Mexico.

Lauren: Great. Are you all from Zuni, New Mexico? Yes, just to make sure. Great. Let's talk about Ancestral Lands Conservation Corps, and just a little bit of background for those who might not know.

Crew 663: We're basically a crew that's sent up to preservation projects, whether that be mortar work, trail work, seed collection as well. It's a variety of different works that a crew is assigned to additional different national parks. Okay. Yeah.

Lauren: So you're at Grand Canyon National Park on the North Rim, have you been on the south rim as well or just for visitation?

Crew 663: Okay. No, not for working.

Lauren: Are there any other national parks you'll be going to.

Crew 663: Yeah, there. There will be plenty, but I'm not sure what our schedule is like right now. But okay, yeah, we're definitely going to be going to different national parks.

Lauren: Great. And then also, like on the North Rim, your finishing up a project here, working with Laura with some seed collection. Can you talk about what you were doing there?

Crew 663: Yeah. So we were collecting seeds for a construction job that's happening. They're going to be working on the road and after the road is done, they want to revegetate the area that has been worked on, basically.

Lauren: Okay, yeah, very cool. Very cool. What's the biggest impact of your work so far that you've seen personally or maybe a favorite moment that you've had so far? While, working for ancestral lands.

Crew 663: Well, for me, I have to say the mental mentality of everybody in the crew, because I think that's one of the main important things, especially if you're going to be on hitch, they’re your next family, they're going to be the people you're going to be living with for eight days. So the way I think of it is when I see everybody's mentality, mentality, high spirited and ready to do the work, get it, get the job done, I see that we can accomplish it even if one of our crew isn't feeling so up and spirits, we could still like lift their spirits up throughout the day just by being together as a family and just being one with the program. Also, so just getting the job done beginning the day and finishing at the end is very accomplishing.

Crew 663: I think for myself, the most favorite project that I've ever did was the first ever local project that we did in Zuni, which was trailhead signs with our partnering project Zuni Youth Enrichment Program, or project that was a really great project because we could actually contribute something to our community that has hasn't been seen, and we kind of paved the way to potentially more projects locally.

Crew 663: We have a lot of land resources that we can help better our community, and I think just that little nudge in the right direction was a good start to kind of better our community. And also being out here at the Grand Canyon, this is where we as Zunis first emerge. Being able to work where our first home is, is really what I feel is in the interest of ancestral lands is in itself.

Crew 663: So those are a few great moments that I have working with this program, and hopefully more will come.

Crew 663: Yeah, my favorite moment with Ancestral Lands was probably last season during when we got the hitch to go out and help with Access Fund in Utah with Canyonlands. Growing up I always used to like watch rock climbers and I actually got to work with them, right beside them, built their trails, and that was one of the favorite moments.

Crew 663: I guess for myself, I think the biggest impact I’ve, I've seen is the people that come into the program. Usually during the first weeks, like people are, you know, they're really shy and like they have like really come out of their shell. But like throughout the whole program, you know, everybody you know, the like Brooke said, it's a family for eight days. You live together, you eat together, work together, sweat together, all that, do all the hard work together. And, um, at the end of the day, and at the end of the the whole season, you can see that everybody really blossoms out and comes out of their shell. And that's what I think I like about the program, is that that's the biggest impact because that was for me, myself, I was really shy, I was introverted.

Crew 663: But you know, this is my third year now, So like, I'm I'm not afraid to, like, express myself and stuff like that. So yeah, that was pretty much. And also the people you meet too in the program and it's really cool meeting like new family members. Yeah.

Crew 663: You see, the biggest impact that this has has for me is like, like the physical, like pushing yourself, like kind of like, can you trying to go beyond, like, what you can normally do, just like that mental and physical, like pushing and pushing yourself and like just trying to be sure to get the job done and all that and pushing yourself throughout the like the hot weather and sweating and all that. And then also like meeting new people as whole too like this is my first season so meeting them is pretty, it's been a pretty fun time and especially with Robert as our leader now too it's pretty fun.

Lauren: Did you all know each other before this program?

Crew 663: I kind of knew Jerick. He was my classmate in high school, but we never really like crossed paths in high school.

Crew 663: It's no, not for me. I’m a little older than these guys.

Crew 663: And this is my cousin.

Crew 663: I've known Brooke my whole life. We grew up together. Yeah, practically sister and brother.

Crew 663: Basically. Yeah.

Crew 663: You should hear them at work.

Crew 663: Going back and going back and forth.

Lauren: Speaking of that, what's the funniest moment you've had?

Crew 663: Oh, with this?

Crew 663: Yeah, with this crew? Well, with basically any crew and ancestral lands. Like I said, we are a family. And a family just builds that bond, that one specific connection that everybody can just laugh throughout the whole day no matter what it is. And that is basically what we are as a crew, no matter how small it is, no matter how silly it may be, even if even if it's like a mistake or a mishap, we still laugh about it.

Crew 663: We still like not to us, nothing is a mistake when it comes to being on hitch. We either make a mistake and we learn from it, and when we learn from it, we just continue to move forward. So with that being said, we just this crew doesn't really have a specific favorite moment, and any second is a favorite moment.

Crew 663: Anything can happen with this. Anyone can say anything and everybody would just laugh. So that one thing with us while we're even, while we're working, we're never really quiet. We're always talking, we're always communicating with each other, keeping, making sure everybody's all right. Everybody is hydrated. Everybody's like, in high spirits. So that yeah, that being said, it's never really a dull moment ever. And with this crew. Any other crew. Cool. Yeah.

Dave: I was kind of curious about being away from home. You know, you guys are away for eight days or maybe more if you're doing multiple these, like, what's that like? What's it like to kind of to get away and to kind of explore these other parks, you know, positive, negative. But yeah, just curious.

Crew 663: For me personally, but me being this is my first year as a crewman and my fourth hitch, my first, it was very, very difficult. I go, I'm a very tight we have a very tight knit family and I've always been around my dad 24/7 never been able to leave his side. But when this job came up and the opportunity of being able to leave home for eight days and visit new areas, not just one specifically, but just different around New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah, it was a scary experience at first, but once I got to know everybody, it became more easier.

Crew 663: But it it you get homesick in the beginning, I won't lie, but eventually it just starts easing up and you just forget about home. Not in a bad way, but just like in the, you know, homes home always be there. But being out on the field is a special opportunity. It's a once in a lifetime. I'll live it, learn it, love it, you know.

Crew 663: So definitely there are those hard times that you come across where you get anything and everything from the heat to the extreme cold. But so as long as you have a good bond with your crew members, it makes the time pass. I see this being away for eight days is both good and bad, meaning that you miss out on some family occasions.

Crew 663: You miss out on maybe a concert that you wanted to go to, but at the same time, it's also could be an escape for somebody too from a rough home life and a lot of people back home are facing that dilemma that there is unfortunately, housing isn't really stable. So, this could be an outlet for maybe somebody to get away.

Crew 663: And it is therapy walking out in the trails, doing hard work, getting rewarded with food at the end of each day, even just going to bed tired. It is a really rewarding job being away for eight days. Of course, it's a sacrifice, but again, we get opportunities like right now being able to talk to you two, and being able to meet Laura, Dan, anybody from the National Park Services. It's a real privilege and honor to be in this position. And if you can get through with that mentality, then eight days is practically nothing.

Crew 663: Yeah.

Crew 663: The crews and just the scenery, the whole everything about the program, you know, it just kind of helps. It eases you into the transition of being away from home, basically. So yeah. And then also the crew members just, uh, make make the day because it just, it doesn't really feel like you're away from home because you still have like people from Zuni to interact with you.

Crew 663: So yeah, we, we still talking in our language too as well. So like it, it keeps me, it still feels like I'm home.

Crew 663: Where we are from Zuni, New Mexico it is a very, uh, not very, a very good opportunity place, uh, for us youth. We have to really reach out for good opportunities, especially like this kind. Our community is a very small, close knit reservation, so because it's a reservation, we're not handed the opportunities so easily. Like many people out here, we ourselves as youth, have to make that step for ourselves, forward to push ourselves to have the courage to go for these opportunities right when they're not handed, but right when they're out there.

Crew 663: So when this for these positions came open, applications came in quick for this the these positions. So it's it's like a very I don't know our youth back home are very in like a, I can't say a harsh state but like in the very difficult state right now, especially since I used to work with the program called Zuni Youth Enrichment Program, I work with the kids firsthand and I've been doing that for five years. And I've noticed that. Our kids, our children back home are. Yeah, they come from rough homes. Many of them come from rough homes. Some of them don't have water. Some of them don't have electricity. Some of them don't even have as much money as they can to last a month. So us young ones are we also have so many elderly and our elderly there don't, can't be able to do things that they want to do.

Crew 663: So us being a youth, we have to also provide not just for our younger ones, but for our older, elderlies there. And it's very difficult because it kind of puts a stress on us being away from home, especially knowing that we this is our only income maybe for that specific family and just knowing that it is also hard being away from home.

Crew 663: And yeah, these opportunities are very hard to come by. So it's kind of up to the person in the community to make that step forward, to do what they need to do, to also just get out of the reservation and to make a life for ourselves out there in the world and to also just come back home and teach everyone back there and make sure that not just to make ourselves feel good, but to make our community members prosper and to grow better and to become more educated, not just in the forest area, but also just like in a business wise, just for any of us to get out there.

Crew 663: But yeah, just knowing that it's like a very smart area, you don't really hear, Zunis going out there and making names for themselves. So it is very nice for us to be out here making representing where we're coming from.

Lauren: What motivates all of you. That's what I love to hear. And what do you think it takes to motivate others as well in Zuni as well?

Crew 663: I think what motivates me is just our heritage, our culture, our traditional teachings that we got to be caretakers of the land and I think personally would be my grandfather. His name is Alex Seowtewa. He instilled in us very humble teachings. He taught us a lot. And with that I some day wish to not necessarily be like him, but inspire people to, I guess, make themselves change and see life in a different perspective.

Crew 663: Because one quote that he always said is Life a gift and it's short. Make the best of it. That's not the last part is part of his quote. That's something that came up on the spot with. But it's definitely his teachings and his way of life that motivate me to be the best person that I can, even though it's a difficult time, even though I sometimes don't want to wake up in the morning.

Crew 663: But it's that's definitely the teachings that also motivate me to do better just in life. In general.

Crew 663: What motivates me is, I don't know. I just have this, um, ambition that I feel like I need to do something, you know? And, uh, uh, and I'm just lucky to have the opportunity to be in ALCC because not only that, like, gave me something to do, but like the sites that we visit and the, the places that relate to Zuni, it just made me feel more spiritually connected, more into my, uh, culture as well.

Crew 663: You know, it's, I don't know, it just, it just brought something out. So, like, uh, I feel really lucky to be working at the sites, to be visiting those sites and to be working on them and also preserving them to make sure that they're still here for the younger generation as well. Because I feel like they, they really need to see these things too, as well, to keep to maybe spark, to maybe get that spark like the way I did to keep that, uh, uh, to keep that going.

Dave: You know, I'm wondering, like, what do we hope that this internship and this time spent here is leading us towards? So maybe like what career path, what, what bigger ideas? What else are we thinking about?

Crew 663: I'm hoping that will lead to, um, um, I guess more opportunities with the park for different crews as well. Uh, whether it be just like, uh, like, like what we were doing with seed collecting, maybe there might be trail work or just any other work that, um, hopefully there would be more opportunities to come work here at the North Rim and the South Rim as well.

Crew 663: And also, um, I guess just to inspire the youth that there's opportunities out there for to come out here. Maybe, you know, find something that they like and you know, it could also lead to a career path with, you know, national parks. Yeah.

Crew 663: I think for the for Ancestral Lands Conservation Corps, going off of what Robert said is it paves the way for new opportunities for our youth that they can come out here, explore the world that they live in, go beyond the horizons of what they feel comfortable traveling to and just really getting out there, getting their names out there. And on the on the personal career goal path that I would like to share is I would definitely love to someday come back to Grand Canyon, someday wish to be a national park law enforcement ranger here at Grand Canyon National Park. And hopefully, who knows, that might actually go into different national parks. But for now, I'm kind of just gaining the experience, gaining knowledge of how it's like to talk to people about quick decisions, making stuff that you need, the law enforcement aspect, and also just really finding the core values of what it means to protect and preserve this national monument, National Park.

Crew 663: For me, I, for me, Ancestral Lands is a very amazing pathway, and also it is a stepping stone for me personally to go into the BIA. That is my main goal I want to go into, because what motivates me is not just like, this is a every day thing. I like to motivate myself by pushing myself the way a guy would push himself. I like to do things. If a guy says I can't do it, I will motivate myself to do it. Like I. I like to prove myself not just to anyone, but to myself that I can do anything that I want to do if I push myself to it. So and I know the BIA is a male dominated industry, so knowing that, it just makes me want to think or I want to push myself even more to get into that field.

Crew 663: Because growing up, I've always heard just by people in school that, Oh, you won't do it because you know you're a girl, you can't do it. And you won't be out there. You'll just stay home and cook and clean and be a housewife. But for me, I don't want to do that. I want to push myself, I want to get muscle. I want to, you know, just be out there as one of the dudes and the crew. But other than that, that's my main motivation to push myself as hard as I can, not even to even after I break, I still push myself when I'm all sweaty, when the day's hot on hitch or been working and I feel like I'm going to give up. I’ll be like no! Just keep going. So, we have this saying, It's called (Speaking Zuni), it's just do it, its our Zuni saying in our language. Do it, just do it, no matter if it’s hard, no matter if it's going up the hill or carrying things and our tools or just anything, just do it. Go for it. Yeah. Love it.

Crew 663: I'm not really sure what pathways this will, like, you know, open up for me in general because I'm still like, really not like really? How do you say it? I'm not really smart about like, what, what kind of pathway this would open. So whatever happens, I just hope that it be like a positive impact in my life. So I'm just in it just see what like how far I can go with this program and all that.

Lauren: I think a lot of people don't have an awareness or understanding as to what Ancestral Lands Conservation Corps does. Also, like you mentioned, a lot of people don't understand what Zuni, New Mexico looks like and the culture as well and the connection to Grand Canyon, obviously, it's a very huge impact as well. So maybe if you know one of you or some of your all of you want to talk about the some of the things that you wish that the public, people that you might talk to while you're hitches, your tours, um, you wish that they knew about either Zuni or about Ancestral Lands.

Crew 663: Well, I would like to start off by saying the Grand Canyon is our very most sacred places on this earth. This is where us Zuni from New Mexico have emerged. Arise from the earth. A place called Ribbon Falls. And from Ribbon Falls. Uh, we've migrated from there trying to find the Middle Place. We've traveled throughout this whole canyon, stopped anywhere, lost a couple of people, uh, gained a couple of new people, babies. But through that migration, it was a very, very difficult journey for us mentally. Just going through the desert, just trying to get to where we are. And it's a six hour drive from Zuni, New Mexico to here. So to imagine just a six hour drive, imagine that in days from the Grand Canyon to New Mexico to Zuni Reservation to where our homeland is now, it's I just want the people that visit the Grand Canyon to visit it, knowing that a Native American Tribe has like this is Zuni, New Mexico's home like, you know, this is our home. So being here on Hitch, it just wasn't it's this isn't just a job for us. This is more like we're repairing our house. We're repairing where we came from. We're walking the same forest that our ancestors have walked. And knowing that it just makes us push even harder to preserve what we're doing here. Even if it's seed collecting, you know, it's Native American Plants like these plants belong around here. So knowing that, it's nice to know that we're like moving plants around and helping them grow and stuff like that.

Crew 663: So I think if it's one thing that I want people to know about Zuni is that despite their all that pain and suffering that our ancestors went through to get to the middle place, what we call (Speaking Zuni), that we were very resilient and we will still continue to be resilient even through different hardships. For example, COVID at first it was scary, but knowing that we were a resilient people and we've been we've been pushed to the test for many centuries that we'll still be here. We'll still continue to be here. We'll be here to protect our homeland. Like what Brooke said, this place is very sacred to not only us, but other other tribes as well. You have the Havasupai, Supi, Hopi, the Puebloans and then Central New Mexican area. And I have heard different iterations of the migration journey. And a lot of people get that part confused.

Crew 663: And I would not call it a migration story because a story is something that can be told that is almost along the lines of myth. But we know for a fact that we did emerge here. So we call it a migration journey because we have evidence. It suggests that we did in fact come from the earth, deep within the earth, like what Brooke said from Ribbon Falls.

Crew 663: So with that being in mind, I would really like people to know that Zuni, we are resilient. Same thing with any Native American Tribe. We are resilient. We will continue to be we will continue to strive for our people, our children, our elders for better opportunities in better ways to better their lives as well. Crew 663: I also want to point out there that it isn't just us Ancestral Lands that come out here to the Grand Canyon. We have very important leaders back home that make the journey to come out here to the Grand Canyon, to make the the the journey of a I can say a five day journey, going down the river through the Grand Canyon to Ribbon Falls, just to, not just to go and visit, but to pray like they, our leaders come from Zuni all the way to the Grand Canyon, to pray for us, to give us blessings, to bring blessings from here home. Because this is where we came out from. This is the most powerful place that I could honestly think of. And even though we have our religious stuff and everything back home, this is where it all started. This is where everything began and knowing that important people from our community still come. I can say that because my father is one of those people that come out and make that journey down here to Ribbon Falls and to make the offerings from Zuni, New Mexico to here and to take it back home with us, not just for our community, but for everyone in the world. They hold the world in their hands. And that means that it's just not Zunis aren’t selfish like that. We just don't pray for ourselves. We just don't say or do things for ourselves. We pray for the world to be better. We pray for peace. We pray for water. We pray for the earth. We pray for the ground. We call the Earth the her because she's our mom. She's carrying us. She's carrying everything on her back right now. And that being said, when they come and do their prayers here, they pray specifically for her, especially since we came from her, that to be strong, to keep going, keep going for many, many hundreds of years, not just for us, but for our generations to come, for everyone around the world, It is a very, very important journey to come out here, especially for my father and our our uncle, Octavius Seowtewa. He comes out here also. So is a very important journey. That's what they do come out here, especially to that area.

Crew 663: And I think they said it best.

Lauren: It’s like mic drop, seriously. Consider a career in public speaking. Wow. I got chills.

Dave: We talked a little bit about like especially in my department, we talk in interpretation and so we do talk about some of these. The stories of the journeys, and I know for many, many years the park did not welcome the tribe. Yeah, but I know it's it's been quite a change. Yeah. And I just don't know if that if you've seen impact from that side of things getting better or are they still the same like we, you know?

Crew 663: For me I can say it has worked for the better because our people were not, like you said, quite allowed to come here due to just that being the national park public lands. We as a community, we kind of did not want people to visit Ribbon Falls because that is our very sacred place that we kind of want that for us. But we also thought this isn't just for us, it's just it's for the world to see. It's for you, like people from around the world to come and visit. And knowing that I. I know that because I work, I can't say I work with my father. But when he comes home from his trips from here on his journey, he does talk about Ribbon Falls, the Grand Canyon in an awesome way, like the way he talks about the way he finds new stuff down there every time when he goes.

Crew 663: And they just don't, they just don't come out here to see it or just to pray. They also take new things back, like they take knowledge back that they find at Ribbon Falls, or that they discover they usually keep that to themselves. But other than that, when they find new things, it helps our community, but also helps expand our horizon and our knowledge of all right, okay, so this is where we came from, where else that we go. Like it's the stories written on the walls in the Grand Canyon. Near Ribbon Falls it, it tells so many different stories, um, some specifically about our journey, but for our journey, parts of our people. We broke off down that journey so there could be another community of us Zunis calling themselves different things.

Crew 663: But they are. They're still our people. They're still a part of us, just somewhere else, like in this world or what they said it's down south or down to the Mexico area. So that being said, just and that the knowledge of that, like the plants, it also expands them in the, their ZCRAT stuff because they ZCRAT for them they're mainly mainly targeting Zuni ancestral sites that are connected to us through our stones through our flowers, to our the spiral signature. That's one of our signatures of ours that we know that that is our our stuff, that that is where we came through. So every time we see a spiral that tells us that our people.

Crew 663: She said it best again.

Crew 663: I was just thinking that too. What can I add. What can I add.

Crew 663: I would also like to say that usually the writings or the petroglyphs that we see, they they like to call these stories, but, um, I was recently on a trip with Octavius. We were at, we were at this place called Horseshoe Mesa and a Crack In The Rock, located in Wupatki National Monument. And what he was telling us is that, uh, they like to say that it's, it's stories, but he's, he says that he likes to call it history because it's been written in the stone and left there for future generations to see.

Crew 663: So more or less it's, it's not stories. It's it's our history that's been written on the walls. And for us to interpret ourselves. Take it for what you will basically.

Crew 663: Yeah I think if I were to add one thing is, for an individual I am very grateful that we are able to access these lands in a way that helps us benefit our community, because being away from or getting no access at all is heartbreaking, especially if you know that you do come from the land that your ancestors made this way just to just to, I guess, have other somebody else say you can't go there. You can't go back there and you can't study who you are as people. But with new management, new changes, everything coming along, it's been very beneficial to our Zuni community because we are able to have a say in what these public lands are used for or we have a say in different areas. It's not only just the Zuni tribe, but different tribes, Hopi, Havasu and all the local surrounding tribes. They finally have a say in what what you can and can't do. And they are able to put together their own history as well, their own connections to the Grand Canyon. And with that, I am super thankful and from the bottom of my heart that we are able to access these lands that we were born from.

Dave: Yeah. I mean, any other closing thoughts you guys want to say or.

Crew 663: Thank you guys for talking to us.

Lauren: Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I think to do anything to press the button.

Crew 663: Another, one other unique thing about Zuni community is that we don't write our history down. We don't write things in books, we don't record things on the phone. We don't even write how our language is supposed to be. We don't write how it's supposed to be spelt. But for us, our language is mainly through mouth. It's a it's a hearing learning community and we're not really the type to like, all right, well, write it down here and you'll learn it. No, we're just like the type to learn by voice, learn by our ears. If we say one of our language words wrong we won't write it down to get corrected. We help the other person out and how to say it right or how to say it the correct form.

Crew 663: Because with our language, there's certain ways you can say things like in the sentence, but with our language, it's kind of like we're saying our sentence backwards, you know, like if you're trying to say sentence forwards, for us in our language, it's kind of like saying it backwards. But it makes sense to us because we grew up around that.

Crew 663: Even a young age growing up, just hearing our Elderlies, talk to each other, talk to us in Zuni, which is what we call (Speaking in Zuni). We just grew up with it. It's instilled in our blood. Um, and yeah, it's just something that we gain growing up.

Crew 663: Closing Remarks Elah`kwa (in Zuni-Thank You). Thank you for the time you took to conduct this out of your busy days. Yeah. Thank you.

Crew 663: Elah`kwa (in Zuni-Thank You). Thank you. Thanks a lot.

Crew 663: Elah`kwa! (in Zuni-Thank You)

Dave: We gratefully acknowledge the Native Peoples on whose Ancestral Homelands we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant Native Communities who make their homes here today.

Crew 663: Delapba! (See you later in Zuni)

What Does Home Mean to You? Sep 24, 2023

One day you are walking a quiet trail along the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park, when suddenly you notice a small plastic box with a blank notebook inside. On the cover is this prompt: "What Does Home Mean to You?" After collecting over 400 journal entries, park rangers picked out some of the more interesting quotes, comments, thoughts, and sentiments. They are recorded here. How would you answer this question?

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Doug and Hannah:

♫(sung)

Home, Home at North Rim. Where the hues and the shades are not dim.

Where great views prevail, and they never get stale.

And the Canyon cries out to please stay. ♫. Wisper “please stay”. Chuckles!

Doug: Welcome. I’m ranger Doug Hannah: And I’m Ranger Hannah D: We are park rangers at the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park. H: We have a new podcast for you. A very simple one. A podcast about … home. D: I would like to start out acknowledging the native folks who have always considered Grand Canyon home. We have 11diferent tribes and bands that are affiliated to the park. North of the Colorado River are five Southern Piute groups. From west to east they are the Las Vegas Piute Tribe, the Moapa Band of Piutes, Shivwits Band of Piutes, Kiabab band of Piutes and the San Juan Southern Piute Tribe. South of the Colorado River are three different Pai groups. The Hualapai, Havasupai and Yavapai/Apache Nation. To the east of the park, is the Pueblo of Zuni, the Hopi Tribe, and the Navajo Nation. They each have a strong and powerful connection to this place that they still call home … the Grand Canyon. H: We actually have an excavated Pueblo home here on the North Rim, not to far from the lodge. D: That’s right. That small two-room summer home is actually the inspiration for this whole podcast. H: How so? Can you expand on that for us? D: Well, there’s a really nice foot trail, about a mile and one half long, between the North Rim Lodge and the Campground. It is called the Transept Trail. The trail passes a small home built 900 years before the North Rim Lodge. H: The Zuni and Hopi people today are direct descendants of these early North Rim residents. D: Indeed. And every time I would pass this excavated homesite I pondered what it might have been like to call North Rim home back then. There’s also a picnic table positioned right on the rim nearby, with just a killer view of the Grand Canyon. So last summer I came up with the idea to put a weatherproof box on this picnic table, and I placed a really nice blank hard-bound notebook inside. And I put this prompt on the cover of the notebook: What Does Home Mean to You? H: I remember you had that notebook out there for roughly a month. You checked on this notebook every few days and brought back pictures of the entries to our office. And it had poems, drawings, sentiments, quotes. And all different languages. And with the languages I loved using Google Translate with the photo to figure out what was being written. Many interesting feelings and emotions were expressed in these entries. D: Yes. So you and I, with help from some other co-workers, picked out some of the more interesting journal entries. We said “hey, let’s turn these journal entries into a podcast, sharing the thoughts of our North Rim visitors.” H: Let’s start with a few of these entries. (soft background guitar music playing ♫) Visitor: Home is nature, and nature is the home of our ancestors. Looking out at the vast Canyon, places me back thousands of years; I definitely get the same feeling looking at the Canyon as these people did. Therefore, I feel a connection to our ancient home under the stars. JB Visitor: Thank you, National Park Service, for working towards righting the relationship us “newer” Americans have with the tribes that were here when “we” arrived. It is very complex. US policy towards native people was self-serving and inhumane (genocide actually) so we own them their home – and some. PS: My husband says that’s too strong a word, genocide, but I’ve been reading and learning, and it basically fits. Wendy, of Rhode Island. H: Putting a blank notebook on the rim of the Grand Canyon, then asking an open-ended question like you did, you just never know what kind of random responses you might get. D: That’s right. There’s a risk there, but that’s also the fun part of this endeavor. H: Plus the Canyon itself can be a little distracting as you ponder the question What Does Home Mean to you? D: “In the best possible way” distracting as one visitor wrote. V: We can’t focus on home right now because we’re too focused on looking at the Grand Canyon. V: It’s hard to impress me, and I am impressed! V: I got scammed. They lied. It’s even better than the photos. V: Carol was here and loving the view. Thank you Universe, God, Higher Power, Nature! (says it all). V: The majesty and grand scale make me feel insignificant, in the best way possible way. Better than I ever imagined. In a world filled with ugliness created by man, it heals my soul to be in the presence of such natural beauty. Thank you to those people who protect and preserve this place and all the national parks – John P. V: Grand Canyon makes me remember I am not the creator of everything. Rebecca, from Utah. V: Never set out on a long hike without plenty of water and snacks. Always wear you SPF. Put the toilet seat down. The left lane is for passing and the right lane is for traveling. Whatever you do, take care of your shoes. Put the shower curtain inside the tub. H: Now that last clip was sound advice when traveling or leaving home. D: Indeed H: You know, people leave home all the time, whether to visit Grand Canyon or to set out on a new path. D: Let’s listen in V: It’s a dangerous thing to walk out your front door. You never know where your feet may lead you to, but you do know that eventually they will lead you home again. KH from Belgium. V: Home is a place you miss when you leave it. Signed, MG. V: Such a beautiful place to sit and contemplate about nature – listen to nature and relax – love it! We love all the national parks and are so glad we live in Utah. PS: There is no better place to vacation than National Parks – we feel at home here. V: The West called me, and I responded. It will not release me from its limitless horizons and its purity. Its freshness and opportunity never get tiring. And the distant lightening speaks of limitless power. V: Home is where you sleep sound and deep and safe. Be it a motel room, tent, or canyon floor under the stars. V: Home is a precious thing many people take for granted, until you don’t have one. V: Three weeks ago, I bought a camper and a tow vehicle and packed up the kids and headed West. I can’t believe I’m really pulling this off. I am strong and I am able, and I wish it hadn’t taken me 45 years to like who I am. Young women – Do what makes you love who you are. Sara (PS: Sequoia trees, here I come!). H: Wow. To leave the comfort of home and set out on a new one in a camper … amazing! D: For sure. H: Next, park visitors really responded to the core question: What Does Home Mean to You? V: Home is a feeling not shaped by location but by the heart. It is a sense of ease, of exploration, and contentment that creates “home”. To be home is to be at peace with where you are in the moment. Many see slivers of home at the Grand Canyon. The Valleys shaping our views of what home means. Home is whatever you make it. Oakland, CA. V: The Grand Canyon is a reminder of how magnificent our earth is. So we need to take care of it because this is our home. V: Home is the dirt beneath my feet, the aspens and conifers that bracket my understanding, the air that flows through my hair, the sun that burnishes my skin. It is not where I live, it is not mine alone. It is everywhere, for everyone. V: Home is where I have planted my roots to be a great steward of the earth. V: Home is a beautiful place to gather with loved ones. The canyon is a home to many spirits who we may or may not know. A gathering of kind souls. V: Home is an intangible concept I can create in my mind and embrace with my heart. V: There are so many spectacular places to go in the USA. I’m glad to call this country home. Eric from Iowa. V: (This is recorded 4th of July): If you don’t watch where you are going, you may end up where your headed … Freedom is worth keeping … and fighting for … It is home. V: Home is where the heart is at peace and soul is at rest. Mine is nature. Susan. V: The immensity and grandeur are breathtaking. Every step along these trails reveals a vista that will be seared into my memory forever. Home is any place where you can find peace, serenity, and a sense of belonging. V: Our lives are streams flowing unto the same river towards whatever the heavens lies in the mist beyond the falls. Lily and Johnny. H: The different connections people create for home is cool to see. D: Let’s keep going V: Home can be a person, a place or a thing. For me, I don’t know. I move around a lot so there isn’t a place where I feel fully comfortable. Home for me is where I feel too comfortable to not leave. I haven’t found it yet though. Lotta. V: To me, home is forested domes, small cold waves. Big canyons, small canyons. Porches on islands. Kitchens. Real conversations. Quiet. Homemade pizza, TV and bed. V: Home is dogs, a cat and wife. A good meal. A warm bed. Home is also anywhere that I am with someone or something I love. This is home. V: Home is where I park my trailer with a perfect view. V: Home is where family is. What a wonderful experience to come as a child with parents, and then come again as a parent with your children. Debbie. V: Home is where one reaches a level of comfort such that you can walk around with just your boxers! V: Home is a place that first informed, or imprinted on you, your identity. It is also the place that you care for and nurture. Wendy, Rhode Island. V: Home is where you are involved somehow … where you find work, leisure, love, and a sense of self in a meaningful way … home also is connected to history and roots, but not exclusively. Smith Family, Arizona. V: Home is where I am, for it is all a part of me and I am a part of it. V: Grand Canyon North Rim, Transept Trail. I don’t think I’ve ever felt home. Many have commented here that it’s family/friends. It’s yourself, it’s contentment and/or safety, etc. These things have been elusive for me. I’d like to someday know for myself what home means in my heart. I’d like to find it deeper than this beautiful canyon. Brandy. V: Home is where I can laugh, cry, grow, and express myself in peace, knowing that whoever is downstairs could be there for all of it and still love me as much as I love them. V: Home is where I’m the happiest. It doesn’t have to be a place. It can be any place where I feel like myself and where I’m surrounded by people who I love. Sophia and Jacob, Minnesota. D: Again, many wonderful thoughts and sentiments. H: And one park visitor who has never felt at home. Which means we all find home in our own way. And it can take time. D: Keepin’ it real! And one California couple had a great entry. Let’s share their thoughts. H: And makes a great ending for this. V: Home A place of friend, family and memories shared A place to find rest From all of you cares A place to find warmth And refuge from all of your fears A place to call your own For all of your years. Markley Family, California. D: We truly hope that all visitors at Grand Canyon National Park, can feel home here, no matter where you came from. H: You know, Doug, don’t you think Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz had a great observation about home? D: She did. “There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.” You know, I sort of feel a song coming on here. H: You and I definitely like to sing some fun songs together. D: Okay. Let’s hit it: ♫(sung) Somewhere, Over Grand Canyon. ♫(sung) Somewhere, at the Grand Canyon Way down low There’s a land that I heard of A land where the sunsets glow Somewhere, at the Grand Canyon Skies are blue And the trails that you dare to hike Really do come true Someday I’ll wish upon a star And wake up where the clouds are far above me Where troubles melt like lemon drops Way above the mesa tops That’s where you’ll find me Somewhere, over Grand Canyon Ravens fly They fly, over the rainbow Why then, oh why can’t I? Somewhere, over Grand Canyon Condors fly They fly, north rim to south rim Why do I have to drive? If happy condors fly, beyond the rainbow Why, oh why can’t I? ♫ H: The Behind the Scenery Podcast is brought to you by the interpretation team at Grand Canyon National Park. We gratefully acknowledge the Native People on whose ancestral homelands we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant Native communities who make their home here today. Thanks for sharing your homeland with us and being good stewards of the land. Thanks to ranger Dave for podcast editing. Thanks to the many park visitors who were kind enough to write down their thoughts, and to the park visitors and co-workers who volunteered to read the many quotes. Music in this episode is by ranger Doug. D: And you. Don’t forget you. H: Thanks for writing two more parody songs. H: I’m ranger Hannah D: And I’m ranger Doug, D & H: Signing off for now. H: I really think I should be singing off now. D It could go either way. Either way is good. V: Home is Australia, mate. Nice canyon, though.

First Voices - Daniel Bulletts Aug 20, 2023

Daniel Bulletts is the Cultural Resource Director for the Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians and Director of the Southern Paiute Consortium. In this episode, Daniel shares his connections to the Canyon, his role in tribal monitoring river trips, and some of his trademark humor!

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Daniel: The name for the Grand Canyon means the world of energy, because it's so vast and big. The Colorado River, we call the big water in the Canyon. And so these, you know, these words, you know, come from the Canyon and they come from a place that that my people, you know, are visiting and still need to visit and still need to remember that where we come from is important, not only to us living, but it's also important to us in our afterlife as well. And if my people are hearing that that they know what I'm saying.

Jesse: Hey, this is Jesse for this episode of the podcast. I had the pleasure of speaking with Daniel Bulletts. Daniel is a cultural resource director for the Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians as well as the director for the Southern Paiute Consortium. We recorded this episode sitting at a picnic table next to the rim of the Canyon, so you might hear some wind and other background noise.

Daniel: OK, hello, my name is Daniel Bulletts. I am a member of the Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians. I'm also employed by the Tribe. I'm their cultural resource director, and I'm also the director of the Southern Paiute Consortium for the Tribe and.

Jesse: Can you tell me about your duties as cultural resource director?

Danniel: So as cultural resource director for the Tribe, my job is to keep good working relationships with the Department of Interior agencies, the BLM, the Forest Service, the Park Service, even the state on cultural issues that they may have inside their park or inside or inside the state. And to help them problem solve certain things that are culturally sensitive to tribes and to different agencies.

Jesse: And for listeners who may not know what is the Southern Paiute Consortium?

Daniel: So the Southern Paiute Consortium is a group made out of the Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians, the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, which has five bands in it, and the San Juan Southern Paiutes and that was made in the early 1990s. And that was to give the Southern Paiute People a voice in the Adaptive Management Program that's going on with the Glen Canyon Dam, the Grand Canyon, and the Colorado River. To give us a seat at the table to share our issues and to share our knowledge of things that need to be shared during meetings.

Jesse: And as part of your role in the Adaptive Management Program you participate in monitoring river trips, right?

Daniel: Correct. Under that we do an annual river trip in June. It's one of the hottest months, the hottest trips in in the year and. And that's for a reason. I mean, you know sometimes as Southern Paiutes, you know, we get caught up in this modern-day lifestyle that we need to be brought back down to simple. The simple way of thinking, to the simple way our people used to be and when we're down there in the Grand Canyon monitoring, we're at the simplest that we can ever get. You know there's no air conditioning, there's, you know, no Wi-Fi, no cell service. We're cut off from the real world. So we have to learn to get along and share things and help each other throughout the 10-day trip. It humbles a lot of us that go there.

Jesse: When you're down there, what sorts of things are you are you looking?

Daniel: Under the Adaptive management program, when it first got started, the Tribe was asked, or the Consortium was asked to choose ten sites that are culturally significant to the Southern Paiutes and we couldn't. We said “no, we can't because the whole northern side is culturally significant to us.” The government wouldn't budge and so the elders at the time said “well, since we have to choose, we're going to choose these ten sites that we're going to monitor even though we don't want to. You know, they're providing a way for us to come down each year.” So, we chose 10 sites and that we have been monitoring since the early 90s.

Jesse: And you're just looking for kind of impact?

Daniel: Yes, the impacts to the area and impacts from not only from the natural things but from tourists and human caused things that do happen down there. And natural things. Sometimes the earth does shake and then you know, the rain does flood and it does, you know, erase some of the things that are down there, but you know, in, in a cultural aspect those weren't meant to be shared once they're gone.

Jesse: Yeah, that's really interesting. I think you know you gave a talk to visitors here just 1/2 hour or so ago. And one of the things that that you said in it was that you're, you know, you're able to learn from recordings from your tribal elders, more about your own culture. I'm curious how. Those like records are being used in in your Tribe and in in Kaibab Paiute.

Daniel: So those traditional recordings and stuff are archived. We have an archival place there on the reservation that we house all these things in and they're accessible to tribal members only. And so, if a travel member wants to come, they just go through my department and check out or sign a paper and then we take them there and we have them listen and they can't take anything, but we can make recordings for them to take home. But nowadays, a lot of people don't have the time to do that. You know, fortunately for me, you know I do because that's part of my job. And so that's one thing that I like to do is to go back and rehear past tribal members talk about certain things. And a lot of those aren't in English they're in Southern Paiute, so it kind of makes me want to learn more and understand what they're saying, which I can to a point. Hopefully one day I'll be fluent enough to make my own recordings and share. I always like to go back and listen to my predecessors talk in their interviews and try to keep what they say, “keep moving forward.” Because throughout the years, in the government, they always create the same issue but a different way. And so, we're constantly trying to tell them certain things and bring them back from creating more problems than needs to be created.

Jesse: Learn from the past.

Daniel: Exactly.

Jesse: What a novel concept!

Daniel: Yeah, learn from the past.

Jesse: I'm just curious, you know, your perspective on how the Park Service tells stories and talks about history.

Daniel: OK. You know, in working with the different agencies, you know everybody, even my tribe and all the tribes, I guess, everybody has their own perspective of certain things. So, when you talk to them one on one, you know, you get their perspective. And, you know, I tried to encourage that with with people because when you're talking from your perspective, you're being honest and open and you're comfortable and you're sharing things that you may have heard, or people may have shared with you. And that's things that need to be shared. You know, a lot of times, you know, we're coming from this mentality of that's mine. This is mine. I don't want to share it with you. And we can't be like that. We have to be open and honest and for people to share, they have to be open and honest. And so, I encourage Park Service staff, BLM staff, you know, Forest Service staff to share what they know with people. And then if they do have questions, you know, go to the tribes and say, “hey, I have this question, you know, am I allowed to say it? Am I allowed to share it? What's the answer to this question?” And sometimes tribes will shun you. And sometimes tribes will say, “well, thank you for coming and it means this, you know. It means that.” You know, we want that true knowledge to come out rather than being suppressed and not shared.

Jesse: Can you tell me a little bit about the first time or one of the first times you came to Grand Canyon?

Daniel: Man, that's... let's see, one of the first times I came to the Grand Canyon was probably in the early 80s with my grandparents. And, you know, as we were coming here to the North Rim, you know, we made stops along the roadway at certain spots. And they got out and you know, I got out too, but I was running around and doing kid things and not knowing that my grandparents were actually doing offerings and praying and collecting things as they were coming here, plants and other things that they wanted to use in making things back at home. And so, once we got to the North Rim, you know, walking out to the edge and seeing the colors and how vast it was and the different sounds of the wind blowing. I don't remember too much people back then just, you know, just us. And then my grandpa going off and being by himself and, you know, hearing him sing and coming back, you know, really happy and like recharged kind of like. That's my first impressions of the North Rim.

Jesse: And then as you've grown, and as you've learned more, how has your relationship with the North Rim and the Grand Canyon changed?

Daniel: So, as I grew, you know, things started to make more sense. I started to realize the importance of this of this area and the importance of our traditional Southern Paiute territories and how vast it was. And it made me realize that there was more people than what I thought lived out here. You know, all these people that made these rock writings and things that are here, you know, it's not called rock art. You know, we want to say rock writing because that tells a story. You know when we say rock art to people it gives them the idea of, oh, we could doodle on this rock, or we could paint this rock. You know, we want to stay away from that. And so, you know, as I got older, you know, a lot of things started to make sense. A lot of the stories that I was heard as a as a kid growing up started to make more sense. The circle dances that I know and sing start to make more sense. And just being out in nature, you know, and having that quietness and smelling and seeing and hearing and using all your senses to be a part, to make that connection with this land is very important now to me. And my birthday is tomorrow and I'm actually turning 50.

Jesse: Well, hopefully this is a good, good birthday visit for you.

Daniel: Right.

Jesse: What is important to you about having that connection about that peace and that that feeling that you get when you're here or when you're out in nature?

Daniel: So for me it's more of a spiritual connection and being out here and seeing things that I don't normally see, taking my mind off the fast pace of modern-day life and knowing that there's more to life than just what I see at home. There's more to life than the grocery store. There's more to life than you know than to driving here and there. You know, there's, there's this vastness that all of us as human beings should and need to go out and visit and see and share. All these places in nature have a special place for everybody that visits and that energy that’s there is so positive that a lot of us will get excited when we see those woods and we feel that coolness and smell that fresh air and it's like we want to go here, we want to go there. We want to see this and we want to do that. Slow down you you'll get there. It’s not as fast-paced. Pick up your feet when you walk. You know that type of thing. That's a hiking joke. The hikers joke.

Jesse: Well, Speaking of visiting special places is there one thing that you would like visitors to know before they come to Grand Canyon or as they're visiting the Canyon?

Daniel: So one thing I'd like visitors to know is to come with an open mind and come with the willingness to learn something that you're actually not going to learn by reading. You're going to learn by seeing. You're going to learn by feeling. You're going to learn by hearing. You may even learn by, you know, tasting when these monsoon rains come, and you can taste the wetness in the air. You know, come with the mindset to learn and also with the mindset to share what you have learned with your family, with your friends, and one day they may come out here and experience the same thing. Because it's hard to tell somebody about an experience when they're not there to actually experience it. So, I encourage people to come and experience, make that connection with nature and the land and even the people that are here that are helping provide certain accommodations for us here. You know, talk with them. They're people too, and they'll share. And you'll make that connection regardless of... the weather.

Jesse: Even if the Canyon is filled with fog.

Daniel: With fog or with snow or if it's raining cats and dogs. You'll still make a connection.

Jesse: Many thanks to Daniel for sharing his stories and perspectives. The behind The Scenery Podcast is brought to you by the interpretation team at Grand Canyon National Park. We gratefully acknowledge the native peoples on whose ancestral homelands we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant native communities who make their home here today.

Dams Part 2: Damming a Sacred Space Jul 23, 2023

“A big dam like that is holding back all the rain from coming in, because all that was supposed to go down to the ocean where our ancestors come back as moisture, as rain, any kind of precipitation. That’s our ancestors feeding us with the gift of life, which is water.”

-Ronnie Cachini, Head Rain Priest, A:Shiwi (Pueblo of Zuni)

This episode is dedicated to the memory of Ronnie Cachini. We are deeply grateful for all he taught us during his many years of close partnership with Grand Canyon National Park.

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Ceili: This episode is dedicated to the memory of Ronnie Cachini. We are deeply grateful for all he taught us during his many years of close partnership with Grand Canyon National Park.

Jan: Every year we would have these big floods that would just cover everything over and make a new flood plain. It's only when you stop the sediment supply did those things start becoming available to see, and that’s the legacy that we're looking at, is all of those things, all of those thousands of years. People living around along the river and every year they would come back. There would be a flood they’d come back, they’d plant, do whatever, whatever you know next year it would flood again, they come back there's a new flat surface because everything was buried in sand again. Everything was an annual cycle and it just kept happening for thousands of years until 1963 and then that stopped.

Kate: What stopped at the Colorado River in 1963 that was so important? Like rivers and bodies of water around the world people congregate around this river. For thousands of years it has been home to multiple native tribes. They watched the river, sat on the bank and listened to the water flowing. For over 100 years Grand Canyon has been protected as a National Park. The mission statement of the Park Service is to preserve and protect this place for future generations, but in the process some people's voices have been excluded. The people who have lived here for thousands of years. Hello I'm Kate, and this is the second episode in our two-part series on dams in Grand Canyon. In today's episode of Behind the Scenery we'll explore how the installation of the Glen Canyon Dam impacted Grand Canyon’s traditionally associated tribes and the sacred and ancestral grounds in the river corridor. One of the reasons I found this story is because in my job I'm a Ranger who lives at the bottom of the Canyon. I work several river miles below the dam. Every day I go on a walking patrol and I say hello to the Colorado River. One of my favorite spots by the beach is an archaeological site of Ancestral Puebloans. I like to imagine the families who used to have the Colorado River as their backyard. They took stones from the heart of the Canyon and beautifully crafted them into pink and black walls. Now we can only see the foundations of the plaza, living spaces, a ceremonial kiva. When the Pueblo was complete people would have been lounging on the roof. From there they would have been able to watch their kids playing on the beach. In today's world there are plenty of people still playing on the beach, but there are also river trips and blue, yellow, or orange rafts, sometimes even a small wooden boat, and they pull into what is now called Boat Beach. Once the dam was put in beaches like Boat Beach started eroding away. The Canyon was not only losing its beaches, but also the archaeological sites along the river became in danger of being lost forever. Jan Balsom was the park’s archaeologist from 1984 through 1995. She was in the field documenting how cultural sites by the river were being impacted. She has since filed several leadership positions in the park, including senior adviser to the Superintendent, and Jan is a lead advisor on cultural resources at Grand Canyon.

Jan: Recreational boaters on the Colorado River in Grand Canyon were sitting on beaches watching the water come up and down because they operated the dam in a way they call a cash register dam. When people turned on their lights they would let more water out and when people turned off their lights they would stop the water flows, so we had wide fluctuations that would be in the neighborhood of 20 to 30,000 cubic feet per second changes in a day. That would result in 10 or 15 feet downstream of stage change.

Kate: 10 to 15 feet is a huge change within 24 hours, especially if you're a boater and it's below where you made your home for the night. If you're new to the Canyon, think about narrow granite walls rising above you. On your side, sandy beaches line parts of the Canyon. You dock your boat and set up camp to sleep. What you didn't realize was the damn caused the river level to rise the height of a one to two-story building while you were sleeping.

Jan: As archaeologist for the park, I was most concerned about looking at the archaeological resources and how the dam flows were affecting the integrity of those properties.

Kate: Unfortunately, the dam was created before or key environmental legislation was in place. The National Environmental Policy Act wouldn't come about until three years later, and it requires federal agencies to complete an environmental review to assess potential impacts of a project. The dam was excluded from this environmental assessment until the Bureau of Reclamation had the need to replace the eight generators that powered the dam in 1982. Scientists, river runners, members of the public, and environmental groups began to push for scientific studies that could measure the adverse impacts of the dam. In 1989 a grassroots project pushed for an environmental impact statement.

Jan: So as the parks archaeologists, I then became a member of the EIS writing team for the Glen Canyon Dam environmental impact statement that was done. In combination with that we had to begin doing the archaeological inventory survey then of the Colorado River corridor. We spent the better part of nine months with the crews working under a cooperative agreement with Northern Arizona University to do the 100% inventory the river corridor that resulted in documenting 475 properties in the near shore environment from the dam down to the lake.

Kate: 475 remnants of homes, agricultural structures, religious sites, and petroglyphs of the people who had lived by the Colorado River. Jan was curious about who these places were important to, the people who felt that these places were in the family. Jan did something unusual for the Park Service and archaeology at the time. She looked at these places and realized that their descendants still live near Grand Canyon. She invited them into the conversation.

Jan: And a piece of that was bringing our tribal colleagues down onto the Colorado River so that they could help us design the research module, how we're going to do this, so that they understood what we are looking for and that we could understand from them things that we may need to be looking for. It was the first time, and I didn't realize this at the time, but it was the first time that we anybody had done a river trip where we had invited the traditionally associated people back into the Canyon and that led to a whole other legacy of the tribes’ involvement. We were doing a project to build a parking lot up on the East Rim and we had an archaeological site there. I knew enough from my studies and working at the state historic preservation office that we needed to contact the tribes. We sent out letters to the five tribes that we worked with, and the entire Havasupai Tribal Council showed up to the superintendent's office. And the Superintendent at the time was a fellow named Jack Davis. He looked at me and he said I think we need to have somebody who does tribal liaison, I guess that will be you. And so I added that to my portfolio of responsibilities. So we started working along the river and we knew that the archaeology was pretty extraordinary, even the limited amount that we knew about. We contacted tribes early on to let them know we're going to be doing this, got them engaged with at least that portion of the project, and also as we began moving towards the environmental impact statement (Luhan identified in 1989 we're going to do the EIS) we started having an EIS writing team. And upon the insistence of a couple of us we convinced Bureau of Reclamation that they needed to include the tribes as part of the cooperating agencies, part of the writing team, because these are resources of concern to the tribes not just to us as the National Park Service, or to the American public who we are all responsible to. But even at that time we knew the Hopi, for example, have significant histories in the Canyon. The Navajo border the river for 60 plus miles. The Havasupai and Hualapai to the West, we knew that they have ancestral areas. The Southern Paiute to the north. So, you know, we worked with Reclamation. It wasn't something they had ever done, and it challenged them a little bit to think about a different way of inclusion.

Kate: Jan found that the best way to assess the cultural impacts of the dam was to consult the direct ancestors of the people who had histories extending back sometimes thousands of years in the Canyon. Archaeologists learned more by listening to the tribes.

Jan: And certainly from a tribal perspective, only you as a tribal member can know if the traditional resource that you are concerned about is doing OK. Does it need help, is it still as functional as it was, are the spring sources that you rely on for traditional purposes still functioning the way they have or have there been changed? And only you would know that. So it's important for the traditional people to be able to come down and evaluate within their expertise how well specific resource is adjusting to this changed environment. When you think about some of the political discord between the agencies, the federal approach to Indian law and policy, the differences amongst the tribes in terms of land base and resources, and a lot of those things. But for whatever reason when you talk about the Grand Canyon everyone comes together because they all have common histories here. There's a recognition that everyone has a vested interest in ensuring that this place continues. So I think that because of the place, and the way in which we included the tribes from the very beginning with the archaeological survey, saying “we understand that this is your history we want you to help us preserve these things,” that it was a general opening to all of them to participate with us, and that followed through into the formal NEPA process as them being part of the writing team.

Kate: Six Native American tribes contributed to the environmental impact statement that was finalized in 1995. That didn't happen without hard work from certain tribal leaders. While Jan pushed or inclusion of tribal voices at a Park Service level, it was a greater challenge for tribes to become involved in projects that involved multiple federal agencies. We have an incredible opportunity to hear from Leigh Kuwanwisiwma. He is a leader in the Hopi tribe and director of the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office. For 30 years he's been involved with adaptive management in Grand Canyon. Since around 1989 Leigh successfully led his tribe in playing a major part in the environmental impact statement. His success helping to manage the river had a challenging start.

Leigh: Well, to be frank, nobody came to the Hopi or to any tribe that is currently engaged with the oral history of the dam. I just happen to, I believe back around early 1990, I read in the Flagstaff Daily Sun there was a meeting on the Glen Canyon Dam by the Bureau of Reclamation. I was reading the newspaper and just out of curiosity, I didn't know really what it was about except the picture of the dam up there, but I never realized that it was dealing with the whole Canyon. but that was how I got a whiff of something happening, so I went to that meeting. It was an evening meeting. I sat there listening to it and there was a whole series of presentations on jump starting the EIS. As the initial introductions came around, all the federal agencies of course introduce themselves, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs was introduced from Phoenix. And I learned later that they were representing all 19 tribes in the state of Arizona. An I sat there, and naturally at that meeting I was probably the only Native person there, and I was kind of bewildered. That's when I began to say we've got to learn more about what's going on, this EIS, and so I've got a lot of handouts and some background information. I took home a whole bunch of that and began to read it. And it was indeed about the grand Glen Canyon Dam but what was interesting to me was that the whole issue was, again, the water releases and the effects on the ecosystem. And I said “this has to be of interest to the tribe,” I mean it is an interest to the tribe. And then the next meeting again was in Phoenix, so I went to that one. And by that time I had reasonable assurance that the tribe, meaning the Tribal Council, wanted to actively participate, so I finally had the floor give it to me and I introduced myself. At that that time I was still the only tribal representative, and I said the Hopi Tribe will engage in this whole EIS, but independent from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and their representation of other tribes. We’re, I believe, quite capable of representing ourselves. I went before the tribal council and got a resolution declaring that we could be a cooperating agency. We would have that status. So I remember at the next meeting I introduced that resolution, gave it to them, and they gave me a seat. The chairman wrote to them that I would be the Hopi Tribe’s voting member. So I became the first tribal voting member.

Kate: Leigh had established the Hopi tribe as a stakeholder in the Glen Canyon Adaptive Management Program. Different stakeholders submitted scientific projects that would work on collecting data, monitoring resources, and restoring the ecosystem. One of the solutions was starting river monitoring trips beginning in the 1990s. River monitoring trips were initially funded by the Bureau of reclamation to mitigate the damage that the dam had caused. Imagine that you've created as scientific proposal to study the Colorado River, and now it's your job to float down the river for days or weeks so you can do studies and collect data downstream of the dam. Maybe your study is about how sediments are eroding beaches or impacting cultural sites, or maybe you're studying how the changed ecosystem impacted wildlife populations.

Leigh: In the 90s I was trying to figure out what we're gonna do and then I finally said “well, looks like this EIS is going to require a lot of science, a lot of research, and by golly I gotta determine what are what our focus is gonna be.” And it was the whole gamut of all three sciences, you know, biological, natural, and cultural. Of course, our forte, even though I was just beginning the office at that time, was gonna be culture. Even though I kind of was already thinking they're all interconnected. I believe we have the most extensive scientific reports based on our research design and then later how we identify certain research areas as we traveled from the first time that we started going down there.

Kate: Tribal monitoring trips began to happen every year, and in order to monitor what happened on the river time had to be spent on the water.

Leigh: So by ‘91 I believe around that time we got our funding and we got our first river trip down there. That's about the time I began to know Jan Balsom, too. I think she was just getting started, as well, about the same time. I think she started with the Grand Canyon about ‘88 too, or there about. She went with one of our efforts was to investigate as many archaeological sites down there. Alright, so that was our first attention down there. And from Lees Ferry all the way to Phantom Ranch there's 300 plus archaeological sites. All the way from there. A lot of it clearly ancestral Hopi because the Hopi polychrome and yellow ware down there. It matches our traditions in there because the Hopi, they say they traded with other clans down the Grand Canyon from here, you know. And they say the Wupatki people from Flagstaff, they traded with the Grand Canyon people, you know. Things like that are traditions so when you go down there and begin to learn about archaeology, the archaeologists will tell us “Well, there's evidence of Hopi yellow ware here.” Could be trade items, could be actually visitations by people, probably both.

Kate: The Hopi helped archaeologists gain a bigger picture of the rich relationships that tribes had across Arizona, and the vast trading networks that were connected to the bottom of Grand Canyon.

Leigh: So over time our reputation grew that we knew so much about the history of the Grand Canyon - culturally, the archaeological sites, the petroglyphs we were interpreting left and right down there. Our values in terms of the erosion effects on burials, that causes us to have to now rebury only a partial of a remain, right? That was very emotional. For the old men, of course, we're learning and the Hopi trip just grew. Everybody wanted to be on the trips. After they go through the river trips and learning about what we do down there, and the science we're doing, the cultural resources down there. You know, coming out we have a better perspective on how those are being affected by the dam operations. But they're pretty consistent, and so I think that's an indication that the Hopi culture is this unwavering. You know, our villages are a thousand years old. The Hopi still have a full 12 month ceremonial cycle. Today we're going into the woman's ceremonies right now. So it never ends for us. It never ends, we're always in the Kiva. So, I think it's it reflects the vibrancy of the Hopi culture, and we're fortunate to be able to say that.

Kate: The Hopi people and other Grand Canyon tribes continue to go on monitoring trips on the Colorado River to this day, and this has helped the Park Service and tribes listen to each other's interest and concerns.

Ronnie: First of all my name is Ronnie Cachini. I am 54 years old, and I am the Head Rain Priest for the Zuni Tribe. We are federally recognized as the Zuni Tribe, but we call ourselves A:Shiwi, and I am the traditional leader for the A:Shiwi people. I'm also the head medicine man for my society. I’ve been a medicine man since I was seven years old. I was initiated back in 1972, and growing up with the elders in my society, staying in the medicine house, I learned a lot. I obtained a lot of knowledge that I hold to this day. I hold these prayers. They’re not written in a book. We're not taught with electrical devices like tape recorders and such. All the prayers are taught orally, and if you have the heart, you’ll pick up all the prayers word for word. And it’s really hard for some people because the language is in the old ancient language which our people were speaking in the time when they emerge from the Grand Canyon. Ribbon Falls, Grand Canyon. That’s the place of our emergence. Chimik'yana'kya Deya' referring to the Grand Canyon as the emergence place.

Kate: Although the Zuni People consider the Grand Canyon their emergence place, at that time federal agencies did not realize how central the Canyon was to the Zuni history. Ronnie: And back in the day like in the 50s, 60s at Grand Canyon Park, you know, “why are Zunis interested in this place? They live far away, they live in New Mexico.” No one told them until they started going on these monitoring trips. That's when it opened up the eyes of the park. Kate: At that time many archaeologists had the hypothesis that these people had abandoned the area maybe because of war or a drought.

Ronnie: These people that have left all these sites, their homes, they did not abandon them. They were used time and time again. Archaeologists believe that these were a group of people that came and built these homes and they left and a whole different group of people came and occupied these places and left. Actually, these were the same people on their great migration. All the pueblo tribes were on a vast migration searching for their destinations on mother earth. It was a very spiritual world back then. Spirits showed them things that we hold today as our religion, or our traditions. These places were never abandoned. We’re trying to veer away from using the word “ruins” and “Anasazi.” We’re veering away from those terms because that’s not the pueblo way. We call them “the first people who lived in these homes.”

Kate: The Zuni people started going down to view and monitor these sacred spaces, especially the religious leaders of the tribe. This first fell on Ronnie's grandfather, and when he passed away that leadership passed to Ronnie.

Ronnie: I had never seen the Grand Canyon until 1998, when I took my first monitoring trip down the river. It was the most humbling experience I've ever had in my life.

Kate: On one special site visit, Ronnie was able to look at the rock art and interpret what that history meant to his tribe.

Ronnie: At Tanner there’s 3 larger boulders there. There’s lines going around, zig-zags and squares leading out to places. I was looking at it and I thought “I think this is a map of the Canyon. See this is the river and these are ways to get to certain places, maybe a collecting area or a village.” As I was looking at it, it just came out as a map of the river. Three huge boulders with a constant line going across the boulders, and then there’s other petroglyphs on there that have the 2 individuals with their tails connected together. And in our prayers at the very end, no matter if you’re a Rain Priest, a Medicine Man, a Kiva Leader, all these societies, even the commoners, in our prayers at the very end we say to hold on to each other tight with a bond that will never be broken. Always hold on to each other. And these 2 individuals with their tails connected, that’s that part of our prayer. It’s talking about our prayer. And when we read history, we read it in a book, but our ancestors left it on boulders, on cliff walls, all over the Southwest, all over the United States. It’s not just the Zuni people, it’s other tribes that left their mark.

Kate: Ronnie talked about another rock art panel that is named the Whitmore panel. This panel tells the story of his people's origin in the Grand Canyon. This panel is a popular stop for river trips river runners would hike and narrow path from the river to the cliffs where there was a smooth rock face painted with red figures.

Ronnie: Those petroglyphs are telling us how our people came up from the 4th underworld, and we’re trying to change the name from the Whitmore Panel to the Zuni Emergence Panel. As you know, that takes a lot of time. It has to go through all these channels to make that change.

Kate: Zuni elders noticed that the trail was too close to the panel and people were causing erosion at the site. Visitors were also touching the paintings and the oils smeared from their hands were damaging the paintings. Over time Zunis communicated that this place needed more protection.

Ronnie: We asked the Park Service to move the trail. With the help of the Conservancy group, the Grand Canyon Conservancy group, they found an individual that donated a large portion of money to move that trail. So we were asked to be a part of working on the trail. We were there for, I believe, 5 or 6 days working on that trail, removing all the trail, placing rock along the old trail, then creating the new one down below, then having the stairway go up to a platform area where you could view the petroglyphs. We were there working and they had us planting rocks cactuses (laughter)…

Ceili: That’ll deter people from getting too close!

Ronnie: We were moving rock and we had to dig a trench and place a real big rock and bury it halfway so they couldn’t move it. And then put the cacti in certain areas. It came out really good. It came out really good. People weren’t going up and touching the petroglyphs no more. Park Service did an excellent job with all that – moving the real big old heavy rocks and making the stair steps that go up to the platform viewing area. It really was a great experience for me. I’ve never worked down in the Canyon like that before.

Kate: The story of the Zuni panel is just one example of how monitoring trips helped protect cultural sites along the river.

Ronnie: When you’re venturing into these archaeological sites, have respect. Treat it like you’re in a church. Don’t pick up pot shards and leave them, or pile them up on rocks. If you pick it up, put it back where you got it, or just leave it alone. Take a picture. Treat the place as if you’re in your church, your place of worship.

Kate: How did the Zuni people feel when the dam was put in?

Ronnie: I’m pretty sure that our tribe didn’t even know about it. There was no consultation at that time and once it was built it was built. And now, they come and ask us how we feel about it. I feel a lot of things about it, but what can we do? It’s already there, we can’t tell them to tear it down. And maybe one day they’ll take it back (chuckling).

Kate: Yeah! (laughter)

Ronnie: Yeah, we just need to adapt to what is displaced. It really messed up the whole cycle of the river. The Colorado River don’t reach the Sea of Cortez no more, not a lot. The Gila and the Salt River, they don’t reach the Sea of Cortez no more because of the dams that are built. Electricity is good. Electricity is good, but it has its pros and cons and we do not block our water ways from the headwaters all the way down to the oceans. We can’t, it’s not allowed. It’s like impeding the rains to come, you’re blocking out the rain when you do that. A big dam like that is holding back all the rain from coming in, because all that was supposed to go down to the ocean where our ancestors come back as moisture, as rain, any kind of precipitation that’s our ancestors feeding us with the gift of life, which is water. Building all these dams along the Colorado River is a “no-no,” we frown upon that. But at that time, like I said there were no consultations with tribes. They all just wanted to do whatever they wanted to do. Mother Earth was theirs for the taking, which we don’t see that way. A tribal Native American has never said that “this is my land.” We don’t own it we’re just taking care of it. When we pass away we’re not going to take it with us. We’re not gonna pack you in with your land and send you off to the spirit world. No. And like I said, they didn’t have any consultations with any of the tribes and they were places and now we have to deal with it. We’re helping the Park Service; we’re helping them to make right what they did.

Jan: Each group, each government, each cultural identity is represented somewhere different, but there's a shared understanding of the importance of Grand Canyon as part of all of the traditional landscapes for the native peoples of the area. I mean, Glen Canyon Dam was finished in 1963 so you've got 50 some years now of an experiment essentially, and many of our tribal colleagues will remind me that they’re patient people. They're just gonna wait. Every damn that's ever gone on the Colorado River has been eroded around, we just haven't taken a long enough perspective. But we also as federal agencies have responsibility to preserve in perpetuity. I mean, the National Park Service in particular we’re the, you know, we’re the forever people. You know, these resources are our responsibility forever. As long as the Park Service exists we will see ourselves as stewards for these lands and we’re stewards not for our own selves but for the American people and the tribal groups who have called this, again, this Canyon home for thousands of years. We take their responsibility really seriously.

Ed: When Grand Canyon was designated a National Monument in 1908 and a National Park in 1919, it was done without the support or consent of the people for whom the Canyon was home for time immemorial.

Ceili: Grand Canyon Superintendent Ed Keable.

Ed: Echoes of this painful and inequitable history still resonate throughout our park. We must acknowledge these injustices and face them head on. Today there is much we need to do to heal historic wounds, and we are committed to this work because it is both necessary and right. I know we can achieve these goals as Grand Canyon and the nation grapple with our past and progress ever forward towards building a more perfect union.

Ronnie: The most memorable experience I had down the river is uh, all the time! Everyday stands out. The wind may be blowing. you know. you may have sand in your breakfast, but you're down in the Canyon where our ancestors live, you know? You're happy, you know, having a great time!

Kate: My name is Kate, and thank you for joining us on another episode of Behind the Scenery. We gratefully acknowledge the native peoples on whose ancestral homelands we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant native communities who make their home here today.

Hiking Misadventures with Nalini Ravindranath Apr 16, 2023

"The outdoor narrative has for a long time has been the idea of rugged, strong, men conquering nature, and really it doesn't have to be that way. You can define what your outdoor space is and how you're going to interact with that space...That space belongs to you and you have the right recreate in the way that you want to...I think has to come from a place of you believing that you belong there."

Nalini Ravindranath is an avid explorer and author of the blog hikingmisadventures.com.

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Nalini: So I did the Rim to Rim hike at the Grand Canyon, and I hiked it with my sister. My sister it not the adventurous type and this was actually her first backpacking trip. And she came with me out of the kindness of her heart. And I could see how she transformed during the hike as she saw more people who looked like her and she had the ability to interact with them. So we were, you know, camped at the Phantom Ranch area and as we were sort of like hiking out there we met a mother and daughter, an Indian mother and daughter. I am of Indian descent. And my sister really just kind of like bonded with these two. In fact, like started hiking with them and I was hiking by myself for a while. But I think just that interaction made her feel more confident, and I think made her feel more like that she belonged in that space too.

Jesse: Hey this is Jesse. On this episode we’re featuring an interview ranger Jeff Caton recorded with Nalini Ravindranath. Nalini is the author of the blog “Hiking Misadventures.” She’s a great writer and a great storyteller. Enjoy.

Jeff: Alright, well let's just get started with the first question. When we had our preliminary conversation couple weeks ago you talked about how you went from kind of an urban person in Washington DC to hiking the entire Appalachian Trail. Would you tell us about that experience?

Nalini: Yeah, so that is true. I grew up in DC and didn't really do any hiking or sort of like typically what's considered outdoors, any of those types of activity, and I had a like things that were big life changes that were happening. I had, you know, heard about the Appalachian Trail and I had seen a couple of movies and decided you know I was gonna take it on! This was the year that I was going to do it. So I set out on the Appalachian Trail without any backpacking experience and very little hiking experience. And the process of getting ready for that was really interesting. I'm somebody who has to do a ton of research before I take on something, particularly if it's something that I'm not familiar with. So this was a huge sort of, you know, like something really out of character for me, but to me it was also a really courageous life changing decision. So, you know, like my friends drove me down to Georgia and I started. The first couple of days were a little hard they were really really cold. I didn't know how to set up my tent, I didn't know how to make my stove work. So you know like the first couple days I was sort of like, you know, kind of like watching, making sure that this is really what I wanted to do, but I met such an incredibly wonderful group of people and everybody is so willing to help you. A couple of people that I met on the trail help me set up my tent probably about 3 or 4 days in and then I knew how to set up my tent, and then I knew how to work my stove. It was step by step. I learned how to do things you know while I was on the trail and that was a really, really freeing experience. It kind of got me out of my fear because I think a lot of the reason why I hadn't engaged in any outdoor activity was really fear. My family didn't necessarily do it and I didn't really know what it was about and so I'm really glad I had the opportunity to kind of experience the trail in the way that I did. And of course I just you know learned so much about myself and got to see some amazing amazing parts of the country that I you know had never thought to even visit. And, you know, at the end of it I was really proud of myself, and I think my parents who are kind of very traditional in what they think about as success. I think it also kind of helped pull them out of that traditional mode. The day after I had um summited Katahdin and I came back into town I called my dad and said “I summited!” and he was just so incredibly happy and yeah he said “I am just so proud of you. This is not something that I would have thought about doing. I didn't understand it in the beginning but I'm really glad that you kind of, you know, brought me along this journey and helped me learn about this trail as well.” So that was a really really awesome moment.

Jeff: How long did it take you to do the trail? Were you slowed down at all the learning curve or you did it in pretty Standard Time and didn't let any of that slow you down?

Nalini: Yeah I think I did it in pretty standard time. It took me 6 months. When I was planning it in the beginning I had always intended to go slow because I had read enough stuff online that like, you know, if I try to do too much I'll probably injure myself or you know something like that. And that was at the forefront of my head and being like don’t do anything too crazy, much crazier than what I was doing. I was actually ahead of schedule until towards the end when I entered into New Hampshire. I had developed plantar fasciitis on both feet and tendonitis on both of my knees, so just, you know, the act of walking was starting to become painful. I really had to rethink how I was gonna finish the hike, which meant I had to take a lot more breaks and then also you know sometimes do certain hikes as day hikes. So that slowed me down a little bit, but overall I still stayed that on schedule because I kind of like you know I had breezed through certain parts of the trail. So I finished September 17th. Started on March 15th and finished on September 17th.

Jeff: Wow that is so cool you finished up that trail with 2 banged up using 2 banged up feet and then and you still finish on time.

Nalini: I did! It sort of felt like I was like crawling into New Hampshire, right? And I was just like man, like what choice do I have? Am I really gonna go home when I have 2 more states left? And it was like “nope,” I'm gonna figure this out. Which I think kind of illustrative of my entire you know hiking experience, hiking life. Things don't always go according to plan and then my confidence gets shaken but then I kind of often have to sit down and have a talk with with myself and be like “OK, what are you gonna do? Are you gonna walk off the trail, or are you gonna figure it out?” And usually the answer is I'm gonna figure it out, and I figure it out.

Jeff: So we talked before you mentioned that, you know, naming your blog, there's a story there. How did you how did you name your blog? Because you just talked about how some things don't go as planned. Tell us how you how your named your blog.

Nalini: Yeah so, my blog is called “Hiking Misadventures,” and the story really starts from my first…I guess it was my second day on the trail, but the first morning after sleeping on the tail and waking up. I had filtered my water the night before so I could get an early start and I was just you know I had it all planned. Except, the thing that I didn't do is close my bite valve. It was open and I had set my pack unknowingly on top of the bite valve. I had packed everything into the pack and then I went I went to lift the hydration pack and put it in my backpack and it was pretty empty. And I was just like “what happened?” And I was just like looking around thinking there was a leak and then I kind of you know I had to be like “oh, that was a really silly mistake.” And then I re-filtered water, did the whole thing again and in that panicked moment I had taken my camera out and I had set it down. I completely forgot about it, started hiking, and then maybe about a mile in I realized I forgot my camera. I had to hike the mile back and pick it up. In those first few moments I was, you know, feeling like “gee, I'm probably not ready to do this, I'm completely inexperienced. I don't know what I was thinking.” But I just kept putting one foot in front of the other. And then after I came home a lot of people that I would talk to would constantly say, particularly people in my family and other people of color, “I don’t think I could ever do that. I would never know how to figure out something like that, or problem solve on the go.” And when I decided to start my blog after the Appalachian Trail that was really something that was a driving force for me in even starting the blog - to emphasize this idea that you don't have to be an expert to experience the outdoors. And yes, there are some basic safety things that you have to think about, but really most of the time there are things that you can just learn how to do. And if you make a mistake you know correct your mistake and you get to keep going. And that fear shouldn't stop you from experiencing all the wonderful things about the outdoors.

Jeff: So I think a lot of us Rangers experienced those things where some days, you know, the most we get done is like you said putting one foot in front of the other and you don't need to be an expert for a lot of this stuff. You just have to do it and learn and fail sometimes, but continue after that failure.

Nalini: Yeah!

Jeff: So kind of building on that question, how has your you're hiking experience or your time in nature, how has that changed you from when you were starting out there in Washington DC, and now here you are with this awesome blog and all these experiences? How have you changed along that road?

Nalini: Yeah I mean, oh man! I would say the outdoors have given me so much confidence and the ability to believe in myself. Like I said, I was always one of these people who had to plan and really think through something before I did something, and I always kind of play things safe. So I only did things if I knew I could excel at it, so only things that I, you know, had a lot of experience in and I'm very averse to taking risk. And that part of myself has completely transformed. I am willing to experience new things. I don't let fears stop myself from experiencing new things. And I think you know one of the things that I've learned over the years of hiking and, you know most of the hiking that I do is by myself, is that sometimes the fear has to come along with you on the journey, right? And then you kind of go “OK, there's some fear there. That's OK you're coming along with me.” And then you know that can also make me you know stay alert and smart on the trail too, and you know like understand what my limitations are. So fear is not necessarily a bad thing. And then just, you know, I think in general being a more confident person that believes in myself and believes in my ability to do things whether it's on the trail or off the trail. So when I actually came back from the Appalachian Trail I kind of made career change from, you know like I have worked in nonprofits doing research, and then I kind of switched to a different role within nonprofits which was to be a grant writer, which involves a lot of sort of like you know being out front and having sort of like you know being like a face of an organization. And I don't think I could imagine doing something like that before my outdoor experience.

Jeff: You mentioned how your risk tolerance has changed and how you had, you know, those fears but you dealt with them. You let them ride along on your car trips and in your backpack when you were hiking. What were some of those fears starting out, and then how have those fears changed? Or have they changed?

Nalini: You know, I don't think a lot of those fears have changed. And you know one of the things that I would say is that I am not a natural athlete. Athletic endeavors never came easily. And I think a lot of times when you think about what the outdoors is, or what people are able to do in the outdoors I think there's a very kind of like specific body type that we have in mind, and I don't have that body type. I am a pretty tiny person. Really, really short. And so I think a lot of the fears in the beginning, and they continue to be, are just really doubting what my body can accomplish. So if I'm setting off on a backpacking trip I have all these doubts about whether I can carry the pack, whether, you know like I'm a little accident prone, whether I'm gonna do something to hurt myself and really injure myself. And then, you know, find myself not being able to get the help that I need. I think there are also just kind of fears around - a lot of the places that I travel to are rural, and often I hike alone and, you know, there are safety concerns. Those have never ever materialized, but I think those are things that just kind of like live with me or like, you know, that I carry with me. But then when I'm on the trail those things either sort of ride along with me or they kind of dissipate. Like, “oh, you know, this is fine!” And the part about my doubts about my body, or fears that my body will not be able to accomplish something, that is something that just constantly I carry. And then, you know, I will get to the top of the mountain and just kind of look back and go “huh, my body did that. Congratulations!” Like having appreciation for like being able to do this physically.

Jeff: So we talked about the fears that you have, and I think that's a pretty common thing for all of us hikers to have, whether you’re a ranger or, you know, that first time visitor to a National Park. The fears are different but they're always there.

Nalini: Yeah!

Jeff: What has been challenging about visiting national parks and the outdoors, and more specifically, you know, have you perceived any barriers to being in these places?

Nalini: Yeah, I will start off by saying I think where I am now, sort of financially, in terms of job-wise, I'm in an incredibly privileged place, right? Like I have financial resources and a really flexible work environment where they let me take off weeks at a time to do my little adventures. So I would say you know first of all those two things can be an incredible barrier, right, given sort of like you know how far away some of these beautiful, amazing places are. So I think you know just physical access can be a barrier for a lot of people. I think particularly people of color, especially if you're coming from a pretty urban environment where I think you know there's a lot of diversity. Both in terms of people, but also like diversity in terms of like transportation and things like that. So I think those are, if you will, like you know material barriers right? And then I also think one of their fears that I have is that it's not going to be a welcoming place. That I am not a super athlete and so therefore if I'm in a National Park if I make a mistake or you know like have some kind of accident, people are going to be judging me and not really accepting me. And I think over the years it's just going back and going back has kind of you know helped me sort of like temper those fears from the beginning, right, to say “OK, I know this is a fear that I have, but once I'm there I can create my own space.” Yeah, I think more can be done to create national parks to be a welcoming space for everyone, but then also individually I think having the courage to create your own space as you're going through these incredibly beautiful, wonderful places but that can sometimes feel really isolating.

Jeff: You mentioned there that when you, when you're in these in these big parks and you're concerned about you know possibly hurting yourself while you're on the trail and people judging you, would you tell us a little bit more about that? Are you concerned about other visitors, or rangers, the people who would come help you if you did get hurt?

Nalini: Yeah.

Jeff: Tell us more around that, I'm curious to hear.

Nalini: Yeah that so I think my fear is always judgment from sort of like everyone. Park rangers who might say “that was an obvious mistake that you shouldn’t have made. Your pack is too heavy. Why did you decide to carry a heavy pack like that?” Or even like you know other visitors as well. I think you know we live in a society where there are, whether intentional or unintentional, racist reactions, right? And being a very dark-skinned person that, you know, in a lot of national parks, particularly in sort of like in the backcountry there aren't a lot of people who look like me. So often I have this fear that somehow if I do something and I hurt myself like I am not going to get the help that I need because, people are going to judge me. And then I will say so last year I hiked the Wonderland Trail, which circumnavigates Mount Rainier and I did hurt myself. My pack was too heavy. I was carrying my entire like 11 day food supply with me so the pack was a little heavier than I anticipated it was going to be, and I think I was probably also a little bit dehydrated. So one morning as I was like heading out, it was I think you know day 4 or 5 of this 11-day trip, I was coming out of my camp area which was up this very steep incline, and I was coming down that incline and just kind of stepped the wrong way and turned my ankle a little bit. So I sat down for a couple of minutes. The pain went away, and then I was on my way. And I climbed up to the highest point on the trail that day, which was about one and a half mile climb. I was actually feeling really great. I was feeling really strong. And then I had to descend. And as soon as I started descending I knew I had hurt my ankle more than just turning it because every step was excruciatingly painful. And I have to say there were so many people who stopped. Visitors to the park who stopped, and you know like gave me some Advil and ACE Bandages. There was one person who even said “I'm going to the top now, but if you don't make it down, like on my way back I will definitely help you.” And then I ran into a park ranger who was just so incredibly helpful. And I remember like I kept saying “I can walk myself, I can walk myself, I don't need to be carried out of here.” And it was getting really dark and it was starting to, you know, thunderstorm and they kind of had to make the call to carry me out. And the ranger kind of sat me down and said you know “look, you don't have to prove anything to anybody. You have been incredibly strong right now. We're here to help you and this is going to help you, to carry you out.” And that's what they did. And I think it took that experience for me to, and for that ranger to explicitly say that to me, for me to feel comfortable, because otherwise I was just carrying this burden in my head, right? Like, oh they were just going to think that I was too stupid when no one really thought that. Everybody was just, you know, pretty impressed with me that I had been willing to do as much as I could. So feeling like all these people are going to judge me but in reality my experience was not that at all. And even to this day I feel like I owe an amazing amount of gratitude to the park rangers who helped me.

Jeff: Glad you stumbled on a Ranger, that's why we're there.

Nalini: Right! which is what they kept saying! “We are here for this. We are here to help you.” We can sort of be inside of our heads so much that we're not experiencing the reality in the way that it is really happening, right? And I'm just so grateful that he could identify that was the struggle that I was having and would be able to talk to me and say “look, like you don't have to prove anything. We're here to help you and you have done an incredible amount already.” And I think it's something that I constantly about too, like if I am doing other trips too. It's just like “I don't have to prove myself to be out here. I belong in this space just as much as other people.”

Jeff: Yeah, I'm glad you said that you belong in this space just like everybody else.

Nalini: Yeah, I mean I feel like it's not something that I maybe explicitly said in terms of barriers, but I think that's also part of it. I think, you know, the outdoor narrative has for a long time has been the idea of rugged, strong, men conquering nature. And really it doesn't have to be that way, right? You can define what your outdoor space is and how you're gonna interact with that space, and how you recreate in that space in the outdoors. And, you know, that space belongs to you and you have the right recreate in the way that you want to, right, in in in terms of you can take as long as you want when you're hiking up a mountain. It's how you define yourself with the outdoors and I think has to come from a place of you believing that you belong there.

Jeff: So going down that same road, what makes you feel more welcome in outdoor spaces? Or what do you think the Park Service could do to make more people welcome? You can kind of pick whichever question there you want to answer.

Nalini: Yeah, I mean I can probably answer both. I feel really comfortable when I see people who look like me around me, right? I think that's kind of a very human instinct. So I did the Rim to Rim hike at the Grand Canyon, and I hiked it with my sister. My sister it not the adventurous type and this was actually her first backpacking trip. And she came with me out of the kindness of her heart. And I could see how she transformed during the hike as she saw more people who looked like her and she had the ability to interact with them. So we were, you know, camped at the Phantom Ranch area and as we were sort of like hiking out there we met a mother and daughter. I am of Indian descent. And my sister really just kind of like bonded with these two. In fact, like started hiking with them and I was hiking by myself for a while. But I think just that interaction made her feel more confident, and I think made her feel more like that she belonged in that space too. So I think that’s an obvious one for me. And in terms of what can the Park Service do? I think, you know, I think we really have to think about how we can make our national parks more accessible to a diverse group of people. So it's not just maybe, you know, you get your backcountry permit and then you kind of go off exploring by yourself, because that might not be the first thing that somebody who's never experienced a National Park wants to do, right? I was listening to Lonnie Bunch, who’s the secretary of the Smithsonian Museum, a few days ago and one of the things that he talked about was how to make museums more accessible. And one of the things that he actually started doing when he was trying to make the African American Museum, like build it and how to make it a reality, he started sort of putting all these artifacts and making them virtually accessible. So it was it was really a virtual museum before it was actually a real museum. And that was actually like stuck in my head because I think a lot of times when people are not familiar with a certain place or a certain kind of environment, I think if they can experience it virtually then I think they become more comfortable, right? They can see themselves because they're experiencing it. And even for me the Appalachian Trail as a concept didn't really mean anything until I saw a movie about it about with through hikers hiking, and then it became a reality where I can picture it and I could picture myself there. So I think, you know, when we're talking about accessibility it's really offering more virtual programming so that people really feel a connection, feel welcome and they can experience it before they're actually physically there. And then I would also say having a diverse group of rangers as well, because I think that's also a sense of comfort, particularly if you're coming from a place that's probably not very diverse.

Jeff: Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I mean, you see you want to see yourself reflected in the people visiting and you want to see yourself reflected in the people taking care of the park, running the park and enforcing the laws, and making those decisions. Yeah that makes that makes perfect sense. So that's all the questions I have, actually. There's one more thing we wanna ask you though, since we're still recording. Is there anything that you wanted to talk about that that I didn't bring up? What else do you wanna talk about?

Nalini: Oh man, I really think that outdoors is this amazing, wonderful space that really really helped transform who I am. I don't think I mentioned this during our pre-interview but I have I have a bunch of health issues. I'm diabetic, and I also struggle with anxiety. And both of those things I've been able to manage by having this amazing relationship with the outdoors. Being able to get outside and just having the time and space to just like, you know, not focus on anything else, right? It is such an amazing privilege just to be like “I only have to worry about putting one foot in front of the other. I only have to worry today about making it to the place where I'm going to sleep.” There is this amazing freedom in that and I want as many people as possible to experience that. I think it was like the main purpose of this blog that I created and all of that I do with Hiking Misadventures, it's really to kind of emphasize the fact that you don't have to be an expert and that your relationship with the outdoors can be anything. It doesn't have to be that you go you know do a hike like the Appalachian Trail. I live in DC and there is lots of National Park Service stuff all around us. There is the Rock Creek Park, which is just right like you know in the middle of DC which is an amazing park and you don't have to go that far to explore it. And I think those are all outdoors. I will end this by saying, you know, I describe myself as this transformation of somebody who was not outdoors to becoming an outdoors person, but I think that that narrative in and of itself comes from this notion that there is only one way to experience the outdoors. My mom, she taught herself how to swim in the Indian Ocean. She explored woods around her and it was actually kind of like you know a safe place for her when she grew up in Sri Lanka where civil unrest could kind of spark up anytime. And that was kind of the place that was a safe haven for her from that. So there's this long history of the outdoors in my family that we have never really talked about as an outdoor…that we are an outdoor family. As I've as I've become more interested in hiking and taking on more outdoor adventures I am discovering that even my own outdoor narrative is really much more complicated than it is, and that we all do have a connection to the outdoors. Whether it's gardening or you're climbing up Mt. Rainier. There's a connection there. There's a strong history there. And there's a story there and you just have to tap into that to be able to experience all the wonderful things that that the outdoors has to give.

Jesse: Behind the Scenery is brought to you by the interpretation team at Grand Canyon National Park. A huge thanks to Nalini for sharing her experiences with us. Check out her work at hikingmisadventures.com. We gratefully acknowledge the Native People on whose ancestral homelands we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant Native communities who make their home here today.

Jeff: I'm in another Ranger 's office and I have an iPad that's recording this as a backup in my office. If you could only see our little bailing wire and bubble gum operation over here. Nalini: You gotta start from something right?

Notes from the Deep - Hiker Reflections from Havasupai Gardens Mar 19, 2023

In 2018 a journal was hiked to Havasupai Gardens. A prompt asked hikers to take a moment to reflect. People filled the journal with drawings, poems, and stories. In this episode of Behind the Scenery, listen as visitors reflect on their experiences, what brought them to the Canyon, and what they will take away.

This episode was recorded before the Havasupai Gardens name change became official. Visit our website to learn more: bit.ly/3SZETOm

Music in this episode by Cooper-Moore: bit.ly/3mGOKwk

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Jesse: Hey, this is Jesse. Today’s episode was recorded before the name change for Havasupai Gardens became official, so you’ll hear it referred to as Indian Garden. Enjoy the episode.

Intro music plays.

Brendan: A While back a green journal was thrown into a backpack on the South Rim and hiked down the Bright Angel trail to Indian Garden campground. From there, it was put inside an old ammo can and placed underneath the shady tree. The only prompt was a request to take a minute and reflect. After two years, the journal very much looks like it's been living in a Canyon. It's covered in red dirt. The cover is warped, and it looks like it's been rained on a few times and has several stains on it, including one labeled ramen broth. Inside, the book is now filled cover to cover with hundreds of names, drawings, poems, and stories. Reading it is like opening a tiny window into Indian Garden. Hikers talk about how nice the Creek is, how much their feet hurt and how they are not looking forward to going uphill. People also share about their lives at home, how much they love their hiking partners and why they traveled all over the world just to see this Canyon. These are thoughts and ideas that are shared amongst strangers and are only found in this worn out log book. So let's look into the thoughts of people who for many different reasons found themselves in the middle of Grand Canyon.

Female Voice: Kind thoughts, kind words, kind actions. This is my favorite place in the world. Much love C L H heart peace smiley face 9/28/19

Male Voice: Thursday, October 10th, Joe, the sublime pleasure of connecting with our planet on such a personal and deep level. I am humbled by this experience.

Beware of the squirrel. They're getting frisky. I'm pretty sure they like men as they only started showing up after we took off our shirts, but don't let your guard down. Don't turn your back. We just barely survived a surprise attack from behind. They distracted us in the front while others moved in for the kill. They're surrounding us. We've thrown almost every rock we can find, but they run low. Their chitters are all we can hear, now. If you can read this run. Escape before they trap you, we won't survive, but maybe you can. Don't let them smell your fear.

My feet hurt, but I am happy.

Female Voice: A love story. 3/15/20. In the late 1980s, Wade and Jill were both on separate camping trips with their friends in the Canyon. The group set up camp close to one another here at Indian Garden. Wade and Jill met and started talking. The next day, Jill took off early and Wade's group missed her. So Wade got Jill's friend's number from the camping permit left behind. He called her, connected with Jill from there, and the rest is history. They had me in 97 and at the age of 22, this is my first time here. What a special place to be. You can feel and start to understand the powers of the earth and sky that made the place what it is. Amidst all the chaos and uncertainty of this point in time, how comforting it is to feel something bigger than ourselves. The river will keep carving its way through, even if we're not here to see it. And life can be serendipitous two East coasters meet in the Arizona desert and fall in love. It is so wonderful to be here with good friends. Love remains in my life. I am grateful for this moment to just take it all in. Love always, Ellen.

Once quatro dos mil y noventa. Hello America, I'm Chilean. Nuestras. Visitas son marvillosa. Nos Encanto estas a venturas. Se vasa Chile desos visitas Torres Del Paines. Chile!

Male Voice: I don't know who dug this hole, but they were very strong.

Day three in Grand Canyon. Highlight of the trip was the contents of my stomach yesterday. Biscuits, gravy, two IPA's, and loaded potato soup. Fuel for a great hike with great guys. Joe.

We took a trip and down, we went into the Canyon, deep. We've stepped and strode and striding stood with every guided leap. We made our way into the depth where water met the land And on the Colorado made our castles made of sand. So out we trekked our legs were wrecked, but slowly step-by-step, We'll make it out and smile about the memories we've kept.

Female Voice: 9/24/19 I'm with my dad and mom, bro. Smiley face . I never hike alone. I'm nine. And if you saw the other page with the people go upside down, don't judge him. He's my bro. I live in Alberta and doing a three-day hike. My dad did a long run. I come from Lefberg. It's really windy. Drink lots of water and eat salty. Stay hiking, stay wild. Little Sis.

Male Voice: 17 January, 2020. First time at the Grand Canyon. This place is absolutely magnificent. So incredibly humbling. I feel so lucky to be here and particularly lucky to get a last minute corridor campground permit from the back country office the morning after I arrived. This little mission was a bit spontaneous. This has inspired me to prioritize time in nature, even higher for my remaining four weeks in your beautiful country. Hiking through here by myself has given me a wonderful opportunity to think and reflect. A thought, which has come to mind is that if we pursue only our own self interests and well-being, we ultimately will not be fulfilled. When we devote ourselves in whatever shape or form to the wellbeing of others and contribute to something greater than ourselves fulfillment and happiness will come. Let our values, our core values, guide our actions. Happy hiking, William New Zealand.

Female Voice: 3/16/20 As someone who is a local and has hiked the Canyon a number of times, it never ceases to amaze. The world seems to be in chaos, but some truths do not change. The Canyon heals your mind and body if you allow it. The Canyon has stood the test of time. You will not. There is more in the grand scheme of things than you and I will ever comprehend. Be kind to all people. Much love.

Brendan: And that was the last entry. There’s more entries we didn't record it, but what stood out is this theme of kindness. People wrote so much about being kind to each other, to the Canyon, to themselves, with everything. Why do you think the hikers all chose to do that? What is a moment of kindness in your life that has stuck with you?

Jesse: The Behind the Scenery Podcast is brought to you by the interpretation team at Grand Canyon National Park. Music in this episode by Cooper-Moore. We gratefully acknowledge the Native People on whose ancestral homelands we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant Native communities who make their home here today.

In the Backcountry with Rich Rudow Feb 27, 2023

Ever wondered what secrets are hiding way down in the depths of Grand Canyon? That curiosity has driven Rich Rudow to spend over 1,000 nights below the rim. On the latest episode of the Behind the Scenery podcast, Rich talks about getting his start in backcountry hiking, canyoneering first descents, and his hopes for the future of Grand Canyon National Park.

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Rich Rudow: I spend probably 70 or 80 days a year below the rim these days. (Acoustic guitar fades in) Jesse Barden: That’s probably more than most rangers and you certainly get into some really remote wild places. Rich: It was probably 10 years of getting acquainted with the canyon, and hiking trails, and then we started to go off trail from there, and it just kept progressing. Kate Hensel: My name is Kate and you’re listening to an episode of Behind the Scenery, Canyon Cuts. Jesse joined me in interviewing Rich Rudow, a famed canyon explorer. (Acoustic guitar fades out) Rich: Rich Rudow, and I’ve been coming up to the canyon for thirty years now, going places and learning about things. My first experience with Grand Canyon was in 1989 my wife bought my uncle and I a river trip. We launched at Lees Ferry in June with Hatch and travelled down the river for a week and were pulled out by helicopter at Whitmore. Like a lot of commercial trips still are today up to Bar 10 Ranch. During that weeklong introduction you quickly realize, you do these side hikes, and we did all of the typical side hikes that most folks do that are on a river trip. Like going up Saddle Canyon in the Marble area, going to Elves Chasm, and Deer Creek, Havasu, places like that. So I had that customary commercial river trip experience. I was just enthralled with the place. Every time that we would hike to an attraction site I would be asking the boatmen “What’s up there? Can’t we go further?” And I always got this puzzled look. Ultimately at some point in that week the river guides at the time, I still remember them, said “you know you really just get Harvey Butchart’s book and learn about this place. Jesse: Just to give folks listening some context Harvey Butchart is considered the most prolific Grand Canyon hiker in the modern era. He hiked over 10,000 miles in Grand Canyon and pioneered or rediscovered many rim-to-river routes. Rich: And so when I got out of the canyon, my brother-in-law and I both had a real interest in hiking at that point. We were in our late 20s, I guess. So, we just started hiking the trails that everybody hikes. Starting with Bright Angel, and South Kaibab, and doing a rim to rim, down South Kaibab up North Kaibab. And ultimately as you scroll through the 90s I’m reading Harvey’s book about these routes and we started to get more interested in going off trail and doing some of these routes that Harvey had talked about in his very terse prose. Jesse: There’s often a moment when you realize just how meaningful each word in every sentence is for Harvey Butchart. Did you have one of those moments? Rich: (laughs) Oh yeah! I think one time…this is probably 2001, I’m kind of guessing on time frames here, it was close to 20 years ago. My brother-in-law Dale and I had the idea to go off Swamp Point and down Saddle Canyon into the Tapeats Amphitheater and we had never done that. George had actually talked about that trip. Jesse: George Steck connected horizontally through the canyon a lot of Harvey’s rim-to-river routes. Rich: But the idea was to go down to junction of Crazy Jug and Saddle Canyon and then exit this route that goes out of Crazy Jug Canyon up to the esplanade layer. And then traverse the esplanade level towards Bridger’s Knoll but go out this sneak route in between Crazy Jug and Bridger’s Knoll. So we had this grand plan, and it was a mixture of some stuff that George and Harvey had written about. And we were depending on Harvey’s terse prose for the Redwall break to get out of Crazy Jug and then to get up the rim break to get out between Crazy jug and Bridger’s Knoll. So we were following George’s instructions down Saddle Canyon and had a great time and found water. We’re sitting there that first night kind of reading Harvey’s sentence and a half on this exit out of Crazy Jug, of this Redwall break, near the mouth of Crazy Jug. And I was starting to get nervous about this whole enterprise because it was super hot. It was well over a hundred degrees. The thinking was, if we missed we’re probably okay and you know retreating a different way but really didn’t want to do that so we weren't having this debate about the meaning of six words and Harvey put in a sentence and a half. And so we finally decided we would give it a try and we tanked up with 8 liters of water to go up this Redwall break because it was hot we weren't gonna find water we knew once we Got the Esplanade so we found the Redwall break and scrambled up to the top of the Esplanade in a relatively straightforward way, we were pretty pleased with ourselves. But we realized you know that we're down to about 3 liters of water at that point and so we made a run for, we’re on Esplanade level at the edge of Crazy Jug Canyon and we’re going to traverse the Esplanade to a rim break, a break in the Coconino that Harvey had written about and so you know we’re traversing across its 105° probably and I remember its two o’clock in the afternoon we're both down to about a liter and a half, we’re sitting under a juniper tree trying to catch the smallest shade, trying to catch any shade at that point. Looking at the Coconino cliffs and having this debate about what Harvey's words meant because we weren't picking up the break. We didn't visually see the break and at that point it was like, well this is really a big problem if we make a guess at what Harvey really means, and we can get to the base of the Coconino and it doesn't go we’re really in big trouble. We don't have the water to make a try at it and then retreat any place we’d be in big trouble. So, we finally kind of cursed Harvey and decided the safe route would be to make our way around Bridges Knoll and connect with the Thunder River Trail and then go out the Bill Hall Trail to the rim. We did that, the whole-time kind of thinking oh man this is really long way, we could have saved ourselves hours and hours and hours of hiking in the heat had we had we had some certainty about what Harvey was really talking about. So by the time we connected with the Thunder River Trail we were out of water and it's I don't know 6 at night in the middle of summer it's still really, really hot and of course we remembered that people leave water caches on that route. We found a gallon jug of water that had a date that was 2 years old. We figured this one was fair game. We were both just so thirsty we were taken a swig, and the water was so hot water, it was like drinking water out of your shower as it comes out of the hot water spigot. But uh, that saved us, and we topped out of the Bill Hall Trail 9 or 10 at night or something in the dark. The whole time was hours and hours of discussion about what Harvey really meant by those six words. And of course, it bothered us so much that we came back a few weeks later bound and determined to find that Coconino break and we did. And it didn't turn out to be that hard. And so we would go do some of these routes and see more things and learn more things and we would just getting more interested, it was like this place had a magnetic pull that got stronger with each trip that you did. Jesse: It's funny like, you know, there's the puzzle of trying to parse those six words and then the puzzle of looking at the potential route and often in Grand Canyon there are things that look like from a distance there's no way it goes but actually are pretty easy and then the reverses is often also true where it looks like it goes and it's going to be pretty easy but actually doesn't go at all. Rich: Yeah that's right there a lot of these routes that Harvey found that from a distance just look like complete no goes, no way it's going to work, and when you get up and start climbing around -- and that’s how a lot of routes are. I mean, I found some routes in the canyon that are really really fascinating intricate routes that you would think had no way that they would possibly go. And you on these routes and you'll find a stick stuck in a crack or you'll find couple rocks stacked on each other and you immediately realize it was an ancient Indian route and it totally goes. One route in the western part of the canyon it took me four years to put it together and you know just poking at it from the bottom up from the river and poking at it from the top down for the rim. And the crux was between the Supai and the bottom of the Redwall, the rest is pretty easy so if it took about four years and maybe I don't know half a dozen trips to kind of piece it all together and realize that it really could go. And then, of course, you know you figure it all out you start to find signs that you know the Ancestral Puebloans were there and they use the route too. Jesse: Yeah, I think chances are if it goes somebody else has been there. Rich: Yeah, That’s right. (Canyon Wren song) Rich: You know we started doing things where, you know, Harvey would talk about well, you know, a hand line would be great or you know you need a short rope there to lower a pack. And George Steck talked about the same things. So we started doing these routes where you know, that were harder and where there was a little climbing involved and you're using some ropes either as a handline or to lower packs and ultimately we started to get more and more confident with that and started to do some things with short rappels involved and I guess some point maybe 1999 or 2000 my wife got nervous about hearing these stories about what me and her brother were doing. And she thought we were not educated enough to be doing hard things so she bought us rock climbing lessons, which turned out to be just another faster slide accelerating down the slippery slope because once we got some training on what to do with ropes and gear we bought longer ropes and more gear and would go do harder stuff. And so, ultimately, that kind of morphed into checking out some canyons that you know really didn't have good beta or that were hard and involved some anchors and some repelling. You know by maybe 2005 or 2006 I’d become acquainted with Todd Martin and Todd and I had lots of mutual interests and one of them was the idea that there were a lot of slot canyons in the in the Redwall Limestone layers that probably hadn't been seen before. And we got really interested in in these places because some of these canyons we were going into were just stunningly beautiful and so the more we did this the more we got enthusiastic about just finding more of these Canyons and we just kept going and going and going. Any given adventure that we take these days you know sometimes…we did one in October of last year so just about a year ago not quite and I ended up blowing out my rotator cuff on a climb in this Canyon but it was a canyon that hadn’t been done before and we had a 600 foot rope with us. You know it just seems to spiral deeper and deeper into the abyss and you discover the place is so big you never find the bottom. Jesse: A 600 foot rope is a pretty punishing load to be carrying through Grand Canyon. So in all your time exploring Grand Canyon what do you think is the most important thing to know or one of the most important things to know if you're traveling off trail in the canyon? Rich: Well by far the most important thing to know is where to get water. I think that’s the problem in the canyon. There have been instances where I have walked by a water source, you know, a hundred feet away and never knew it was there and found it four years later and like wondered how could I have missed this? But, it’s pretty easy to miss water. Jesse: Yeah sure can be, surprisingly, especially those potholes where there's not necessarily as much growing around it as there would be a spring. You can’t spot it from a distance. Rich: Potholes are interesting on the Esplanade. It’s not intuitively obvious which ones actually dry up first and which ones might have water longer-term. You know there are some clues that you can get but I've actually gone to some really big potholes that are eight feet deep, and you’d swear they have to be holding water for a long time and they’re dry as a bone and two hundred feet away there’s a pothole with 3 inches of water, It's very minor so it's not obvious where those you know where those potholes are that hold water either. Jesse: So you said you've been hiking and traveling in Grand Canyon for about 30 years in that time like what are some of the changes that you've noticed? Rich: The threats to the canyon seem to just increase year-over-year the threats from developers especially. The idea of Building a tram at the confluence of the Colorado River and the Little Colorado River for example. The threats from uranium mining are still ongoing. There’s a mine that has big tailings piles that are exposed to the elements in a bowl basically a breccia pipe bowl that feeds into Parashant Canyon that's kind of an open source sitting there today. And Parashant runs right into the Grand Canyon and into the Colorado River this particular mine goes down this drainage through the Supai and then it starts to cut a Slot Canyon into the Redwall and we call that slot canyon, it’s never been published, we call it Radioactive. It’s a beautiful canyon, it’s stunning, but when you go through that slot canyon you can look down in the water or in the gravels and you can pick up big pieces of copper. And so the mine’s called The Copper Mountain Mine and they first discovered copper there and mined it for copper and then in the 50s realized that there was uranium. It kicked into a full-blown uranium mine and they stop mining uranium there in 1974. To this very day there's been no remediation done at that site at all and so you know if I can look in in the waters and the gravels of this beautiful slot canyon and pick up copper, I'll guarantee you there’s uranium in there too, I just don't know what it looks like. There’re some old wounds, the Orphan Mine is another perfect example. No matter how much money they end up spending you know through the Superfund Site funds you know remediation of something like that once it's gone wrong is almost impossible, it's really hard, and they've been spending millions and millions of dollars at the Orphan Mine over years trying to remediate that site to keep uranium from leaching in the water and it's still an ongoing project. They haven't even started on this site that I'm talking about, probably never will, it's kind of far enough out there that nobody really thinks about it. So certainly some of these threats are kind of accelerating in there I guess maybe in the frequency or the audacity of some of the developers to do things whether it's mining uranium or building a giant retail shopping space and homes in Tusayan where a lot of water’s required or building the tramway at the confluence. The idea that something the size of the Grand Canyon is large enough that it can't be impaired by man is really a folly. We continue to demonstrate that we can impair that place in a lot of different ways. Jesse: So, Rich, the last question we have for you. What do you hope for the future of Grand Canyon? Rich: I really hope that we have status quo for the future. That the various crazy development ideas that come along don't happen you know we don't need more development of a canyon. There are very very few places where you got large swaths of undeveloped wilderness and the Grand Canyon is probably the preeminent place in the lower 48 where you can literally go get lost. And I think there's some real value in that and I think that the public deserves to have a place that lives up to the ideals of the Organic Act and when the Park Service you know, when Grand Canyon was selected to be a National Park and what the idea of the National Park is. So I hope there isn’t any development at the confluence and there isn’t development in any other part of the canyon. And I would hope that someday there's some more balanced ideas around the aviation tourism problem that’s ruining the western part of the park. That is a reversible problem that does not have to continue and I think, you know, if people start thinking about striking a better balance I think that there is a way for the Hualapai Trip to get the economic benefits that they desperately need. So, I hope for the status quo. I don’t want to see the canyon developed or improved anymore. I don't think we can improve it more. There are obviously a few exceptions. I think the pipeline that provides drinking water to the canyon really needs to be fixed. We ought to come up with the money to do some basic infrastructure things because people do have a right to come see the park and enjoy it and then they ought to have a right to see parts of it by automobile or public transportation or whatever. You’ve got to have drinking water as a basic piece of infrastructure that has to exist so certainly continuing to invest and improve the infrastructure of the park has in the corridor area I think it is important, but I don't think we want to have any other big developments in other parts of the part that don't exist today. (Acoustic guitar fades in) Kate: We gratefully acknowledge the native peoples on whose ancestral homelands we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant native communities who make their home here today. Thank you for listening to this episode of Canyon Cuts, a Behind the Scenery micro episode brought to you by the North Rim and Canyon District interpretation teams at Grand Canyon National Park. (Acoustic guitar fades out) Jesse: I really wanted to get that like dun-dadun-dun-dadun- dun Recorded phone music and message “Your passcode has been confirmed”

We are the Rangers (and Friends) Jan 09, 2023

Have you ever contemplated a mid-life or post-retirement career change? What did you want to be when you grew up? Join us for a fun look into some park ranger careers and life at the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park including the benefits and challenges.

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TRANSCRIPT:

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(Sung) We are the rangers, my friends And we’ll guard the park, till the end We are the rangers We welcome strangers No time for losers ‘Cause we are the rangers … of the park!

Overlayed quotes:

Doug: Because I like national park views, I like breathing national park fresh air, but mostly, I wanted the low pay. Emily It was a little bit of Eat, Pray, Love. I quit my job and I sold my house and bought a plane ticket to Europe (chuckle).

Jeffery Rocky Mountain National Park ruined my life it’s the least you can do is to hire me

Ron “…I still haven’t figured out what I want to be when I grow up”

(song ends)

Hannah: Hi there. I’m ranger Hannah. And welcome to our Podcast episode: We Are the Rangers, and Friends / What Do You Want To Be When you Grow Up?

I know for me, I wanting to be a violin teacher at one point which didn’t make sense because I have never played the violin, but I thought it would be cool. After that I tended to just want to be a teacher. And I know for a lot of people we get asked that question quite a bit even into our early twenties and later on. We constantly get asked what do you want to be when you grow up?

We talked to some park visitors, some kids and young adults and ask them what they want to be when they grew up. We’ve got some clips throughout this episode of answering that question.

I even talked to some of my co-workers that have changed career paths and became a park ranger later on. And when it comes to changing or being a park ranger in general there are some down sides to the profession that we’ll discuss within this episode. And as a park ranger you do tend to sacrifice stuff for your dream job. What would you sacrifice for your dream job?

I’m early in my career at the age of 25. And for me, getting into the Park Service I started with internships at two parks: Great Basin and Capitol Reef. And now I’m here at North Rim finally in the uniform. And I’ve met some cool people here, even my co-worker Doug.

At the age of 70, he celebrated his 50th season in the parks. Half of that time was in Oregon State Parks and the other half was with National Parks. Here’s worked at 14 different Parks. He’s the inspiration for this episode, so let’s bring in Doug.

Hey Doug.

Doug: Hey, how ya doing, Hannah. Thanks for inviting me to join you.

Hannah: My question for you is, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Doug: Well I wanted to be a park ranger. I figured that out pretty early in life, because I like National Park views, I like breathing National Park fresh air, but mostly I wanted the low pay!

Hannah: That’s not something people always want.

Doug: I know. Obviously, that’s a joke. But the listeners don’t know a lot about you and me. So why don’t we share a little bit about our background how we got into the parks.

Hannan: Oooo, how about we do that via song?

Doug: Okay. And I do have my guitar with me. I’m thinking of a John Prine/Bonnie Raitt song: Ranger From Grand Canyon. What do you think?

H: I’m totally in.

D: Let’s do it!

Doug singing:

I am on old ranger Been doing at this a while My hat is the flat one Worn with pride and with style

(Spoken) I Had dreams of rangerin’ Since being a kid, you know Now it’s 50 years later (sung) Yes, a long time ago

(duet: Hannah and Doug) Make me a ranger That works at Grand Canyon Make me a poster Of rangers at work

I just feel so grateful For all I hold on to This ranger profession It ain’t no hard way to go

H: (spoken) When I was a young girl I wanted a career I needed me some Nature to (sung) Always be near

First as a Intern Now I get paid As a real park ranger I’ve really, got it made

(duet) Make me a ranger That works at Grand Canyon Make me a poster Of rangers at work

I just feel so grateful For all I hold on to This ranger profession It ain’t no hard way to go

D: But now I’m much older Yes, still rangerin’ you say My old legs still can hike This Canyon today

H: How the heck can a ranger Not love the Grand Canyon When they think of the time Spent in this awesome career

(duet) Make me a ranger That works at Grand Canyon Make me a poster Of rangers at work

I just feel so grateful For all I hold on to This ranger profession It ain’t no hard way to go

This ranger profession It ain’t no hard way to go

H: It was a lot of fun singing that song. But I do want to some voices of the visitors that I mentioned earlier. So let’s hear what those kids have to say.

-My name is Luke and I’m 10 years old and I want to be a realtor when I grow up -Mattie, four, doctor -My name is Lyla, I’m 14 and I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. -My name is Tyler. I’m 22 years old and I want to be an audiologist when I grow up. -Hello. I’m Logan. I’m 10 years old. I want to be a rocket scientist.

H: I’m excited to hear more of those voices throughout the episode from the kids. Hey Doug, Let’s bring in Emily.

D: Okay yeah, she is a park ranger here at the North Rim. But let me give you a little bit of her background because you’ll find she has a very compelling story.

She’s an amateur athlete and scholar. She’s completed three full triathlon races. Get this, she’s completed 40 marathon races in 25 different states all by the time she turned age 40.

H: Whooo!

D: I know. Impressive. She has won academic scholarships. I guess you could call her an honors graduate. She has one Bachelor’s degree and two Masters. Then, she had a mid-life career change.

H: That is a lot! On top of that, she has one of the best laughs here at the North Rim.

D: Yeah, I agree completely. So let’s bring her in and let her tell her own story. But be prepared for a National Park surprise at the end.

Emily: My name is Emily. I’m 43 years old and I’m a Preventative Search and Rescue Ranger here on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.

I came to the North Rim in 2017, after a career in finance and talent management. I was on a little break from my urban life where I had a career and a house and all the happiness and fulfilment you would expect from a corporate-type job. But after a series of events in my personal life, I just wanted to take some time off and travel. My Mom had been sick and I was just having a seize the day moment. It was a little bit of Eat, Pray, Love. I quit my job and sold my house. And bought a plane ticket to Europe. And started traveling. And I gave myself about twelve months based on how much money I had saved up. Thinking you know that I would have some fun. And then I would be inspired to pick a new place and set up my life in a different town but probably doing the something similar to what I had been doing.

I was a C.P.A for a while and then I also got a Masters in Organization Development. I worked in the field of talent management and leadership development. And it was really fulfilling. I just needed a break. And so I was actually living down in Tucson in an Airstream trailer working as an accountant and the job contract ended. And I saw an email for a job here at the North Rim with the Conservancy. And you had to live in your RV because that was the only housing up here. And it didn’t pay a whole lot. But you got to work in the Visitor Center and live in the park. And I just thought that sounded like the perfect little get away.

So I moved up here and it was only for about eight weeks at the end of the season. And I got to rub shoulders with all the interp rangers working in the Visitor Center. I hiked every trail. I was an Ironman triathlete at the time so just biked all over the plateau and ran all the trails and I hiked across the canyon. And just absolutely fell in love with it. But I didn’t know how to become a ranger you know, coming from a background in like accounting. So I talked to some of the interp staff and they gave me a little bit of guidance. And I went down and spent the winter as a volunteer trail crew worker because I knew I needed something more like outdoorsy on my resume for people to be interested in me as a park ranger.

So I ended up coming back that next summer again to work for the Conservancy because I hadn’t gotten any interviews with the Park Service. And I was all set to come back and live in my RV and a week before I was scheduled to drive back to the North Rim for the season I got a phone call from someone at Yosemite asking if I wanted to come work in one of their campgrounds for the summer.

So, I did like a quick pivot. I did come up here for like a month because there was like background check waiting period on boarding stuff. And so in July I left the North Rim, which I loved, to go work at Yosemite. And the staff here was so excited for me. They had a big going away party. They were just really supportive and knew that is would be a great opportunity. And you know, hopefully I could come back to Grand Canyon after I got in with the agency.

I spent a couple summers working in fees operations. And in the winter season, I kept trying to build that like outdoorsy resume. And I would go volunteer to work in the backcountry.

I got my EMT certification, ‘cause I knew that was something they were looking for to work in these remote districts. And finally, I guess the winter of 20/21, I got a phone call from the district interpreter up her who I was friends with. Cause I kept coming back. I had a lot of friends and I kept coming back all the time to do these volunteer jobs in the off-season. And she asked me if I want to come work for her doing interpretation down in the inner canyon.

And I just thought that was like the dream job to like actually work down in Phantom Ranch. Put on the uniform every day.

And I’m not going to say it was easy. I hiked 14 miles to Phantom Ranch every week and then back out every week. And we were super, super busy. The world had kinda like started traveling again after the pandemic. But I learned so much and the people that I got to work with down in the bottom of the canyon are like legendary. Some of the rangers down there have been doing it for decades and they are just so professional, and they are so savvy. And they were really welcoming. And you know, taught me everything I need to know about being a canyon ranger.

So I loved it and I thought about what I wanted to do because that summer we spent so much time doing like medicals, like search and rescue those kind of calls. And that was always when I got the most excited. And so, thinking about what I wanted to do the next season, I really wanted to focus on emergency services. And the park had sent me to firefighting school, And then I had an opportunity to get my advanced EMT certification. And so I ended up staying up here on the rim this summer.

It is basically like my dream job. I get to ride mountain bikes. I get to go hiking all the time. I get to go down the trail and help people. And then I work on the ambulance and the fire engine when we need it up here in the developed area.

But it wasn’t easy. It was like, really five years of very strategic moves to get the right kind of skill set to network with the right people. I definitely like started over kind of at the bottom coming from the place where I had a lot of master’s degrees, and you know job experience out in the private sector. It didn’t mean a whole lot trying to come and work here. I really kind of re-invented myself. And it was difficult, and it was a little bit intimidating. But I knew it was what I wanted. I had some really great people along the way who encouraged me and helped open some doors and provide opportunities. And really and truly, I can say I have my dream job now.

D: Now there are some downsides and challenges. Do you want to talk a little bit about those, being a park ranger at the North Rim?

E: Yeah, I mean we are very isolated. We are like 80 miles to the closest town. And you can’t like just run out to the store if you ran out of eggs or something. But we have such a tight knit community, and everyone really supports each other. I had no idea what to expect. When I moved up here, I was told there’s no internet, there’s no cell signal. Bring a lot of books. Like, there’s not a whole lot to do.

But like infrastructure has improved the last couple of years. And we do have pretty decent satellite internet these days. But that first summer I did. It totally got me outside. It got me socializing with my neighbors. So what kinds seemed like a downside, like the connectivity issue, it really just created a different bond than I was used to.

I’ve met some really wonderful friends and co-workers up here.

D: And Emily, what advice would you give to folks that are mid-career and are thinking of taking the drastic, making the drastic change?

E: You know, I was poised for something different in my life. Like I had enough kind of stressors that were like maybe you need a break. Maybe you need something to change.

And so if anybody is feeling like, they are just a little unsettled and want to try something on for size, coming and working at the Park Service is honestly really kind of low commitment.

The seasons are short. You can often get a volunteer job easier than getting a paying job. And so if you have some savings and can come and spend a month or two months you know just trying something on, and getting to know the community, it’s just a great networking opportunity. And it’s low commitment.

If you come up for a month or two and you hate it and you want to nope I want to go back to my life. Like, no harm, no fowl. But everybody is always so welcoming. Like I met a new volunteer this morning. And just like hopped on bikes and we went around on like an orientation tour and got to know each other a little bit. I think that’s exactly what this place is.

D: Now do you have any surprises you want to share with our listeners in your personal life?

E: Well, moving up here I certainly did not think there was not going to be a large dating pool.

D: There definitely isn’t!

E: I think that can be a little bit of a bummer. I was a single gal in my 30s and I was obviously I was you know open to a relationship. And luckily, I ended up meeting a super nice ranger man. And we have done the long-distance thing for a couple of years. And now that we are both working on the North Rim we actually got engaged and are planning a wedding.

D: Well, good for you. Okay, thank you very much.

-I’m Knox and I’m 7 and I want to be a coach for soccer. -My name is Landen, I am 6 ½ years old and when I grow up I want to be a skimboarder. -My name is Amy, I’m 13 and I’m really not sure what I want to be when I grow up. -I’m Coen. I want to be a police officer. I am 5. -My name is Hailey. I am 8 years old and I want to be a scientist that explores space when I grow up.

H: That was a great story hearing from Emily.

D: How about ranger Jeffery?

H: He also has a great story too how he became a ranger here at the Grand Canyon

D: Let’s bring him in to hear his story.

Jeffery: I’m Jeffery and I’m 39. I grew up in rural Kansas Hannah: What do you want to be when you grow up? Jeffery: When I was in 5th or 6th grade, we had a career day and one of the local district court judges came for career day and she asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I said I wanted to be a bond lawyer. That’s what my dad did and at the same time I wanted to be a solder. So I’ve missed both marks, by a fair bit. After I left high school, I went to the University of Kansas and I got an economics degree. And then I went to work at a public finance law firm in Kansas City, Missouri helping school districts and hospitals, county and cities with their bond issues. I took care of the bond issues after the bond had been issued. I helped them fulfill certain security laws and tax laws. And I did that for about ten years. Hannah: What got you into the park service? Jefferey: A buddy of mine that I ran with ask me if I wanted to go hike up Longs Peak that weekend. And I was like yeah sure. I’d never been hiking, I grew up hunting, but not hiking, anything like that. So off we went to Colorado from Kanas City. We drove all night. We got to the trailhead 5 or 6 in the morning and we hiked up to the boulder field and then we hiked down. And we came back to Kanas City the next day we slept for a couple hours and drove back. I had a really good time doing that and it was a lot of fun. Then a couple weeks later. I’m going to do that again. So I went back and I summited Long’s Peak. And later that summer I took a week off work and went hiking in different places in Colorado. And the hikes got longer, and longer, and further, and further, higher, and higher, and here I am working in a National Park. Doug: Well come on we need more than a little bit more details Jeffery: Well I kept working at the law firm I worked at for a couple more years. And realized I didn’t want to do that anymore. I worked with really good people, I had great clients, but the work was just boring. And I was done. I didn’t know what I wanted to do at that point, but I was done. So I quit before I had a job. And I went hiking and climbing in Colorado for a couple of weeks to a month after I quit. And then I went to work on a contract position at H&R Block in their compliance group. I did not enjoy that work. So I went to work for a company, also in Kanas City, that did telecom taxation and that is exactly as awful as it sounds. And I did not enjoy it so I quit that job. But by that point I had the idea of becoming a seasonal ranger in my head. At the same time I wanted to be a teacher, and work with special ed kids. So I enrolled at Wichita State University. And went two semesters in their teacher ed program. And then decided I just wanted to be a ranger full time. And I got an email from Rocky Mountain National Park to work in the wilderness office. So I called who would become my boss and we had a wonderful two or three hour interview. It went on forever. And she goes well, “why should I hire you?”, “Well Rocky Mountain National Park ruined my life it’s the least you can do is to hire me” She like “What do you mean we ruined your life?” said, “Well I went for a hike here couple years ago and I climbed that mountain and I really haven’t come back off of it so it would be nice if the park could write me a check every couple weeks and give me a job.” And she said, “Your hired and we want to see you in two months.” And I lucked into working for a wonderful ranger and I fell into the wilderness. I didn’t know what I wanted to do for the Park Service. I thought I wanted to be an interpretative park ranger. And I just backed into the wilderness and it just grabbed me. Heart and Soul and the next season I worked in the back country at Yosemite. And the next two seasons I worked in the wilderness at Rocky Mountain National Park. Taking care of the park that ruined my life. Doug: In a good way. Jeffery: In a wonderful way. Doug: Okay, so how did you end up at North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park? Jeffery: Well I was volunteering for the winter in interpretation on the south rim and I meet your guys boss. And she found out I worked in the wilderness. And she said “oh you should work for me on the north rim.” Hannah: Yes! Jeffery: She said “You’ll still be able to do search and rescue and all those things that you do, EMS,” “So well okay tell me more”, This was a ten minute conversation. This was not a long thing. And I asked her for a couple days to decide. “Yeah, I’ll come and work on the North Rim. I’ll give it a shot.” She said, “Come in the water is nice over here.” And that’s how I ended up on the North Rim. Hannah: So how do you feel about this career change and shift? ‘Cause I know you said Rocky Mountain ruined your life. Doug: in a good way Jeffery: It was very dramatic. And I was standing in wind swept on top of the mountain. It’s been a wonderful shift, I’m happier, I’m healthier, I make less but, I’m much happier it was a wonderful choice. And now I work in Facilities, maintenance so I am a janitor that drives a snowplow. And it’s wonderful. I mean I’ve been very fortunate to work in so many different divisions in the park service. Hannah: And you get to drive big cool vehicles. Jeffery: I do get to drive the snowplow, the loader, the backhoe, and the grader, the dump truck. I get to drive it all. Every little kid’s Tonka truck dream. Doug: Well there is lots of stereotypes and romanticized view of National Park Service life and working, and the lifestyle, so how does the stereotype romanticized view compare to reality from your perspective? Jeffery: It lived up to that romantic view for me. It really did. Doug: In what way? Jeffery: When I started at Rocky, we had two weeks of training in the beginning on the east side of the park with the main wilderness office. And for training a volunteer offered their enormous cabin outside of Estes Park for all of us to have two weeks of meetings. It had huge windows and it was snowing, and there was a herd of elk. We were, weren’t talking about how to use the software in the wilderness office. We were talking about why we want to take care of the wilderness, the philosophy behind the Park Service and we spent two weeks just talking about the mountains and the wilderness in this wonderful cabin. And that is how I started that was my first day of work. You can’t get more romantic than a herd of elk and the snowy Rocky Mountains. Hannah: Yeah Jeffery: And after that I worked in the wilderness for three seasons. So for my job I lived out of my backpack for 4-8 days at a time, wondering the hills. And helping hikers, search and rescue, I rode horses in the backcountry. It really was the kind of ranger that a lot of people have in their mind. I took care of the entire western half of Rocky Mountain National Park in the wilderness. That was mine. Doug: maybe some the challenges that you face living and working at place like North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park. Jeffery: Part of the biggest challenge working at on the North Rim, at Grand Canyon National Park, is, it’s an 80 mile trip to the grocery store one way and I usually drive further than that to get to St. George, instead of Kanab. That’s the most obvious hurdle. You know being out of milk, sugar, flour, or almond milk, whatever, it could be a while before you get some more. You know little things like that or I really want some pizza in January and it’s a long drive. And often I have to plow my way out to get groceries. I’ve driven the snowplow 45 miles to Jacob Lake got in my truck drove an additional 50 miles to the grocery store and then plowed my way back in. Hannah: What advice would you give to folks that want to become an employee at Grand Canyon someday? Jeffery: If they are not already working in the Park Service I would tell them to find the nearest national park to them or recreation area or preserve, or historic site, whatever and volunteer. That’s a great way to get started that’s how I got started. I volunteered at Tall Prairie National Preserve in Kansas. So go volunteer you have skills the National Park Service needs. We need interruptive rangers like Doug and Hannah. We need facilities people like me. We need law enforcement, we need firefighters, we need people to fix the copy machines desperately. We need IT, we need human resource, we need people who ran sewer plants. If a city has it we need it. It’s been a wonderful career change, I’ve been very fortunate. -Hi I’m Kennedy. I’m going to school to be a mechanical engineer. - My name is Caden. I’m 11 and I want to be an architect when I grow up. -My name is Mateo. I’m 10 years old and I want to be a vet when I grow up. -My name is Fiona. I am 10 years old. And I want to be a video game designer when I grow up. -My name is Katie. I’m 22 years old. And I want to be an environmental engineer when I grow up. -Ivy, 17 and a cosmetologist.

H: We just heard two dropouts of the corporate world now working here at North Rim.

D: Yea. Now ranger Ron also has an interesting story as well of how he joined the “We Are the Ranger’s” club. And like Jeffery, he had a mountain top experience that changed his life. Cause when he was a little boy, he was in the Boy Scouts, maybe in his teens and his troop had climbed Mount Katahdin in Maine.

H: Isn’t that the end of the famous Appalachian Trail?

D: Yea. About 2200 miles long, it stretches all the way from Georgia all the way to Maine. And Ron had a chance encounter with an Appalachian Trail hiker on the summit of Mount Katahdin who had just finished her hike. And this kinda planted a seed in young Ron’s head. That maybe. Someday … Who knows, the whole Appalachian Trail????

H: Let’s bring in Ron and let’s hear his whole story.

Ron: Hi I’m Ron. I’m 48. I’ve been volunteering with the Park Service for a few years now. Home for me is Pennsylvania, at least that’s where I’ve got family at and what the license plate says. But I’m a full time RVer, so home is wherever I happen to be parked.

Doug: What did you want to be when you grew up?

Ron: It would have depended on when you asked me, I was one of those kids whose interest changed every couple months. At one point I might have said astronomer, astronaut, paleontologist, so really whatever I was interested in at the time I thought would be a career

Hannah: What was your life path before you entered Park Service and volunteering?

Ron: Well I went to college for a chemical engineering degree and after I got out of college I joined the Navy and did a career with them for 20 years.

I was what they call a Surface Warfare Officer, so I was on the officer side and that meant we were the people who were in charge driving and fighting ships, managing people and I finished up with my last job, I was the executive officer, the number two person for a training command over in Japan.

Doug: Wow, very good. So what happened after you retired from the U.S. Navy?

Ron: Went back to Pennsylvania started getting ready, I realized this was the perfect opportunity to do one of my lifelong dreams and hike the Appalachian trail. So I went and hiked the Appalachian Trail and by the time I was I done I decided rather than go back into the regular real world work force I would go ahead get an RV and start traveling and find volunteer opportunities.

Hannah: How did you end up at Grand Canyon?

Ron: It was mostly Park Service but I’ve also done some volunteer work with Habitat for Humanity while I’ve been on the road and with the Park Service it was just a matter of trying to get a position. Turns out it was harder than I thought it was, but I got my first position was with Fort Bowie. I actually worked at Jimmy Carter National Historic Site first just the way timing worked out. But from there I kinda jumped around parks. So I was at those two, I went to Fort Vancouver up in Washington. Voyagers National Park up in Minnesota, Everglades in Florida, and then found out there was a volunteer position open here at North Rim of Grand Canyon, so I put in for it.

Doug: And your life has gone downhill ever since you showed up, no I’m just kidding.

Everyone: Giggling/Chuckling

Doug: What’s some of the best parts and some of the more challenging parts for you to live the National Park lifestyle?

Ron: Some of the best parts is you get to live in absolutely amazing places and as opposed to just doing that quick trip you get to dig into the park and learn a whole lot more about it and explore it in a way you just can’t, even if you have a week that you spend at the park.

Downsides: beautiful areas often mean remote areas, so I’ve gotten to the point now that I would consider only one hour to get to the grocery store to be a short trip. And some of the stuff that you just get used to living near an area where you can go shopping easily you have to adapt to that. And of course, the other part it’s not a find one spot and that’s where you live lifestyle its move around all the time.

I’m one of those fortunate people because I did 20 years in the military that I’ve got a pension. So, by volunteering with the Park Service, I don’t have to work as much, and it changes it from being something where it feels like a job to it’s just for fun.

Doug: So, what would you say to other folks, if they ask you how can I get started in volunteer ranks?

Ron: Well I’ll always tell them to go to volunteer.gov so they can at least find out at least what kind of positions are out there. And if that they live near a park even if it’s a state park you know talk to them see what they need. Because it can be competitive getting these positions where you live at the park. So having some experience helps. And then just to keep on trying and find out what their interested in and take a look and see what is out there.

-My name is Davina. I’m 20 years old. When I was younger, I wanted to be an actress. I’m currently a student at Western Washington University to pursue a degree in management information systems. -I’m Nash. I am 10 years old and I want to be a scientist when I grow up. -Hi I’m Larrah and I am a junior in college applying to nursing school. When I was younger I thought I wanted to be a doctor so kinda the same thing, just a little bit different. -My name is William. Five. Cowboy. -My name is Noah. I’m 13 and when I grow up I want to be an architect. -Hi. My name is Theodore. I’m 9 years old. When I grow up I want to be an actor.

H: I really enjoyed listening to Emily, Jeffery and Ron’s stories. And they brought up the challenges of isolation and distance. But I’m pretty sure there are more than that.

D: Yeah. There are. I can think of several challenges and downsides. How about this one, Hannah? Look around here at the North Rim. Every single one of our National Park employees lives in a one-generation home. It’s artificial. There are no kids. There are no grandparents.

I grew up in a with parents in a two-generation home and at times we were three generation family.

H: I really hadn’t thought about it. Because it’s just the circumstances that just who is pulled into the park.

D: That’s right. And how about this one? You can work had as a repeat summer seasonal coming back every summer. But to be real about it there is very little chance of you getting hired into a career position. There’s just very few of them and the competition is really tough.

And then how about the uncertainty of winter and off-season work? You have to make money year round. So what are you going to do in the off-season?

H: I mean your not wrong there. As an intern a lot of my co-workers in the uniform would constantly tell me not to pursue a career in this because how difficult it was and they were personally experiencing. But obviously I was still interested.

D: And I’m a white male. But I can look around and see that there is very little racial diversity in the National Park Service.

H: That can be really tough. Do you have any examples that stood out to you that you experienced?

D: Well, you know actually, when I was an Oregon State park ranger, a local museum, this was in rural Oregon, a local museum had a Japanese American exhibit and my wife contributed some of her family artifacts for the exhibit. And the museum called for all the Japanese families in the three-county area to come and have a potluck for the grand opening of this Japanese American exhibit. And we, there was a total of 12 people that showed up. Twelve Asian people including our family that showed up for this grand opening.

H: Wow.

D: What the chances of doing some tiako drumming or participating in the New Year’s mochitsuki ceremony? You know, she just didn’t have a lot of opportunities to do that.

H: And I know these are just a few things, with isolation, distance, and one-generational families, uncertainty of true career path, and racial diversity here in the Park Service. But it’s still a place where I think it’s still one of the best jobs, but that’s from my personal experience.

D: I agree. We want to keep it real in here this podcast so we did feel it was important to mention some possible downsides. But the lesson I get is, you know, follow your dreams wherever they may lead you.

H: And there you have it. Several stories of how various people, my coworkers and friends, ended up joining the We Are The Rangers club at the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park.

D: Yes. And even threw in a few stories of park visitor, their dreams and aspirations.

H: We gratefully acknowledge the Native peoples on whose ancestral homelands we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant Native communities who make their homes here today.

I want to thank all the park visitors who contributed their dreams and stories, as well as ranger Emily, Jeffery, and Ron for sharing their stories.

And thank our listeners that dream of joining the “We Are The Ranger’s” club.

Thanks to ranger Dave for podcast editing. Thanks for my podcast partner, ranger Doug, for writing two podcast parody songs, with apologies to John Prine and Queen.

I think we need to finish this podcast off in style, Doug.

D: Okay, let’s invite in a bunch of our North Rim ranger friends for a very special ending song.

(sung) I wear the hat Its brim is flat I rove the trails I tell park tales

And the park views, I’ve seen a few I’ve seen my share of great sunrises and sunsets They’re here for you too!

We are the rangers, my friends And we’ll serve the park, till the end We are the rangers We welcome strangers No time for losers ‘Cause we are the rangers … of the park!

I’ve learned the rocks And I give the talks I lead park tours And so much more

And it’s been a lot of fun But I’m far from done The park ranger profession is the best It’s second to none!

We are the rangers, my friends And we’ll serve the park, till the end We are the rangers We welcome strangers No time for losers ‘Cause we are the rangers …

We are the rangers, my friends And we’ll serve the park, till the end We are the rangers We welcome strangers No time for losers

(Alrighty. I’m Nathan. I’m 21 years old and when I grow up, I want to be happy!

‘Cause we are the rangers … of the park!

(Fade)

First Voices - Autumn Gillard Dec 13, 2022

Autumn Gillard is a descendent of the Cedar Band of Southern Paiutes and has been an important voice in the Inter-Tribal Working Group. This group works very closely with Grand Canyon National Park and is made up of many voices from the associated tribes. They are responsible for helping the park with management decisions, Indigenous representation, and resource protection. Autumn also works at Pipe Spring National Monument where she helps to interpret Kaibab Paiute and Fundamentalist Mormon stories.

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Kelli: Yá’át’ééh shí éí Kelli Jones yinishyé, Ta’neeszahnii nishłí Kinyaa’áanii bashishchiin Tábąąha’ dashicheii dibe’ lizhni dashinalí. Tse’dezhaa ei shi’ nasha ak’woodí Dine’e asdzaa nishlí

Jesse: and I'm Jesse I'm a park Ranger across the Canyon from Kelly over on the north rim. Welcome to the First Voices, a series designed to elevate the voices of people whose connections to Grand Canyon stretch back to time immemorial. In this episode we'll hear from Pipe Spring National Monument park ranger Autumn Gillard.

Autumn (Translated from Southern Paiute): Hello friends my name is Autumn; my mother was Delphina Edmo from the Cedar Band of Paiutes my grandmother is Nola Zuniga from the Cedar Band of Paiutes and my grandfather’s name was Nober Zuniga also from the Cedar Band of Paiutes.

Autumn: My name is Autumn Gillard. I’m a descendent from the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, descending from the Cedar Band on my maternal side, and my grandfather was Norber Tom Zuniga, also from the Cedar Band of Paiutes. And so, I currently work for Pipe Spring National Monument. I am in the interpretive division. So, some of the tasks that I focus on in the interpretive division at Pipe Spring is giving the history of the Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians and the Southern Paiute People and their existence around the very large aquifer Pipe Spring. I also talk about the Euro-American introduction, the Spanish introduction, and the existence of the Ancestral Puebloan People who are ancestors that lived here around the spring. And so, through interpretation I give these histories by performing cultural demonstrations, doing star programs, I oversee a very large heritage garden that I use for ethnobotany information related to the Southern Paiute People. I work in the visitor center, so greeting people as they come in and just orienting them about their monument and the public lands and how they can enjoy the monument there.

Jesse: The history that Autumn interprets at Pipe Spring is so complicated.

Autumn: Yeah it is a pretty complex story. We touch on some very sensitive subjects, you know, so we talk about the history of genocidal trauma and what happened to the Southern Paiute People upon Euro-American introduction. We also touch on the big subject of water in the desert and how it is utilized, and how the aquifer is sustaining this community here on the Kaibab Paiute Reservation. We talk about polygamy in the desert, interaction with the government, and religious freedom. So some pretty big subjects we discuss.

Kelli: Having Autumn talk about the indigenous history of the area, and talking about colonialism, and maybe genocide, it's really interesting to listen to Autumn and just have her just be comfortable talking about this to the public. And I really appreciate that because not a lot of Park Rangers are comfortable talking about that.

Jesse: Yeah, totally inspiring. She's not only comfortable but she's excited to talk about complex issues.

Autumn: Yes, definitely. I think that what excites the most about the history is that, as the Native American woman, I think that it's very important to elevate indigenous voices and so being able to work at a place like Pipe Spring that has such a close connection with a sister band of mine that my ancestors are related to makes it that much more precious to me. I think that the American public and the other visitors that come to public land deserve to learn about American history in true form and not have any curtains placed in front of them. And so, that excites me, just teaching and passing knowledge along is something that I really find fulfilling. And I was born and raised in Utah and so I have a really good understanding of the Mormon pioneers and how they interacted with the tribes of Utah and the surrounding states.

Jesse: I met autumn the first time in 2018 when she came up with other Rangers from Pipe Spring to the north room for our Native American Heritage Days event. What I didn't know at the time was that that was her very first visit to Grand Canyon. Autumn: It was very emotional, and it was actually with Ranger Benn Pikyavit. He's been here at Pipe Spring for over 20 years, he's one of the tribal elders for the Kaibab Paiute People, and so he invited me along to come with him to work at the North Rim Heritage Days. Jesse: That was your first time here?

Autumn: Yeah, it was. He took me out on the rim and he explained some pretty important cultural stuff to me. One of the things that always stuck in my mind is that, you know, like when we sat there and we looked across the Canyon, he said that this place is so powerful and it's a part of Southern Paiute People’s power. And it's where we come to gather ourselves and gather our thoughts. And so, we must honor and recognize that when we're there, because just as much as that Canyon can give us it can take it away very quickly. And so, if you don't go there with respect in your heart the Canyon will show you a lesson. It will teach you. So every time I go there I always think that, honor this place, pay homage to it, and leave my traditional offering to the existence and the spirit of the Canyon

Kelli: And I totally understand what she means by that because I also hadn't experienced Grand Canyon until I actually was, you know, working here as an intern. And knowing that this place, you know, it has meaning behind it, that you know it always will call back to you to help. It's like calling for help, like it wants us to introduce it back to the people. Or, you know, it's like you have a sense of being a park ranger, a storyteller, to talk about these stories, being like we need you to tell the story about this place, talk about the story of our people that have this cultural connection to this place.

Autumn: Yeah, yeah so with Southern Paiute People, not a lot of people realize that the north end of the Canyon is really, really sacred to the Southern Paiute People. Like I mentioned earlier, it is a place of power. It is a place for us to go and kind of rejuvenate and refill our spiritual power, but also just ourselves. I’ve heard many Southern Paiute People refer to it as, the Canyon is our heart, it's a place where our heart is, it's where we belong. And so, even before I had went up there and stepped foot and looked across that Canyon, you know, I have that connection internally inside of me through past generations who have made pilgrimages there. So, you know, we have sacred areas there in the Canyon, whether it be through petroglyph sites, or just the river. The Colorado River is very, very sacred to my people. It's a life giving force and it's older than time. That’s something that we always honor and recognize. So I think that that would be the best interpretation or understanding of that. It's just that the multitude of power, if one could just grasp that through our physical eyes you would feel that spiritual feeling that I felt even before I ever went there.

Kelli: Yeah, and you think about all these tribes, you know, the 11 associated tribes that have this cultural connection to this place, and you know it's crazy because like the Diné knowledge, the tradition knowledge that we have, is like we put our umbilical cord when under the ground of our homestead within the reservation or where you think your home is at. For the Navajo people it is always within the Four Sacred Mountains. And the they say if you stay within the Four Sacred Mountains it protects you. And if you do leave it you always come back. And your umbilical cord wherever is buried at it knows that you've been gone for so long but you do have to come back to it. And, you know, the Canyon is part of that umbilical cord for a lot of the indigenous tribes, and it's like this is our homestead, and this is a place that we do have a connection.

Jesse: When we interviewed Mae Franklin she said the Grand Canyon is a lot of things to a lot of people so we asked Autumn what it means to her.

Autumn: I think one thing that visitors should keep in mind when they visit the Grand Canyon is that the Canyon speaks for itself, it doesn't need to be spoken for. When you go there realize that this place is very important to Indigenous People. Not just the Southern Paiute People, but all of the other tribes that have a connection to the Canyon. And I think just recognizing that we need to leave the Canyon as it is. It doesn't need to change. It doesn't need new technology added to it. It doesn't need you know all of this multitude of advertisement for tourism to it. This is a place that is meant, and set aside for people to come and totally enjoy and gain that psychological connection to the environment, and just to release. And so, I would say when you come to the Canyon release, and enjoy, and relax, and just taking in something as simple as a sunset across the Canyon can be fulfilling. So don’t change it, just leave it the same

Jesse: You know, one of the hardest things to hear when talking to Autumn was that she frequently gets comments from visitors that Native People should just get over the past.

Autumn: I would like people to recognize more of the Indigenous People that are connected to the Canyon, and not to so much think of it in terms as you know something negative. We as Native People, especially those of us that work for public land divisions, continually hear remarks that we need to get over the past and that we need to get over the past history, but history is what defines us. Every single person. It doesn't matter what walk of life that we come from. And so, just respecting that, you know, that this place does have a deep connection with Indigenous People. And that we are still here. We have voices. We do want you guys to come and learn about us and to see where we live and to gain an understanding of us. We're not so much different as everybody thinks that we are, we're just like everybody else.

Kelli: And when people do make that comment it's really hard to, you know, understand why they want to just leave the past as it is. A lot of these wayside exhibits talk about the past tense of a lot of the indigenous history here, so today we still have people who still don't believe that Indigenous People still exist. We cannot forget about the past in order for us to have a better future. We have to bring up the history.

Jesse: Yeah, well said Kelly. Last I asked Autumn to reflect on the link between protecting the Canyon and preserving Southern Paiute culture.

Autumn: In terms of cultural preservation within the Canyon, you know, I think one of the easiest ways to make people understand that they're outside of Native spirituality and Native culture is that you wouldn't want, if you are a religious person, you wouldn't want somebody to go in and desecrate your church. Or you wouldn't want anyone to go in and desecrate your way of prayer, or your way of gaining spiritual connection with a higher power. And so, that is how we view the Canyon, and that is how we view areas like Deer Creek. These places are very sacred to us, they create a bond between Southern Paiute People to the spirit world where our ancestors are, and where those of our family that have passed on. And so, when we get people that come into the Canyon and don't understand that or don't respect that, it's basically like treading over somebody church or sacred area. So for cultural preservation, I would like to see the Canyon to integrate more Native American People into CRM programs, even into resource management, so that we can have our own people there speaking, teaching how to protect, or taking those responsibilities upon themselves to protect it to preserve these areas, because they are very, very precious to us. And that goes back to the point of the power that we see in the Canyon is that if someone outside of our culture could learn what we see or what we feel in our hearts in these places, I don't think that they would feel comfortable just, you know, kind of traipsing around in there, or doing graffiti, or leaving garbage, or even urinating in these areas. We always need to be conscious that there is another point to our life, that everything that we believe in as as Native People isn't physically what we see in front of ourselves. There is a deep spiritual connection. And so, that does come into play with cultural preservation

Jesse: The Behind the Scenery podcast is brought to you by the interpretation team at Grand Canyon National Park. A huge thanks to Mae Franklin for sharing her stories and perspectives. We gratefully acknowledge the native peoples on whose ancestral homelands we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant native communities who make their home here today.

First Voices - Mae Franklin Oct 30, 2022

Mae Franklin has worked for the U.S. Forest Service, the Cameron Chapter of the Navajo Nation, the Grand Canyon Inter-Tribal Working Group, and she works on issues like food sovereignty and cultural preservation in her community. Learn more about Mae and her connection to the Grand Canyon in this episode of Behind the Scenery.

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Jesse: Let's just start by introducing ourselves.

Kelli: Sure like do you want me to introduce myself as like you know park Ranger or do you like introduce myself like how I usually do it?

Jesse: What feels right to you?

Kelli: Saying, well, how we introduce ourselves is usually by our clans. It is just a proper way of saying who we are. Not just to like people who are non-native, but also to our ancestors because they hear us introducing ourselves in our language and they know where we are.

Yá’át’ééh shí éí Kelli Jones yinishyé, Ta’neeszahnii nishłí Kinyaa’áanii bashishchiin Tábąąha’ dashicheii dibe’ lizhni dashinalí. Tse’dezhaa ei shi’ nasha ak’woodí Dine’e asdzaa nishlí So I introduced myself and my four clans from my maternal and paternal side of my mom and dad. That's how I introduce myself as a Diné woman, a Navajo woman. So, what I do here at Grand Canyon National Park is I work in the Interpretation Division.

Jesse: And where do you work?

Kelli: Um, I work at Desert View.

Jesse: And my name is Jesse and I’m a park ranger on the North Rim.

Kelli: Because I guess a basic question I get from the visitors is “where are the indigenous people? How come they're not working here?” My whole thought was like we do work here and we work in all different divisions. We take care of the Canyon from the river all the way to the rim on the south and north side of the Canyon. I really wanted to elevate the indigenous voices here at the canyon.

Jesse: And so in addition to other projects, we’ve started the First Voices podcast series so that listeners can hear directly from people whose connections to Grand Canyon stretch back to time immemorial. In this episode of the First Voices series, we’ll hear from Mae Franklin. Mae has worked for the U.S. Forest Service, the Cameron Chapter of the Navajo Nation, she works with the Grand Canyon Inter-Tribal Working Group, and she works on issues like food sovereignty and cultural preservation in her community.

Mae: Mable Franklin yinishyé Hashk’ąąn Hadzhohí Kiinyaa’áanii bashishchiin Tsé Deeshgizhnii dashicheii Lók’aa’ Dine’é dashinalí aa dóó na’nihah asdzaa dei ei’ya a’íís nasha. To’ni’łiní nani’jí ei’ji shíghan a’kwoo ak’ei dóó ni’tee aa dóó Dine’e nishlí ahe’hee kwee’eé da’eí na iigí.

My name is Mae Franklin. I am from Cameron. I shared my clans with those that are Navajo and want to know their connections to me. I am grateful for just opportunity I have to live in a very unique, awesome place. The Little Colorado River is just in my backyard, so I pay attention to migrations that happen along the river. This is the corridor the birds use to fly back and forth. It’s pretty loud in the spring when they're back, and then it quiets down the rest of the summer and winter is really quiet.

Kelli: Wow she's just an amazing person to talk to. Mae Franklin, she's a local within this area, and she's from Cameron, and she's really trying to preserve a lot of resiliency through languages, stories, and history of the Canyon. I think that just makes me understand, you know, if she's doing that, I want to continue doing that as well. I look up to her as like a role model in that way.

Jesse: We wondered what Mae remember from her first time in Grand Canyon.

Mae: You know, the earliest memory of being up in the higher area, sort of where the trees the juniper trees are, I mean I was small, and I remember those trees were like way tall. And so, a forest was sort of a scary place for me. So yeah, at that time I didn't know where I was as far as like, park and things like that. But I do remember taking a ride out to Grand Canyon, the visitation area, as a student. We went out there on a bus from Tuba City public school. All I remember and I remember feeling the same thing was just an awe, and like I hailed, you know, just stopping and seeing the view. It was the same thing I did when I saw the ocean, you know. It was just amazing - the span of landscape before me when I went to Grand Canyon as a little student. It demands to be looked at. When you walk away you've experienced something. You know that you have experienced something and that you're not the same person that you were when you got there, so you walk away different, feeling different. Some people, you know, if they sit there for a while and contemplate, they probably unload a lot of things, you know. When I was brought up my father used to do offerings and I remember going off on the side while he did his offering along the river. Those kinds of things just sort of have created like this spiritual connection. And the same thing happens when I go down the river with the tribes and they sing the songs and they offer the prayers and it's a just a continuation of what I was raised with. When that happens there's a lot of respect and reverence for what's there.

Jesse: Mae also speaks a lot about home and the things that connect her to it.

Mae: We still heat our home with the stove and so I go out there on an annual basis. We go through the park and now I have like these boundaries in mind, you know, we go through the park and thank goodness we don't have to pay for a fee. I just feel like it makes it so that it's one continuous thing. You get into the Forest Service to pick up your firewood or sometimes when Grand Canyon makes firewood available. Pinyon picking, too. You know, those are resources that we use on an annual basis, and as far as pinyons it's like we never we have it available. Those connect me and it’s all part of the home experience at that I've always known and I've heard stories of.

Jesse: Mae also expressed a sense of loss of connection to home at the creation of Grand Canyon National Park.

Kelli: This is home and we should always call it home, and I understand the feeling of a sense of loss, you know, and a sense of self loss in traditional knowledge and traditional ways.

Mae: When the fence went up, obviously, there are people that were forced out of the park. And then the same thing happened for the vendors when they went in to sell their wares. They were escorted out by law enforcement. And those are some things that my community has not forgotten. It's still somewhat fresh.

Jesse: Another barrier Mae mentions is the barrier to employment. Mae: The gates haven't opened up to employment, still. We have this whole barrier of having to compete for these positions and here it’s in our own backyard. There's a sort of a certain number that they're willing to bring on and those are filled and so therefore you even though you compete you're probably not going to get those positions. And so, that was, I guess, one of the drawbacks. Anyway, I hope that being that the Superintendent is a lawyer that, you know, he's willing to be open to maybe taking a look at that some of those employment laws, or whatever they're called, that are barriers.

Jesse: Mae has invested a ton of time working to remove these kinds of barriers through her work for the Inter-Tribal Working Group and also other avenues, as well.

Kelli: She's part of this huge change that's going to happen here at Grand Canyon, and she's been really strong in this working group for several years.

Jesse: Yeah, she's seen some positive change through the years. Mae: And I've grown to understand, sort of, the employees - their passion, their desire to make the wrong things that happened to make them right. And one of the other things that happened was when Grand Canyon renovated the homes over at Supai Camp. I just thought that was a really, really profound effort on the part of the park to do that and to address those needs. And then, just taking some of the trips down the river and just the interactions that you see with park employees and the tribes. I felt like there was some genuine effort to really understand and connect and as they were being told the various stories. It's not like they just blew it off, they were actually engaged and so I thought that was, to me, a real good thing to go forward with. It gave me a lot of confidence about the actual desire to mend things with the tribes.

Kelli: Her saying that really gives a sense of hope that she does believe in Park Service here at Grand Canyon. To know that we are moving forward and she's really wanting to be part of this and I know that she's really hoping it is moving towards that way you know to a better future for Grand Canyon National Park.

Jesse: Yeah, she has hope but also recognizes there's still a ton of work to be done.

Mae: I guess I just, I'm very much wanting to restore things that have been made void. Maybe people now, even though the young people they don't know what we've lost, some of us still do. I hope we can come forward and make known some of these things that are that are missing, that we can we have an opportunity to put back in place so that we have as much of what we enjoyed in the past, like the trails. I hope that the tribes have enough information to share. I mean, I go down the Canyon and there are new English names coming up with sites. Which, you know, I think those things evolve but there is also the tribal names that the tribes can, you know, share with their youth so that those stay in their memory. And if they go there, you know, all the more. But those kind of things I guess I really would like to see to the tribes, but they have to have access. Right now I want to see folks down along the river telling their stories. There's Navajo stories of crossing the river and just the connected stories there. I think people have just sort of stopped telling those stories, or maybe it a lot of them have gone with the elders that knew the land so well, and because of the English and the kids going off the reservation that some of those things didn't transfer.

Kelli: She lives really close to a place that has really high volume of tourist attraction, and not being allowed for a lot of reasons to be even traveling this way for doing traditional things like she does, or just even walking through. But I think that what she said is just like it's just not here at Grand Canyon, it's pretty much everywhere. It’s not just us Diné people dealing with it, but all the tribes.

Jesse: Yeah, and Mae's really fighting for rights for all associated tribes. Let's give her the last word.

Mae: Our Inter-Tribal group that keeps meeting we want to move toward being home. We want to feel those connections without any kind of barriers. We want our children to come to know the park and be involved. To not be invited, but to say this is what we want, this is how we want our voices to be heard.

Jesse: The Behind the Scenery podcast is brought to you by the interpretation team at Grand Canyon National Park. A huge thanks to Mae Franklin for sharing her stories and perspectives.

We gratefully acknowledge the native peoples on whose ancestral homelands we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant native communities who make their home here today.

Cruzando el Cañón Jan 15, 2022

How does it feel to cross the canyon? In our first episode of this podcast in Spanish, listen to the experience of a ranger who hikes across Grand Canyon from rim to rim. When have you fulfilled your dream? ¿Qué se siente al cruzar el cañón? En nuestro primer episodio de este podcast en español, escuche la experiencia de una guardaparques que recorre el Gran Cañón del Colorado de lado a lado. ¿Cuándo has alcanzado tu sueño?

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Cruzando el Cañón – Español

NARRADOR: Hola, me llamo Carmen. Soy segunda generación latina, y trabajo en el parque nacional del Gran Cañón del Colorado en Arizona. Recién caminé de un borde del cañón al otro, y esta es mi historia.

"Sácame una foto, Kate: necesito ser una turista".

La guardaparque Kate y yo estábamos en la cima del “South Kaibab Trailhead”, uno de los dos senderos que descienden desde el borde sur del Parque Nacional del Gran Cañón hacia las profundidades del cañón. Estaba a punto de comenzar mi primer esfuerzo por cruzar el cañón, desde el borde sur hasta el borde norte, una distancia de treinta y cuatro kilómetros, en tres días. Era el atardecer, pero el sol todavía estaba caliente. Hice una lista mental: ¿tengo todo mi equipo? Bastones de trekking, comida deshidratada, agua en abundancia, una rodillera, una camiseta para el sol, un sombrero e incluso una sombrilla. Sólo quedaba una cosa por hacer antes de descender: un buen remojón. Admito que estaba un poco escéptica mientras me contorsionaba bajo los grifos de agua, mojando cada centímetro de mi ropa. Pero la diferencia fue inmediata: ¡Sentí frío!

Acomodé mi mochila de 11 kilos en los hombros y empezamos a descender por el sinuoso sendero hacia el cañón. Mis bastones de trekking levantaban pequeñas nubes de polvo. El ala ancha de mi sombrero se me metió en los ojos. Mis dos litros de agua chapoteaban a cada lado de mi mochila. Sonreí: estaba de nuevo en el camino.

No pude evitar pensar en mi último viaje con mochila, más de un año antes, en marzo del 2020. Había planeado recorrer el “Appalachian Trail” desde mi estado natal, Georgia, hasta el estado de Maine, más de tres mil quinientos kilómetros. En realidad, sólo recorrí sesenta y cuatro kilómetros antes de que todo paró por COVID. Llovió los cinco días que estuve en el sendero, y mi rodilla sufrió la mayor parte de ese tiempo. También fueron los cinco días más felices de mi vida. La niebla que se enroscaba entre los árboles parecía un paisaje de cuento de hadas. Sentía que me fortalecía físicamente, y por fin dejó de dolerme la rodilla. Conocí a personas increíbles y vi paisajes hermosos. Lo único que tenía que planificar cada día era la distancia que debía recorrer, qué comer y dónde poner la carpa.

Agarré los bastones de trekking con más fuerza y me quedé mirando las coloridas rocas del cañón, mi visión superpuesta con el “Appalachian Trail” de Georgia. Había investigado mochilas, ropa, comida deshidratada. Me había entrenado físicamente. Me había preparado mentalmente. Había comprado 11 kilos de frijoles negros deshidratados. Pero no estaba preparada por abandonar el sendero. La caminata por el “Appalachian Trail” era mi sueño de 10 años. La decisión de abandonar el camino fue muy difícil, aun cuando sentí que era lo correcto. Pero eso no evitó que me doliera: una aventura que quedaba inconclusa.

Hoy era la primera vez que me ponía la mochila desde entonces. Mis ojos estaban húmedos, parpadeé rápidamente y miré el cañón. Estábamos avanzando a través de una sección conocida como la Chimenea, un segmento empinado donde las paredes del cañón enmarcaban las majestuosas vistas lejanas. El borde norte, al otro lado del cañón, se veía borroso por la distancia. ¿Podría realmente recorrer todo ese camino en tres días?

Lo haré. Además, mi cabaña de trabajo de verano estaba allí, en el borde norte.

Kate y yo caminamos por el sinuoso sendero, descendiendo hacia el cañón. Nuestros bastones resonaban en unos adoquines y nuestras botas se hundían en el polvo suave llamado "polvo de luna" que ya se había metido en todos los poros de nuestros calcetines. Cada vez nos cruzamos con menos personas subiendo por el sendero, hasta que en “Skeleton Point” caminábamos solas. Las paredes del cañón subían sin cesar mientras nosotras descendíamos, hasta que las formaciones del cañón se elevaron sobre nosotras. Me quedé mirando maravillada: nunca había sentido realmente la inmensidad del cañón hasta que estuve en su interior.

A un lado teníamos el precipicio del cañón, y al otro la pared de rocas de colores. Toqué su superficie con mis dedos. Los colores del cañón cambiaban a medida que descendíamos, al atravesar las diversas capas que forman las enormes paredes. Los impresionantes acantilados blancos de la arenisca Coconino, reliquia de antiguas dunas. Los minerales de hierro de las capas de “Supai” daban a toda esa sección unos encantadores tonos rojizos. Y pasamos junto a fósiles de un periodo remoto. Ondas congeladas en la piedra y huellas de una antigua criatura desaparecida hace millones de años.

Me sacaron de mi ensueño otras marcas en la pared: muchos grafitis. ¿Por qué? ¿Acaso el cañón hace que la gente se sienta tan pequeña que tiene que demostrar su existencia a los demás, marcar su lugar en la inmensidad? Descansamos brevemente y aproveché para limpiar las marcas con mi bandana y agua.

El sol poniente enviaba largos rayos hacia el cañón cuando llegamos a los últimos tres kilómetros después del “Tipoff Point”. Un aire notablemente más cálido me envolvió mientras descendíamos hacia la última sección del sendero. Los bordes del cañón se perdieron de vista; estábamos demasiado abajo. Las rocas metamórficas e ígneas, negras y rojas, forman esta área, y las empinadas y oscuras paredes atrapan e irradian calor. Estas antiguas rocas son rugosas, con hermosas estrías de color en sus escarpadas caras. Estas rocas, anteriores incluso a la vida, irradian algo más que calor: irradian una sensación de intemporalidad.

El poderoso río Colorado, arquitecto del cañón, centelleaba bajo nosotras, bajo los últimos rayos de luz. Con nuestro objetivo a la vista y el sol poniéndose rápidamente, aceleramos el paso hacia el Puente Negro. Un túnel de roca nos separaba del puente, la oscuridad era total en ese corto espacio. Recuperé el aliento por un instante, imaginando la antigua roca que me rodeaba por todos lados. Luego, la luz – y salimos al puente, como si estuviéramos entrando a otro mundo.

Las maltrechas tablas crujieron cuando caminé sobre el puente. Ahora que estaba lo suficientemente cerca como para ver la espuma y los remolinos agitados por la feroz corriente del río Colorado, me di cuenta de cuán lejos que habíamos llegado. En una sola tarde habíamos descendido un kilómetro y medio en vertical y habíamos recorrido once kilómetros de sendero. Sentí un gran respeto por el río, cuyas rápidas aguas habían descendido esta misma distancia durante millones de años, tallando el cañón que habíamos descendido. También respeté su rápida corriente y me caminé por el centro exacto del puente.

Me dirigí al campamento, cansada, contenta y ligeramente nerviosa: ahora que había entrado en el cañón, tendría que volver a salir. Pero esa era la tarea de mañana. Por el momento, el camping Bright Angel me llamaba.

Kate continuó hasta la estación de guardaparques y yo elegí un lugar para acampar junto a la pared del cañón. El aire caliente y seco me rodeaba en un abrazo entrelazado, haciendo sentir su presencia en todo momento. Con gratitud, me quité los zapatos de mis pies adoloridos y me puse sandalias. Sin ningún otro cambio en mi ropa, bajé por las rocas hasta el arroyo que bailaba y parloteaba en el campamento. Parecía tan tentador, y al mirar hacia arriba y hacia abajo del arroyo, vi que otras personas ya habían aceptado su chispeante invitación.

Acerqué tímidamente un pie, ¡el agua era como el hielo! ¡Pero que rico! Me senté con delicadeza en la corriente y observé cómo el agua fluía a mi alrededor. Me refrescaba la piel y hacía que la ropa se me pegara al cuerpo. En la calurosa y árida sequedad, este centelleante arroyo parecía aún más especial.

Después de un rato delicioso sentada en el arroyo, volví al campamento y cogí mi contenedor de cuscús al curry, que había rehidratado durante la bajada. Le eché una buena cantidad de aceite de oliva para añadir grasas a mis carbohidratos y me senté en una roca calentada por el sol para disfrutar de mi festín. Ninguna comida sabe tan rica como la comida después de una caminata extenuante.

Acampar en el cañón fue muy fácil: puse mi colchoneta sobre la mesa de picnic, coloqué mi delgado saco de dormir encima y ¡listo! No hacía falta una carpa, y hacía demasiado calor para un grueso saco de dormir. Me acomodé sobre mi colchoneta, moviendo los hombros para encontrar el lugar más cómodo. Apoyando la cabeza sobre mis brazos (la única almohada que tenía), observé las estrellas que emergían del cielo. Era un sitio glorioso, pero no pude mantener los ojos abiertos por más tiempo.

Unos ruidos y las luces de las lámparas de cabeza me despertaron brevemente a las 4 de la mañana, la mejor hora para salir y vencer el calor del día. Opté por salir a las 4 de la tarde, cuando la sombra empezaría a llegar de nuevo al cañón. Observé somnolienta desde mi cama en la mesa de picnic cómo el amanecer se adentraba lentamente en el cañón. Primero como un suave resplandor, luego como cintas de luz que encendían las formaciones rocosas más altas. Un crujido cercano me hizo saltar, pero era una familia de ciervos que venía a mordisquear el follaje alrededor de mi campamento.

Tuve la experiencia completa del cañón interior: me uní a Kate en la estación de guardaparques y vi una evacuación médica en helicóptero. Dejé mi mochila sudada a la entrada y volví para encontrar una ardilla metida hasta los hombros en un hueco que había mordido en la tela. Vi cómo los guardaparques cuidan con cariño los árboles que rodean el campamento, ayudándolos a crecer para que los visitantes tengan sombra. Me sumergí en el rio Colorado, que estaba aún más frío que el arroyo. Recorrí el sendero del río, excavado en la roca sólida hace muchos años. Tomé una foto del termómetro, que marcaba cuarenta y dos grados centígrados a la sombra. Me tomé una limonada en el “Phantom Ranch” y envié postales de "correo por mula" a mi familia. Me senté en el arroyo mientras pececitos mordisqueaban los dedos de mis pies.

A las 4 de la tarde, Kate y yo nos pusimos de nuevo en marcha, iniciando nuestro ascenso hacia el borde norte. No sabía qué esperar de este sendero, un sendero dos veces más largo, pero lo haría en dos días. El calor seguía envolviéndonos, pero estaba disminuyendo poco a poco. Volví a colocarme la mochila sobre los hombros, ajustando las correas para que me resultara más cómoda. Con los bastones en la mano, estaba lista para salir. A los cinco minutos me di cuenta de algo: había estado tan ocupada disfrutando del arroyo que había olvidado ponerme la rodillera. ¿Debo parar y ponérmela? No, ya estábamos caminando. Pero es algo que me preocupaba. Era una caminata intensa, ¿volvería a dolerme la rodilla, como había ocurrido en el “Appalachian Trail”?

El sendero se abrió paso a través de las empinadas y sofocantes paredes del cañón interior, siguiendo el arroyo “Bright Angel”. El susurro del agua, el calor que cubría el camino y el paisaje extraño hacían que la caminata fuera surrealista. Casi esperaba ver una nave espacial o un dragón volando por el estrecho pasaje que atravesábamos. Esta sección se llama simplemente "La Caja", pero sentía que debía ser una caja de tesoros. A menudo me quedaba atrás para observar o sacar fotos, aunque ninguna imagen podía captar la sensación de aquel lugar mágico.

Seguimos caminando hacia arriba, aunque este tramo no era tan empinado. Al salir de La Caja, empezamos a subir de nuevo por las coloridas capas de roca sedimentaria. El sol que bajaba proyectaba un resplandor dorado sobre nuestro sendero. Como seguíamos al arroyo, las plantas y la vegetación lo bordeaban. El agua que fluía y caía por las rocas servía de canción para nuestra aventura.

A medida que descendía la noche, me di cuenta de que no llegaría al campamento con luz. Cambié el sombrero por la lámpara de cabeza y seguí adelante.

De repente, mi lámpara alumbró una señal, alertándome de que estaba entrando en el Camping “Cottonwood”. Cambié mi luz de blanca a roja, una cortesía del camping, ya que la luz roja preserva la visión nocturna y no molesta a la gente que duerme. También me despedí de Kate, ya que ella siguió adelante para pasar los siguientes días en la cercana estación de guardaparques.

Llegar al campamento al anochecer me presentó un nuevo problema que no había considerado: cómo encontrar un sitio vacío sin molestar a la gente. Me acerqué con cuidado a las entradas de los campamentos y pasé la luz roja brevemente por el suelo para comprobar si había carpas u otros indicios de que estuvieran habitadas. En poco tiempo encontré un espacio vacío. Lo reclamé dejando caer mi sudorosa persona y mi sudorosa bolsa sobre la mesa de picnic.

Uf, estaba cansada. Con gran alegría me quité los zapatos y calcetines y moví mis dedos en el cálido aire de la noche. Metí la mochila en la caja metálica a prueba de animales y saqué la cena. Lo mismo que la noche anterior, y siguió siendo una delicia. Lo diré de nuevo: la comida siempre sabe mucho mejor después de una larga excursión.

Me senté en la caja de seguridad, sintiendo el aire cálido de la noche. Podía ver débiles luces y oír murmullos mientras la gente se iba a dormir. A lo lejos, vi una luz que iluminaba la cara del acantilado: la lámpara de alguien que seguía bajando, el camino que tomaría en la mañana.

De repente, volteé la cabeza. ¿Qué era eso? Algo se arrastró sobre mi pie. Algo que se movía en la oscuridad, y supe que no estaba sola en mi campamento. Desapareció tan rápido como llegó, y decidí terminar mi comida en la mesa de picnic. Con los pies metidos debajo de mí.

Tiré mi colchoneta sobre la mesa y fui a llenar mi agua para la mañana. Cuando volví a mi sitio, unos ojos brillantes me miraron desde la oscuridad. Un ratoncito, sentado en la caja de seguridad. ¡Qué fresco! Lo ahuyenté, pero creo que no se fue muy lejos. Definitivamente un punto a favor de dormir encima de la mesa de picnic; ¡no me gustaba la idea de ser inspeccionada por un ratón en la noche!

Me metí en el saco de dormir. Unas finas nubes ocultaron las estrellas. Oí un movimiento a mi izquierda: el ratoncito estaba en el árbol. Suspiré y me di vuelta. La pantalla de mi celular casi me ciega mientras puse la alarma: tres y media de la mañana, para poder salir a las cuatro. Esperaba que fuera lo suficientemente temprano para vencer el calor.

Las luces ya se movían alrededor de “Cottonwood” en las primeras horas de la mañana. Mi preparación fue más lenta de lo que esperaba, y finalmente empaqué todas mis pertenencias a las cuatro y quince. Ajusté las correas de la lámpara de cabeza y me puse en marcha.

El aire de la noche seguía siendo cálido. Podía ver la silueta del borde del cañón a lo lejos contra el suave resplandor de la luz del amanecer. De hecho, el resplandor era suficiente para que apagara mi lámpara por completo. El sendero, de color ligeramente más claro que el suelo circundante, me llevó hacia adelante. Una llamada etérea entre enormes paredes de roca.

Con la mirada en el sendero, seguí adelante. Esta era la parte más difícil, subir novecientos veinte metros verticales para salir del cañón. Pero también me iba a casa, de vuelta a mi cabaña en el borde norte.

El amanecer se deslizaba por las paredes del cañón cuando entré en la casa de descanso llamada “Manzanita”. Me paré a desayunar, aunque sólo comí la mitad de la comida que había preparado. Un grupo de excursionistas me ofreció puré de frijoles. Saludé rápidamente a los guardaparques, que empezaban su día. Una rápida bajada por la ladera hasta el arroyo, para mojar mi ropa. También mojé mi bandana y la metí en una bolsa de plástico, para más tarde. Luego me puse el sombrero y la mochila y volví al camino.

Esta sección es la más empinada - ¡y dura casi diez kilómetros! Bastón, paso, bastón, paso, subiendo y subiendo y subiendo. La luz seguía bajando por las capas del cañón con el sol naciente. Una vista impresionante, un sitio precioso, y uno que me hizo acelerar mi ritmo. Ojalá pudiera ganarle a la luz, y a su compañero, el calor, en el camino.

No lo hice, por supuesto. La luz me alcanzó alrededor de “Roaring Springs”. En un recodo del sendero descansé a la sombra de un árbol, apoyándome en mis bastones. Una cascada caía por la pared del cañón; un espectáculo poco común, sin duda. Menos común aún, las líneas eléctricas y una estructura de cemento. Un momento de reverencia al manantial, la fuente de agua de todo el Parque Nacional del Gran Cañón.

Luego, hacia adelante y hacia arriba.

Curvas y rocas, girando y retorciéndose por las empinadas laderas. Vistas a cada paso, y la cima no parecía estar más cerca. Pero la vista valió la pena. Preciosos rincones de sombra. Pequeños hilos de agua que se filtran desde la roca, alimentando delicadas comunidades de plantas. Lagartijas que se escabullen a mis pasos.

Las curvas del sendero me llevaron del sol a la sombra y al sol nuevamente, y me di cuenta de la marcada diferencia entre los dos. Algo se movió en mi mochila y me refrescó la memoria: ¡mi sombrilla! Este era su momento de brillar. Literalmente, ya que está recubierta de pintura plateada reflectante. La saqué del bolsillo lateral de mi mochila, la abrí, y pasé casi cinco minutos intentando colocarla en la correa del hombro de mi mochila. Ya que tenía dos bastones, ¡no podía sujetarla también! Finalmente conseguí atarla y me quedé contemplando mi sombra. Parecía un octágono con patas. Sonreí un poco cohibida: estaba segura de que me veía ridícula. Pero después de unos minutos, no me importó. ¡Qué diferencia! Me crucé con un grupo de excursionistas que comentaron mi sombrilla y les dije: "¡es mejor sentirse fresca que estar a la moda!" Subí por el sendero, con los bastones oscilando y la sombrilla brillando, lista para afrontar la siguiente parte del camino.

Subí y el sol se deslizó por las paredes del cañón. El calor aumentaba, pero ya me estaba acercando. Miré hacia adelante, buscando un lugar para descansar unos minutos. Una curva por encima del puente de “Redwall” proyectaba largas sombras sobre el sendero, y me senté en una roca para descansar. Había llegado el momento de coger mi última parte del equipo: la bandana mojada de la mañana. La saqué empapada de su bolsa de plástico y la até al cuello. El agua resbalaba por mi espalda. Apreté mis hombros hasta las orejas, tratando de tener el mayor contacto posible con el agua. ¡Qué delicia después de una calurosa caminata!

Cuando llegué al túnel de “Supai”, a tres kilómetros del borde, mi ropa ya estaba totalmente seca. Pero había un grifo de agua. Llené mis botellas y me volví a empapar. Me miraron raro, pero ellos tenían calor y yo no.

Sólo tres kilómetros más. Agarré los bastones con firmeza y seguí adelante. En el borde me esperaban una ducha y un sándwich. Ducha y sándwich - repetí como un mantra.

Menos de una milla. Pasé por “Coconino Overlook” y por muchos excursionistas que olían a jabón. Yo no olía a jabón. Sin embargo, pronto tendría mi ducha y mi sándwich.

Subí a duras penas las últimas curvas, con la cabeza baja. Un pensamiento cruzó mi cabeza y me tropecé. Ya casi había llegado. Realmente, ya casi había llegado. Y eso significaba que iba a terminar un viaje con mochila. No tan largo como el “Appalachian Trail”, es cierto, pero sí un sendero sólido. Una sensación, no de clausura, pero sí de logro. Parpadeé para evitar un repentino ardor en los ojos y subí la última parte del camino. Y mi rodilla nunca me dolió. Lo había conseguido, con mi equipo del “Appalachian Trail”, mi comida deshidratada y mi amor por el excursionismo.

Me desplomé sobre un muro de piedra al final del sendero y reflexioné sobre lo lejos que había llegado. Otros excursionistas estaban descansando allí, agotados, pero con una actitud de triunfo.

Le dije a uno de ellos, "¿Podrías sacarme una foto con la señal del sendero? Necesito recordar este momento".

Reflexiona sobre este último año. ¿Cuál fue tu momento más emocionante?

El equipo de Interpretación del Parque Nacional del Gran Cañón se encarga de la presentación de "Behind the Scenery".

Agradecemos a los pueblos nativos en cuyas tierras ancestrales nos reunimos, así como a las diversas y vibrantes comunidades nativas que hacen su hogar aquí ho

Tales of a Water Bottle - What sticks with you? Jan 01, 2022

How do you remember important life moments? People often of preserve memories through physical objects like stamps, photographs, artwork, stickers, or other collectibles. The stickers on ranger Hannah's water bottle commemorate the experiences that lead to her first Park Service job on the North Rim of Grand Canyon. Listen to her story in the latest episode of the Behind the Scenery podcast!

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Running water sound at water fill station Hannah: Hi this is Ranger Hannah. Jesse: I’m Jesse. Hannah: And this Behind the Scenery. Jesse: Hannah when you visit a national park or a new place, how do you like to commemorate that? Hannah: I mean if I could I would definitely try plants Jesse: *chuckles* Hannah: But what I typically do is a sticker and I add it to my water bottle, truck, or laptop, trying to find that special place. Jesse: Yeah, I think stickers are a nice way for people to take a piece of their experience home with them, that’s not illegal or damaging to the environment. Jesse and Hannah: *Giggling* Hannah: yes… even through that flower would look really pretty pressed and dried. Jesse: Yeah, yeah, you know its for science, but its really for you. Hannah: Yes! Jesse: Yeah no, the stickers are nice. I think my favorite sticker I have that commemorates last season on the north rim its, a, maybe you have seen it. It is a Kaibab Squirrel, so like the only squirrel that lives here on the north rim of Grand Canyon. Umm, dark body, white bushy tail and in the sticker it says, ‘North Rim 2020’ and the squirrels tail is on fire because we had a massive wildfire and it’s wearing a mask, umm, because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Do you have a favorite sticker or memory like that? Hannah: I mean I have tons of sticker memories that’s why I collect my stickers, like all of the stickers especially on my red Hydro flask have a story of how I got into the park service. Jesse: oh, okay Hannah: How I figured out what I wanted to do. Jesse: Yeah, I’ve been admire your stickers on your hydro flask all season. So maybe we can get into it a little bit, and you can tell me your story through the stickers of your water bottle. Hannah: Yeah, umm, one that I think is important to start with is the national park geek one. It’s a common sticker that most park gift shops have. And it has the Teddy Roosevelt glasses along with a ranger like hat, because Teddy helped create the park service system and got that going. And I like that one because most people identify with that one when they come to the parks. Yeah, I love the parks I want to support it. So I commonly see it like on my water bottle and other peoples vehicles and I’ve seen many different formats of this sticker. Sometimes it’s pink, sometimes it’s all green, sometimes it’s a white silhouette on a vehicle. It’s interesting seeing how different parks decided to buy the sticker and what different ways visitors want to show that their apart of supporting the parks. Jesse: What was your introduction into national parks, like how did you become a national park geek? Hannah: *sigh* I mean growing up my parents definitely took me to a lot of parks and everything, but I never knew that you could be a park ranger. I don’t what I was thinking as a kid, there were just people there. Like I didn’t think, like oh they get paid to be here. There Rangers, they’re just there. *giggles* But after my first year in college my Dad was like ‘hey you need to find a summer job’ and I was like ‘oh yeah, I got this Dad, pssh, don’t worry about it.’ So I went to up to Dixie State University Career Lab and the advisor there, ‘like what can I do for a summer job?’. And he looked at me, and was like ‘What do ya want to do?’ Jesse: It’s a pretty broad question. Both Jesse and Hannah: *chuckle* Hannah: Yeah, he’s like ‘what?’ I know I wanted to something with the outdoors and that’s what I told him, so he pointed me to IIC. Which is the sticker. Jesse: Oh yeah Hannah: I have here. It’s a red outlined sticker and it has Intergovernmental Internship Cooperative. It has a quill and shovel creating an X with the letters IIC in three of the quadrants and the last quadrant has a pine tree that looks like a flash driver. And he pointed me in the direction of their website and their website had jobs with BLM, Park Service, Division of Natural Resource, just a lot of jobs for people to figure out if they wanted to something with the outdoors. So I looked at it and only found one job I was interesting in because it had free housing. Jesse: *chuckles* Hannah: I was like I don’t what I’m doing, and applied to that one. Even through that’s not the best thing to do (*giggles while saying that*). Jesse: Yeah, usually at you want at least, especially in the park service most people are applying to 30-40 jobs sometimes. Hannah: Yep, I was that crazy person applied to one and was in the interview process and didn’t know what I was doing. Because they were talking about public speaking and I’m like I don’t know if I can talk to 20 people right in my face for an hour to an hour and half, like that sounds insane. Jesse: Yeah, but weren’t you, didn’t you do theatre and stuff in high school? Hannah: Yeah, but that’s completely different. Jesse: Hmm, that seems way scarier to me. Hannah: I mean it’s easier being on stage, because you’re in a whole new world and the bright lights are on you and no ones there. Jesse: ah, so you can’t see the audience? Hannah: Mhmm Jesse: I see, okay. Hannah: So you don’t know that they’re there. Then with park service you’re giving a program and they’re right there. And I was like no way could I do this. I was that honest in my interview ‘Like I don’t know, but I’m willing to try.’ *chuckles nervously* And Nicole the supervisor at Great Basin was like ‘I’m really loving this, like I think you’d be a good fit.’ And she was excited because she hadn’t hired people in a while. And next thing I knew, the next day she give me the job offer. And I was like ‘okay I guess we’re doing this.’ Jesse: *chuckles* That’s awesome. Yeah so, went from kinda, you know here you are sitting in the community room on the North Rim of Grand Canyon in your National Park Service uniform in your first season as a ranger. So this kinda IIC sticker is the entry way into your career as park service ranger. Hannah: Oh most definitely. Jesse: Yeah, okay Hannah: Wouldn’t be here without it. Jesse: So you went to Great Basin, and then I see that you have a Great Basin Sticker but what is kinda the next step for you in that journey? Hannah: Definitely getting out to Great Basin and I was terrified. Jesse: Oh yeah? Hannah: It was my first time away from home. Jesse: oh yeah. Hannah: I had no idea what I was doing. I was like ‘oh my gosh what if they just hired me and decided they’re going to murder me and leave me there. Middle of nowhere, no one knows what’s going to happen. *chuckles* Jesse: Yeah, Great Basin is way out there, for sure. Hannah: Yeah, but when I got there, I just felt a little excited I was like ‘lets see what happens’. Like next thing I knew like working with the other rangers, learning about giving cave tours, roving out in the campgrounds and the different sections of the park. I fell in love with it. Like I didn’t know that I would passionate about talking to people about what I’m passionate about. Jesse: Yeah Hannah: It like that excitement you see it the second you start talking to people. They know your passionate about it so they want to get excited about it. And it just starts this whole flame of excitement. Jesse: Yeah, it’s really fun to share your passions with other people especially. Sometimes they glaze over and can tell they don’t want to hear about it. Jesse and Hannah: *Chuckling* Hannah: Yes! Jesse: But that’s not always the case most the time. Yeah, so that whole thing worked out for you even though you only applied to one job. That’s excellent. And being away from home for the first time how quickly did you kinda adjust to the new life style like being on your own and out there is such a remote spot? Hannah: I was in the honeymoon stage for a long time. Like I did not know I was missing home. I was enjoying everything getting my own groceries, making my own food, having a roommate that wasn’t my sister was amazing and getting to know new people. It was a different social life, I got more of my “college experience”. Jesse: Hmm, at Great Basin. Hannah: At Great Basin, yeah Jesse: Interesting. Can you describe that Great Basin Sticker for me? Hannah: Yeah so, It’s has Great Basin National Park Gold Tier International Dark Sky, because their dark sky is one to envy. And that’s like one thing you cannot miss when you go to the park. And its got a bristle cone pine tree and those live up to 5,000 years old right now and it’s got The Wheeler peak mountain range like you really can’t go anywhere without seeing that mountain range in that area. Jesse: Expect in the cave. Hannah: Yes, *chuckles*, if you would have told me that I was going to give programs to visitors in the cave for an hour to an hour and half, like I would not have believed you. Because its like scary to think because most people fear is public speaking and next thing you know like… Jesse: Lot of people are scared of caves too. Hannah: Yeah Jesse: Confined spaces, yeah that must have been a challenge. But you certainly overcame it. Would you say that was like that opportunity to go out to Great Basin was a turning point for you? Hannah: I mean most definitely. ‘Cause when I started college all I knew is that I wanted a degree in Botany, I knew I was going to do something with plants. To know what my dream job was after my first internship at Great Basin and just fell in love with the idea of hopefully someday getting the full uniform and the cool hat. Jesse: Yeah, yeah, its so cool to get that experience so early on, ‘cause I didn’t know what I wanted to do until years after college. To have that near the start of college is pretty great. So tell me about another sticker on your water bottle. Hannah: I think the next important sticker would be Outdoor Leadership Academy, they’re the ones that actually helped me get my red hydro flask through them. And I started working with them throughout college and Outdoor Leadership Academy is a program to help get diverse students into the park service that you normally wouldn’t find. So it was fun attending those programs. I got to go to all five Utah national parks, the big five. Jesse: Sure yeah Hannah: during a spring break field trip for free. Jesse: Wow, that’s awesome. Hannah: Yeah, and learn about Grand Canyon Parashant National Monument and how its run by park service and BLM, got to go the Lead Mead National Recreation Area. Learn about all these different units in the park service. That people normally don’t know about like Jesse: Yeah Hannah: Who knew the national park service and BLM worked together to run national monument. Jesse: And for folks listening BLM is Bureau of Land Management. Hannah: *snaps* Yes Hannah and Jesse: *Chuckle* Jesse: in this context Hannah and Jesse: yeah Hannah: To get back to describing the sticker. Totally missed that. At the bottom it says Outdoor Leadership Academy and on it has a prickly pear cactus and then the St. George mountain range with the red rock behind it. Jesse: Yeah, it’s a really nice sticker and it sort of emblematic of where you came from, like right? Hannah: Yeah Jesse: That’s what St. George looks like. Hannah: Oh yeah, most definitely Jesse: yeah that sounds like an excellent program. And really exciting that you got to be apart of it. But where did it take you after the big five national park and all that? Hannah: One of the last trips I did with them was after I transferred and it was different for me, because instead of being a student. I was more of a teacher. Jesse: oh uh-hu Hannah: It was back at Great Basin. So I got to travel back for a Fall break during my university and I got to show students I had learned so much with, about the park and help them learn about this place I had fallen in love with for three years. And it was just crazy being like oh I know this stuff and your learning it from me and like normally I’m with you filling out the paperwork, like this is weird. Jesse: You were kinda the expert in that context, huh? Hannah: Yeah Jesse: Yeah, because you had spent so much time there. Was it a challenge to be kinda the teacher for all your peeps or did it come fairly easy to you? Hannah: It felt a little natural, because I had been a park ranger there for three summers. So it felt like I was just stepping in to park ranger mode. Jesse: Gotta ya Hannah: But it was still weird because it was people my age. Jesse: Yeah, yeah totally, did you take them on any tours or anything? Hannah: One of my park ranger friends lead the tour, but I was also on it I was the tail light. But I took them out to Stella and Teresa Lake and out to the bristle cones and we explored that area just talking about it. Jesse: Yeah, What do you think that experience, that leadership experience among your peer group did for you? Hannah: I think it’s a moment of being like you’re going down the right path, even though its like weird having that transition. Because like at Great Basin there were plenty of cave tours were I was leading college groups of people my age during those summers. Jesse: Sure Hannah: But it wasn’t strange because it wasn’t people I knew, it was just people that thought I was authority figure was like we’ll listen. Jesse: Yeah Hannah: But where it was peers I worked with it felt a little causal because like I still could have a causal conversation with them. Jesse: Right. Hannah: But it was still like I know this stuff and you guys are learning from me. Which is really cool. ‘Cause its fun having that with friends and everything because a lot friends will ask me about the different parks I’ve worked at, ‘cause they want to know before they go. Jesse: Yeah Hannah: It’s like hey I know this, Ranger Hat on lets talk about it. Jesse: Yeah, your sort of the ambassador to the parks that you have worked at. Hannah: Yes! Jesse: And then what was it like when you left Great Basin for the last time, well not for the last time because I’m sure you’ll be back, many times. Hannah: Yeah, I mean after that trip it was kinda a bummer. Jesse: Yeah? Hannah: ‘Cause I didn’t know what the next steps would be. I didn’t know what my next park would be. I had an idea what it would be. Before I transferred to Utah Valley University. I had seen this internship through their Capitol Reef Field station. That was with interp, they had an interp internship or a resource management and I was interested in both, but I knew interp was definitely my gig. Jesse: Yeah Hannah: And so like I was getting ready to apply for that before I transferred and I was reading through it and have to be student and I wasn’t a current student. So I was like okay we’ll figure this out. And my first semester at UVU. I actually got in a class with the professor in charge of the internship and the field station and everything. And so I talk to him a little bit and was like so this internship, like got to know a little bit more about it. But I was like this is my next place I’m thinking. Jesse: Yeah Hannah: like Capitol Reef National Park, don’t know what’s going to happen. But I know interp. Jesse: Yeah. Hannah: Like we’ll go through there Jesse: What was it like when you finally did make it to Capitol Reef Field Station? Hannah: I was first at Capitol Reef Field Station, for my plant ecology class, so the professor that was teaching that was also director of the field station. And it was interesting being in that building because I didn’t know parks had field stations. Jesse: Yeah Hannah: And it was cool because we got to see the petroglyphs there and got to hike around the field station and see the renewable energy and how they’re keeping the buildings warms the solar panels and how effective the field station and a great learning resource in the park that not many park units have. And I do have a sticker from the field station and it has Capitol Reef on it with a petroglyph of a desert goat with Utah Valley University underneath it. But explore that area I was like yeah, I could be here. Jesse: Yeah, that’s an incredible landscape, I mean all that red sandstone. Hannah: Yes. Jesse: Canyons Hannah: It definitely felt like home Jesse: oh yeah Hannah: because growing up in St. George with the red rocks, Jesse: for sure Hannah: Then Great Basin just spending all those summers in a more mountain green area, than going to Capitol Reef I was like was yeah this could be another home. Jesse: Yeah Hannah: Like its similar. Jesse: Yeah it is, how often did you get pies at the little pie shop there? Hannah: Oooo, I think I got cinnamon rolls more often, because their cinnamon rolls are also famous. But I think I got three or four pies and then I couldn’t tell you how many cinnamon rolls. Jesse: If I worked there I would probably eat like a pie per day there. The pies are so good. Hannah: They really are good. And what’s nice about living there is we got our own microwaves at our houses Jesse: oh yeah Hannah: so we could take them home and warm it up. Jesse: That’s the only sad thing as a visitor you don’t get a warm pie. *giggles* Hannah: Yes, *giggling* Jesse: Yeah no, that sounds amazing. So what’s the next sticker that’s the next step in your story here? Hannah: I mean finally made it to Capitol Reef, so I got the Capitol Reef sticker. I knew I was, I just had so much confidence, I’m gonna do it was like the first interview that I had so much confidence. I was like yeah, I’m a shoe in. I got this like nothing is holding me back. But like most people you still have this hesitant nervousness. Jesse: I was going to say, where do you think that confidence came from? Hannah: I think just three summers at Great Basin and knowing like I was finally finding my path and finding what I wanted to do. Jesse: Yeah Hannah: But it was interesting because day of the interview it was my birthday and like no one knew that, and I got the call the next day from him and with all the paperwork they eventually found out the interview day was my birthday and they were like, if we would have know we would have told you that day. Jesse: Oh Hannah: And I was like, hold on you knew the day of but decided to wait until the next day. Jesse: Rude Hannah and Jesse: *giggle* Hannah: Then my Capitol Reef Sticker is in the shape of an NPS Arrowhead and it’s got the red rocks of Capitol Reef and the different formations there. And across mid- lower section of it says Capitol Reef National Park. Jesse: Is that a Condor on there too? Hannah: I don’t know Jesse: Its probably a turkey vulture, but it looks a lot like a condor. Hannah: yeah, Its so faded at this point. Jesse: It’s clearly been loved a lot. Hannah: *chuckles* Yes Jesse: How long did you spend at Capitol Reef than? Hannah: I spent a summer there and I was at the Ripple Rock Nature Center and I was working with little kiddo’s. It was so much fun because I gave a nature talk for kids and a geology program for kids, because Capitol Reef has a Geology Junior Ranger Patch you can get if you attend the program and so like I would give the program and how I would do that is I would string out a tape measurer and we would walk along the timeline talking about when different items would appear and different rock layers in the park and we would get down to like barely anything and show like when humans appeared and all the kids would be like wow. Jesse: *chuckles* Yeah, Yeah, that’s always pretty mind blowing to do like the physically timeline like that. Hannah: Yes Jesse: And then from Capitol Reef, what’s the next sticker? Hannah: I mean after Capitol Reef, there was a gap year because Covid hit and I wanted to finish school early and there’s not really a sticker for that. Jesse: No Covid-19 sticker on it and that’s probably fine. Hannah: *giggling in the background. * yeah there is not a sticker for that. Jesse: *chuckles, yeah* Yeah Hannah: So I was heavily in my books, Jesse: Mhmm Hannah: And then October 2020, is when I started applying to NPS Jobs, and its just waiting and hoping and not knowing what I was doing, it was a whole new hiring process Jesse: Yeah it’s really different Hannah: Yeah, I knew I already had the federal resume, ‘cause I had talked to so many coworkers at Great Basin and Capitol Reef and them telling me about how it has to be very detailed and its multiple pages and you list everything and anything and I was like ‘oh boy’ Jesse: Huh yeah, Federal resumes are general ten or more pages. Hannah: Yeah. Jesse: Which is different from most and rest of the world. Hannah: Mhmm Jesse: Yeah, so what was that application process like for you, was it kinda nerve wracking, did you apply to only one place? Hannah: *Brust into Laughter* I didn’t only apply to one place which I’m proud of. I think that would be hard with how the applications work. Jesse: Yep Hannah: ‘Cause with USA Jobs their have multiple listings and select into one and they’ll have like multiple regions in that area, and it might be like, there is 75 and your allowed to select 25 of these. Jesse: Yeah, Its pretty odd. Hannah: Yeah, *chuckles*, and so like every Monday of that October was dedicated to specifically to turn in my application, like I didn’t do any school work. I was like were getting my resume in. Cause it did take a little bit of time like I don’t know if our Wi-Fi was bad, but it was taking the time getting it in. And when I was done, I was like I don’t feel like anything else. Jesse: Yeah, when you like going through this whole process, starting as an intern at Great Basin being there for three years. Being an intern at Capitol Reef National Park and than moving on to applying National Park Service positions. How, did you get support from your family in that or were they pushing you towards other things or what was that dynamic like? Hannah: Oh my parents were definitely my number one supporters. Jesse: Oh Awesome Hannah: In all of this they were the first people I called when I got availability check emails. That’s like the first step in the application process in figuring out what parks are interested. And I know a lot of people tell me don’t get too excited, it may end up being nothing. But I was like first step Woo! Jesse: ha,ha, yeah, yeah Hannah: Like called my parents, for me the first park that got to me with three districts was actually Grand Canyon Jesse: uh-huh, yeah Hannah: I was so excited because I hadn’t thought about that park, you really, I mean I don’t specifically, think this is the park I want to go to because I never know what is going to happen. I didn’t know Great Basin exist, so its like one of those things I was like yeah, Grand Canyon, close to my hometown it would be a great place. So I called my parents up yeah I got my first availability check, I think it was Desert View, Jesse: Mmm, Yep Hannah: That had first sent out a message and then quickly after that Village followed and then North Rim. I was like Grand Canyon like woooo! Jesse: *chuckling* Hannah: Don’t know what’s going to happen. Jesse: Yeah Hannah: And with all of it my parents were very excited like I would call them about every availability check email and they would look into it to see what the area was about. ‘cause there were definitely areas never heard of. *Chuckles* Jesse: Yeah, yeah Hannah: So we were researching these places figuring out would it be a good option. Especially since I’d just be finishing school would I have enough money to move out to this new place. And with all of it me going to Great Basin, and to Capitol Reef, going on my OLA Trips they were right there and supportive and excited about it. ‘Cause I know seasonal life is a little rough and you never know what’s going to happen. Jesse: Yeah, it can be a challenge. Hannah: yeah, and my Dad I know he has had like a little worry about that. But he was definitely excited when I got my interview with north rim and then when I was able to accept the position. He was so stoked he went bought a sticker pack that had a bunch of parks in it and it had the NPS arrowhead. I have on my water bottle. Jesse: yeah Hannah: because of course I’ve got the internship program I worked with I got to have the NPS on it. Jesse: Of course, yeah. Hannah: He was just so stoked and even had a Grand Canyon Sticker that has had some wear and tear this summer, but it’s a view from the bottom of the canyon looking up. But just his excitement was so cool to see like ‘yeah we’re going somewhere’ Jesse: *chuckles* Yeah, what has your season been like now its coming to a close here, how has it been in your first official park service season? Wearing the green and gray, and badge. Hannah: I mean it has definitely been an evolving season. Like at first I had imposter syndrome even though I know with the Capitol Reef one I was like confident and knew I had that stuff. Jesse: yeah Hannah: But coming here seeing everyone, getting ready to wear the official uniform was definitely intimidating. I was like what am I doing, like why was I selected especially for North Rim of the Grand Canyon. I had friends that wanted to work here too and I was like ‘oh my gosh here I am’ But like over the season it was cool hearing visitors get excited with me Jesse: yeah Hannah: and talk about how its my first season in the uniform with the cool hat. And everyone would give a giggle, and yeah the hat is cool. Jesse: yeah the hat is cool Hannah: And just talking about it and seeing different visitors faces throughout the season ‘cause for some people, when I just saw rangers as being there, but for some people its like a movie novelty and walk up to me be like ‘Are you a real park ranger, like can my kid take a picture with you.’ It’s like this surprising thing that they don’t know, but its like your real, you’re a real thing. Jesse: yeah Hannah: and seeing the faces of kids that want to be Park Rangers when they grow up. It’s like this realization, *snaps* you can do it at any point. Go for it. Jesse: Start putting those stickers on your water bottle. Hannah: Yes! And just like trying to encourage people to start at any point. ‘Cause I have had geology professor or people about to retire, that are always like ‘I wish I would have done that when I was your age’ Jesse: yeah Hannah: what is stopping you? Jesse: I know, right? Yeah cool. What do you think will be the next sticker that you put on this bottle? Hannah: Umm, *chuckles* I don’t know if it really has space for too many more. Jesse: Not a lot of room on there. Hannah: So I’m thinking I may need to get a second one Jesse: yeah Hannah: Cause I have been looking for a second ‘cause I think it would be cool to continue on. ‘Cause visitors do ask a lot of questions about it. ‘cause I do have it out with me and they’ll be people my age that are trying to figure out how to get into the park service. And I’m like I have the story for you. Jesse: yeah, these are the steps, right here. Hannah: *giggles* Yes! Jesse: Yeah, it is true that most people start in a kinda of similar way to you. I started as an intern. I started after college as an intern. Ah yeah most folks do that in order to get the experience. Learn how to write your ten page resume. Hannah *giggles* *snaps* Jesse: Well Hannah thanks, is there anything else you want add? Hannah: I mean I think the biggest thing is to thank all the programs and my parents for helping me get out there and like the college advisor that gave that like what do you want to do question that was definitely a big step. The Outdoor Leadership Academy and IIC for both for showing the outdoors as a possibility and just my parents being there and especially this summer wanting to show off their own little ranger. Jesse: yeah, yeah, that’s awesome. Well you’re doing an absolutely incredible job in your first season and hope you have many more to come. Filling up metal water bottle with water Hannah: Now talking to Jesse about my stickers I quite enjoyed it, but I didn’t want to be the only person talking about the stickers I have. So I went around and asked coworkers and visitors what their sticker story are and I got some neat ones I would like to share with you: Jeff: I’m Jeff Caton, I’m one of the park rangers here on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. And I grew up in Kanas. My favorite sticker is on my coffee cup and it’s a painting of the mountains behind my cabin, when I worked at Rocky National Park. And my nephew Mason painted this is school and had a coffee cup made for me. And it’s got two mountains, Bone and Baker, and the Never Summers with a small rise between them. And a green meadow which is where I use to live at Rocky and that’s my sticker story. Lisa: My name is Lisa and I’m from Southern California in north Tustin. And I’m traveling here with my brother, sister and husband and our spouses. And you want to know about my stickers? Hannah: Yeah! Lisa: Well my sister got one of these passport to your national park books, where you put a stamp in for each park you visit at the visitor center. And I’ve been to lots, lots, and lots of national parks in my life. And so I thought I’m going to buy one and start now. I’m sixty years old and then after I bought mine and put the stamp in it. I think it was Zion or Bryce, umm, I saw a packet of stickers on the wall for twenty dollars with all the national parks. I bought special ones for Zion and Bryce Canyon and put the stamps in. But then I started going through the sticker books and started putting the stickers for the parks I visited in my past ‘cause I did not know if I would ever back to some of these again. And that’s the story of my stickers and I love all of them, because they bring memories back. You know seeing this Glacier National Park, up in Montana is cool, because we saw bears there just like the sticker shows. And Mesa Verde was just last year and it was neat to see the Native American Cliff Dwellings, so on and so forth. Lauren: Hi my name is Lauren Cisneros. So we are talking about stickers today and on my water bottle I have plenty of stickers. One of the ones I wanted to chat about was I have a sticker that’s says image a world without ALS, cycle to conquer ALS. ALS is a disease called Lou Gehrig’s disease and a few years ago I helped video an event called the Death Ride Tour, which help benefits ALS research, currently there is no cure for Lou Gehrig’s disease, umm and so these stickers were given out to try and remind people this diseases does exist and raise awareness for it. Umm, I have a friend I lost recently to the disease unfortunately and I have another friend with it. Umm, so I have a sticker on my bottle to remind me of that. Continuing around the corner I have a sticker with what’s called a mono skier. With Enabling Technologies on there, Enabling Technologies is a company that creates mono skis, for adaptive skiers that are usually paralyzed from the waist down and usually have good upper body strength. In the winter months I teach adaptive skiing and I have a lot of athletes that I teach that use this equipment and they shred down the hill and that’s pretty fun. And then one more that I’ll share; I have a sticker here that says Island Cycles, ride the sand bar. That is a sticker I got when I worked as a bike mechanic last summer, umm, in Hatteras, Cape Hatteras North Carolina. And its kinda fun and the biker is riding the wave like a surfer would, umm, Which is funny because everything there rust including plastic and every bike that came into the shop was just a rust bucket. So kinda pain to work on but a really fun experience. And I really like the shop and the people I worked for. Kathleen: I’m Kathleen Gardner, I’m from Kanab, Utah, I’m a professional photographer out of Kanab, Utah. Umm, my I own a two thousand, 2021 CrossTrek, uh I came up with the design for mountain goats and desert goats, I actually am, my family has always referred to me as the goat and yagi is the name I came up with to put on my car its Japanese for goat. So on the one side I have yama yagi and on the other side I have sabaku yagi, which is desert goat and on the hood I have a mountain goat again. So, an it took me a little while came up with the design. Had to find a wrap place in St. George to be able to cut it out and put it on there for me. Someone was daring enough to do it for me and of course they didn’t guarantee anything. They said don’t wash it, it should stay on there for a few years and I was pretty happy with it. Its very unique and one of a kind. Dave: Hi this is Ranger Dave, umm, and I’m here to talk about the stickers on my Nalgene, umm, and I have a lot of different Nalgene but the one I’m thinking about is one I just broke. Umm, and it was covered in superhero stickers, umm, and so what I did I had a group of kids that I mentor through entire ski season, umm, I teach adaptive skiing in the winters and at the end of the whole trip, the whole season I ended up giving them like goodie bags. And in these goodie bags were stickers. So the kids had all different ones and one of the kids didn’t show up so I kept his stickers. Umm, And so I took those stickers and put them on my bottle in different ironic places around the other larger stickers about skiing. Umm, and that’s kinda a fun little touch that I added. But that Nalgene just broke, I didn’t know you could break Nalgene, but you can. And umm, so yeah that’s my sticker story its all superheroes, umm, doing funny things. Ron: My name is Ron I’m from Portland, Oregon and my bottle with lots of beer stickers all over my bottle. This bottle does not contain beer. It does contain H2O and it is water, but beer very, I’m very fond of the beers of the great northwest and umm it reminds me every time I take a drink out of my water bottle it reminds me of the second best drink I have is beer, back in Portland, Oregon, so. I have carried this with me all over the place. I use to be an elementary school teacher and I would take it to school until someone pointed out, ‘you probably shouldn’t bring a beer laden to school’, you know you’re probably right. But I’m so use to just toting this thing around it just like my left arm or my right arm. So any way that’s me, and my beer, but water. Doug: Hi my names Doug and I have a vintage 1949 pickup truck and if you have a old truck, then you have to have an age appropriate bumper sticker. So I have a political bumper sticker that says ‘Give them Hell Harry’ and it says ‘Truman for US President’. I made this up myself, stars and strips, just to kinda have something to date from 1949 the same year as my pickup truck. I also have nine vintage reproduction national park stickers, uh, mostly from the 1930’s. These are stickers that are eight sided and they are about 2-3 inches across and based on historic windshield decal that park rangers would issue to vehicles when they came in through a check in station and entered the park. I have a Grand Canyon one for some reason has a beaver on it of all animals probably the less likely animal I would associate with Grand Canyon. I have a General Grant sticker with a squirrel on it. I have an Olympic National park with a Roosevelt Elk on it. Natural Bridges National Monument with a picture of Owachomo bridge and a rattle snake. Canyonlands National Park with a big horned sheep image. Yosemite National Park with half dome and a mountain lion. Grand Teton with a mountain view. Yellowstone with a bison on it. And Mesa Verde National Park with a coyote on it. And these stickers are all from National Parks that I have worked in over the years. Basically I have a resume that drives sixty miles an hour down the road with these stickers that I have worked in. Quick on and off at water filling station Hannah: Hearing everyone’s sticker story and collecting them was a ton of fun. I just wish I could spend hours collecting everyone’s story. In addition to spending hours on telling all my sticker stories. I appreciated the people that were willing to open up about a sticker or a whole theme of stickers that mean a lot to them. While I was recording other people stories I couldn't help but wonder about the memories or the value we give to objects. I know this episode was based on stickers, but we all have objects in our lives that help narrator our own stories. I love learning and hearing these stories as I talk to visitors and coworker. And I hope my joyfulness to tell my story with water bottle never stops, along with my curiosity to hear other peoples story via stickers or other objects. My question to you is what objects or items do you have in your life that helps narrator your life story? I'd thank Jeff Caton, Lisa Fiefe-Kollman, Lauren Cisneros, Kathleen Garder, Dave Kent, Ron Bagwell, and Doug Crispin for all telling their sticker stories. And a special Thank you to Jesse Barden for taking the time to sit down with me and record my sticker story. Behind the Scenery is brought to you by the Interpretation team at Grand Canyon National Park. Audio production is done by Wayne Hartlerode We gratefully acknowledge the Native peoples on whose ancestral homelands we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant Native communities who make their home here today.

Favorite Layers of Grand Canyon Dec 28, 2021

Never take this place for "granite" again! Geology impacts every part of the human experience of Grand Canyon. People as diverse as the colorful cliffs have discovered secrets in stone. Come listen to their discoveries within layers of Grand Canyon. Are you open to being rocked by the canyon?

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CEILI: So here we are, sitting at the bottom of Grand Canyon surrounded by Vishnu Schist and Zoroaster Granite. And most people when they come to Grand Canyon National Park to visit, they immediately have questions about the geology. Today someone asked me: What's all that green rock? How would you answer that? KATE: Yeah so, that green rock is the Bright Angel Shale layer. Um...The depositional environment for the sediment, when it lays down, it has to be able to form glauconite. So glauconite is the reason that it's green, but what's interesting about that layer for a lot of people is that it's rich with fossils. And when you're hiking across it or moving across it, there's a lot of worm tracks and tunnels and you can find trilobite track fossils out there pretty regularly as well. And when you're actually on that layer and looking at it, there's often a lot of different colors that you can see because of that shallow sea depositional environment that was present. CEILI: What other questions do you get on the trail about geology? KATE: I get a lot of questions about how old things are like, how old is this rock that we're standing on? CEILI: When people ask me that I usually just tell them they're really old. And that some are older than others. Another nice answer is that the newest rocks are on the top and they are 270 million years old. And then the oldest rocks are at the very bottom and they are between 1.8 and 1.6 billion years old. So we've got a whole spectrum here. Kate, can we find any dinosaur fossils here? KATE: The layers here at Grand Canyon predate all of the dinosaurs. So on the very top layer we see some sharks and we found shark tooths and things like that, but a lot of the fossils that we find in Grand Canyon are, um, other marine life. So we have a lot of trilobite fossils. We have shell fossils. We have different plant fossils that we can find in the Canyon, like ferns. And then we also have fossilized tracks of different animals that actually predate what we currently think of reptiles. So Ceili are these the same rocks that We see at ZIon here in Grand Canyon? CEILI: Oh yeah, were you just at Zion National Park? KATE: long pause with an unconvincing “yeah” (both laugh) KATE: sorry, I can't even lie when it makes sense to lie. CEILI: Yeah, most people come, or a lot of people come from Zion to the North Rim. So often people are comparing their experience to their experience at Zion and it's an interesting question to answer because the rocks in Grand Canyon are completely different than the rocks that you see at Zion Canyon at Zion National Park. But the very bottom layer of the Zion Canyon rocks is the very top layer of Grand Canyon’s rocks so Zion is essentially stacked on top of Grand Canyon, and that's because they're all part of the Grand Staircase, kind of geologic formation. So you can even see the full staircase from some parts of the Kaibab Plateau. Yeah, it's hard to remember common questions that people ask about geology, 'cause we've worked in the Canyon for a couple of seasons. And when people are hiking in the Canyon the questions are usually about: Where's the next water station? How do I fix my blisters? How do I hike out of here with success and how might I survive the day? But the cool thing is, all those questions do relate to geology. The geology of Grand Canyon determines every part of a hiker's day down here. Sometimes at the end of a work day at Phantom Ranch some of the Rangers find themselves on the porch eating dinner and sometimes we talk for hours about our favorite rock layers in Grand Canyon. And there's a lot of funny stories and experiences and emotions that are attached to different rock layers in Grand Canyon for different people. (Music) KATE: Inspired by these porch talks, we decided to go around and ask our coworkers and friends what is their favorite geologic layer here at Grand Canyon and why? DOUG: My name is Ranger Doug. I'm a second-year summertime seasonal ranger at the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park. My job is to meet and greet the public, answer questions, hand out information. KATE: So my question for you is what is your favorite layer here at Grand Canyon? DOUG: Geologic layer? KATE: Geologic layer. DOUG: My favorite is the Coconino, because it's so distinctive. I can point it out to folks at our outdoor visitor centers, prominently seen there. Last night I was out at the veranda behind the North Rim Lodge watching the sunset and somebody asked where the village was and the Bright Angel Trail and you can actually see the offset of the Coconino where the Bright Angel Fault has uplifted the west side and that's kind of a landmark that I look for, for trying to find where the trail goes in and out of the Canyon as well as the, the village area just to the east of where the Coconino’s been off set. So that's my favorite layer. (Music) MATTHEW: My name is Matthew Baldwin. I work in the Backcountry Office out of the Flagstaff Office, and we issue river permits and Backcountry permits and patrol the backcountry. My favorite rock layer here at Grand Canyon is going to be the Coconino Sandstone because when you're hiking out from the bottom of the Canyon means you’re almost home and just those big beautiful white cliffs with the cross bedding and the sandstone. It’s absolutely beautiful. So I lost my hat one time during a blizzard as I was hiking out it got blown off a cliff and it was just gone. So if you’re ever near the South Kaibab Trail and you look over a cliff and happen to see a green hat, its mine, bring it back please. (Music) CEILI: How many miles of under the rim Grand Grand Canyon hiking have you done? Just so we know that like this is really the best and the worst layers. JEN: Overall, or at one time? CEILI: Yeah, just whatever number you have. JEN: It would be impossible to say how many, um, if I had to estimate, it's probably upwards of probably in the 20,000 range. Well, the Esplanade is an easy favorite for so many reasons. It just feels like a different planet really. (Background radio noise “Dispatch, Canyon 20”) You know, like it really I feel like paints an amazing picture of the people who lived here before us because it was a very common layer for them to live in. You know, much like the Tapeats, but yeah, the Esplanade’s got so much history and just so much beauty. And it's really like nothing else in the Canyon. Maybe somewhat comparable to parts of the Supai. You can get some sections of the Supai, particularly at its ends that are very, very similar, but uh, the Esplanade is just amazing to me. It just feels like walking on Mars like just a whole untouched planet. CEILI: And is it like also because it's easy to walk on like is that, is that part of it you think? JEN: Actually, it's really not easy at all. It's actually a lot of switch levels, switch leveling and upping and Downing. And you know one of the challenges of the Esplanade is that you know there's a ton of cryptobiotic soil and can be very difficult to avoid the crypto. Like very difficult, yeah. So it gets very tedious. Now if you don't care about cryptobiotic soil – yes it would be easy walking, but if you're you know, protecting the Canyon as we all do, it's a lot of sidestepping and rerouting and switch leveling and then like you might be going on a level and it gives out and now you have to like scramble up slickrock which can be challenges as well. (Music) MICHAEL: Yeah, my name is Michael Wichman. I'm a backcountry guide for the Wildland Trekking company. I've been doing so for going on 13 years now. Worked for a couple other companies as well, but Wildlands is my primary gig. I often say that this is a difficult place to have favorites in because every layers got their own story to tell with different chapters at each, uh different location that they appear in the Grand Canyon. Uhm, off the top of my head. I typically say the Redwall Limestone's my favorite layer for several reasons, one, it has the most karst like systems in it. The most caves. Limestone is very porous, and water tends to percolate through it and so we get beautiful cave structures. The condors tend to like to roost in those caves. Laying their eggs there with the fledging - fledglings, first flight coming off the huge Redwall Limestone. It can be 1000 feet thick at times in certain places. Also, most of the water features tend to, like the waterfalls and such, tend to occur at the bottom of the Redwall, when the water that seeps through tends to hit the impermeable shale, Bright Angel Shale below it. So I love the Redwall. My other thought as I was talking about this is the...If I get to pick 2. The Chuar formation over up in the Lava Chuar Canyon area, kind of by Unkar Delta further upriver than here. It gets really beautiful. Teals and turquoise like beautiful wavy U-shaped features in it. And it's a more unusual layer that you only see in that area. So I've only ever seen it on a couple few river trips and by foot only twice. Once my partner and I, we hiked from Nankoweap to Phantom off route and that was one of the highlights of that trip. The Redwall for its commonality, or how often you see it, and so every time that we're out here guiding or hiking personally. You're almost always going through the Redwall. And so it's fun to see the different ways that it takes shape and the different members of it. Seeing the coral bed fossils and whatnot inside it. So it's nice to see the Redwall as often as we see it. JESSE: My name is Jesse Barden. I am the North Rim interpretation seasonal supervisor and I've been at the Canyon for like 6 years now. But the ones, the ones that stand out to me the most are the Redwall and the Muav limestone layers. They're kind of stacked right on top of each other, and I think they're just like they, they do the coolest things. They have all the cool caves. They have all the cool slot canyons. The Muav has all the flowing water, not all of the flowing water, but most of the major springs comes out of the Muav. Yeah, they're both just so excellent. A memory of a route through the Redwall. It's called the Red Slide Route, and it's probably the first like really challenging off trail route that I've done in the Canyon and me and my friend Darrin, we're on a river trip, you know, and he and I decided to do this canyoneering route. Down in Western Grand Canyon. And so we climbed up the Red Slide Route to get to the canyon and the route description was only a few sentences. And it said, you know, look for these things. You'll find some hoodoos. It's a little bit scrambly. Made no mention of the 5th class climbing that we'd have to do on the way up, so we started our trip at about 6:00 in the morning. In the dark, it was January, so it was pretty dark for a while. And we made our way slowly up this really steep slope and it's all like crumbly rocks barely held together. Like kind of like Pebble sized it seemed like and so many, many of the points going up the first bit we were on all fours, like using our hands, using our feet. And then we get to the top of this big kind of debris cone, and we're just sort of looking around and looking at each other. Like trying to figure out where the route goes, 'cause we're really just hoping that we don't have to go up the 15 foot vertical cliff that's right in front of us and then Darrin spots a cairn at the top of that Cliff and we’re like ughh, guess we have to go up there. (laughter) And so, yeah, there ended up being three or four of those kinds of like short, fairly easy climbing, but like unprotected and fairly high consequence like cliff bands that we had to navigate with heavy packs and it was a tremendous relief when we finally got through that Redwall section into the Supai where the walking is pretty easy. (Music) JEFF: I'm Jeff Caton and I'm one of the lead interpreters on the North Rim. JESSE: You’re the lead interpreter on the North Rim. JEFF: I am the lead interpreter. Yes, the only one. My favorite geologic layer is the Bright Angel Shale for a couple silly reasons. One reason is I like the way it sounds when it crunches under my boots. A weird, a weird reason, but I like the way it sounds. Another reason is when it was the second time I came to the Grand Canyon backpacking trip that went not terribly wrong, but pretty wrong. I got sick. I ignored everything the Ranger said, like I went out of my way to just check off like and not do what the Ranger said not do. And I woke up and I was sick and this isn't good and I remember the sound of it under my boots. I stopped maybe at Salt Creek, so I stopped somewhere for the hot part of the day. And then about three or four, I started hiking again. There were a few clouds, and I promptly started throwing up so I remember that the sound of the Bright Angel under my boots. And kneeling on it to puke several times. (Music) ELYSSA: My name is Elyssa Shalla and I'm a Park Ranger here at Grand Canyon. My favorite geologic layer is by far the Tapeats Sandstone. I think it, just being able to look at and touch and see all of those sediments in that layer gives you the opportunity to really kind of transform yourself back in time and think about all the different ancient landscapes that the Canyon has been through throughout its lifespan. When I think of the Tapeats, I think of all of the years that I worked down at Indian Garden as a Ranger and all of the times we went down into the Tapeats Narrows. You know getting to talk with people, people that were just excited to be down there. Some people that were struggling to get through that section and up to the Indian Garden campground. I think it's, it's packed with beauty and suffering. (Music) KATE: Behind the Scenery is brought to you by the interpretation team at Grand Canyon National Park. We gratefully acknowledge the Native peoples on whose ancestral homelands we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant Native communities who make their home here today.

It's All About the Bike Dec 21, 2021

What is your favorite way to experience a place? For ranger Dave, it's all about the bike. In this edition of Behind the Scenery, join Dave as he explores what makes cycling at Grand Canyon such a unique experience and interviews experts about the best (and safest) ways to enjoy the park by bike.

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(Ok Lett’er Rip) Hi, I’m Ranger Dave and this is Behind the Scenery. Many visitors have asked me about my bicycle. I ride it on the trails and roads to get around the park. It’s green, which is a bit of an understatement. It has a dark green frame, neon green wheels and tape. A custom made green seat cover that is also green. I usually wear a green backpack and matching helmet. For a bell I have a squeaky turtle, which is also green. My paneer bags are gray since there was no green option. For me it shows some character as a fashion statement.

But that’s not why I ride it. It’s a special bike to me. Let me explain how I got it.

My friend Miles gave it to me. Miles is actually my student, I taught him how to ski bike, after he no longer could ski. Miles has ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease, but this doesn’t stop him. He still is an avid cyclist, downhill skier, and an outdoorsman. He lives right outside of San Francisco, so naturally when we visited he took us for a ride through Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Miles used a recumbent trike, so he offered me his old bike. After Miles showed us around we visited Muir Woods. Miles loves the National Parks and has visited quite a few. Some time later I was looking for a road bike and thought of Miles and asked him if I could buy his. He shipped it all the way to the National Seashore that I was working for. He even sent me a green jersey to represent him when I ride, so I can help raise awareness for ALS. It’s a great conversation starter and a grand way to honor my friend. So when visitors see me ride by in all green in uniform. They see a ranger on a bike, they may miss the story about the bike itself.

[Ranger Dave] Hi, I’m Ranger Dave and with me is Ranger Phil Arrington. [Ranger Phil] What’s up Dave? [Ranger Dave] So Phil tell me a little about what your role is in the park [Ranger Phil] Thanks for asking Dave I like to tell people that I’m an Office Ranger. I spend most of my time doing administrative work, my primary responsibilities involve managing concession contracts that the National Park Service has with the hospitality providers and making sure we’re preserving the cultural resources that are assigned to the concessions. So that’s part of my job and then another park is working with the concessioner to provide the best possible experience for visitors. [Ranger Dave] Phil will you tell us a little bit of how you cycle in the park? [Ranger Phil] Yeah, absolutely Dave. So, I ride around on a cargo Ebike and when I got my job it used to have a car so I decided to trade my car for an Ebike. I have about a four-mile range that I need to travel in. Not necessarily every day. So, the Ebike is just a really fun way to be able to do my job, get some exercise and be a little greener on the earth. [Ranger Dave] Ok, and cost wise are you spending a lot more money on this Ebike or is this more Economical? [Ranger Phil] Well I have to admit Dave that I got it mainly because I am a two wheel guy, and I would rather be on two wheels any day that four. That being said it is a lot more economical instead of having a car payment, filling up with gas, shuttling the vehicle back and fourth from the south rim to the north rim during the winter. My department spent about $1800 I got an Ebike I plug it in once a week, and I can ride around as much as I want. [Ranger Dave] Can you describe for the viewers at home what your bike looks like, because I think it is pretty distinctive? [Ranger Phil] So it’s a cargo bike and the reason I got a cargo bike is I could have a place to store my ranger hat, we call it a flat hat. So that when I got down to the Grand Canyon Lodge, I can take off my bike helmet put on my flat hat and be in full ranger dress so to speak. My bike is long, its big, its got two pinners in the back and the most distinctive part is its bright orange. So whenever I am rolling up. People always know that its me and its really fun because I think a lot of people like to see a ranger on a bicycle and its kind of a little bit different kind of bike that not a lot of people have seen before and so it starts a lot of conversations and creates a lot of interpretive moments so to speak. [Ranger Dave] Phil, you are starting up an employee biking program here on North Rim, why are you interested in improving the existing biking infrastructure here on North Rim? [Ranger Phil] Thanks for asking that question Dave. First of all I think the North Rim is just a really cool place to ride a bike. Living in this community we’ve got the Bridle path, it’s a dirt trail. We are pretty close to everything we need, we have got a little general store, all of the buildings that we work in and all the stations that we work in are close together. I think to answer your question that’s part of it, just how the community and how the infrastructure of this place is designed and how close everything is. I think the other part of it. Is that there’s a maybe certain type of ranger or a certain type of person that comes and works over at the North Rim. Whether you work for the park service or one of the concessioners or something like that. A lot of us are active and we like to bicycle anyways, and I have seen that a lot of us chose to bicycle around whether its to and from work or on their free time or whatever so I saw a need, and I saw some demand. First of all, what the infrastructure involves is just really some simple stuff, like getting some bike racks around getting a place where people can park their bikes, lock their bikes, feel comfortable biking to work, biking for fun, biking for recreation. So we are getting five or six bike racks around the administrative area of north rim and some of this is even going to help some of the visitors like we are getting some down by the visitor center, by the general store, there is definitely a need down there. People are just locking up their bikes next to trees. So I think that’s part of it. Just creating the infrastructure to facilitate people to bike more, if that’s what they want to do. We also bought some tools, and cleaned up an old building. Where folks can use those tools and that infrastructure to repair government bikes, government bicycle equipment and incidentally their own bikes if they need to do that to keep them safe. [Ranger Dave] What have been the biggest challenges that you have faced with this project? [Ranger Phil] In some ways the challenges aren’t dissimilar to a lot of challenges I face with other projects that I’m working on in the park. You gotta kinda have a vision and you have got to be able to explain what you’re doing and why you’re doing it and to be effectively sell to a certain degree and then you just stay with it. I think with this project it was just having a good understanding of why, seeing if there as a need and effectively communicating that with other people in the park. Especially those holding the keys to the bank, to the purse strings. Showing that there is value in making this investment and that it will be used. And then just stayed with it and we finally got it, and its really cool to see the excitement level for it and I think the appreciation that employees have for that. And to see that investment in them I think is a morale booster. [Ranger Phil] I have a personal bike a 1954 Schwinn. I’m kind of proud of it. I have it restored, and I ride that back and forth to work, and kind of around to run errands. [Ranger Dave] Do you find that you are using more of the bridal path or are you using more of the road? [Ranger Phil] It depends on how quick I need to get somewhere. If I’m running late for a meeting, I will just use the road. The nice thing about the Ebike is that I can keep a constant 20mph and keep up with traffic a little bit better. The preferred route would be to go on the bridal trail. Its jus nice to ride on. I can get out of the office for five or ten minutes and just have this national park experience where I am just riding down a trail. There’s birds chirping. The winds blowing in my face. If the flowers are blooming, we have a lot of Lupin around here I can smell the fresh scent of the flowers as I’m going to down the trail I can smell the pine trees, and so it’s nice sometimes to just be able to get into that national park moment in the middle of a work day. And that’s why we are here. The bike is a medium or acts as a means for me to be able to do that. Instead of just driving. If I were just driving from place to place, I would just miss it all. [Ranger Dave] So we’re here with Skye and ... [Joey] Joey [Ranger Dave] We are going to talk a little bit about cycling in the park. Skye do you want to just start and tell us a little bit about what you do in the park. What you do here, and how you spend your time? [Ranger Skye] Sure. I have worked up here for 3 years I am a wildlife Biotech. So, I do work with bison as well as Avifauna, I survey for Mexican spotted owls and help out with any resources trips that are planned for the North Rim. Therese only 4 resources staff up here so I help with vegetation work and occasionally hydrology or paleontology too. [Ranger Dave] Awesome, so spending most of your time outside, in the field? [Ranger Skye] Yeah most of my time in the field. [Joey] Well I’m Skye’s boyfriend and I just get to come up here and ride my bike on the weekends. [Ranger Dave] And what do you do professionally? [Joey] I’m the service manager for Absolute Bikes in Sedona, Arizona. Dealing with bike repairs, bike service, bike rentals. Everything to do with bikes. You wouldn’t think I would want to do it on my weekends, but… [Ranger Dave] Talk to me a little about your time and your experiences of riding inside the park. [Ranger Skye] Well the North Rim has some great riding. I think as far as national parks are concerned, there’s actually quite a bit of mountain biking up here. And when I think of riding up here there’s three options that I usually consider for rides. One of them is the Point Sublime Road. And it’s somewhere in between gravel riding and mountain biking. It’s pretty rough rugged road. The second option is the Arizona Trail, and that’s the only trail that’s available for biking in the park, just because of most of the area on the rim being proposed wilderness. Which doesn’t allow motorized or mechanized, which makes most trails off limits to biking, but the Arizona Trail you can bike on it and there’s 11 miles of Arizona Tail in the Park. And the third option is not in the park, it’s in the Kaibab National Forest, which is directly north of the North Rim. That’s 28 miles of single track along the rim. [Joey] Yeah the road riding here is pretty spectacular as well and the traffic’s not terrible. Usually people are driving at a pretty safe speed, so it’s not like you are getting blown off the road or anything. And the riding just helps you experience the park so much better because you are taking it all in, smelling the smells, you’re seeing the sights and you can stop wherever you want and check out wildlife or the plant life as well. [Ranger Dave] What would you say like remote types of rides that you have done, what does that kind of look like? [Ranger Skye] You know the park doesn’t have a whole lot as far as dirt roads, there’s one main road, Point Sublime Road that goes west for 18 miles and there’s another road that intersect with it, the Kanabonits Road. But if you go north on that, then the national forest, the Kaibab National Forest, has so many dirt roads there. It has been highly developed for deer hunting and bison hunting. They need easy access and there are so many options once you get out there. So, I think some really fun routes are linking roads in the Kaibab National Forest with roads within the park. And that’s something I have done, 35, 40 mile loops in a day going up into the forest service and out west on some of the dirt roads and back around into the park. You’ll notice when you are out there that the forest service roads are really well maintained and you get to the park and the roads are really chunky there’s loose rocks and you are pretty much going faster than all of the traffic you will encounter out there, you’ll see high clearance vehicles, you’ll see jeeps and trucks, and sometimes it’s just a matter of getting round people there’s not a whole lot of traffic though, when you see cars you’re likely traveling faster than them. [Joey] The other option is the AZT headed north you can take the AZT right out of the park and you are along the East Rim, and so you see into House Rock Valley, you can see into Marble Canyon, and its just a beautiful section of the AZT. That a lot of through riders just go fast through that area, but Skye and I have ridden it a bunch of times. You can stop at all kinds of other view points. You rarely see other mountain bikers you rarely see hikers unless they are through hikers. The AZT headed north you can get all the way up to Utah if you want to. It gets pretty hot up on the north end of it but, kinda in the aspens the whole way, headed north and then turn around and come back down, or you can take some service roads to come back to the North Rim itself. [Ranger Dave] Kinda develop your own loop so to speak, take the Arizona Trail and then take a different road back? [Joey] For sure. [Ranger Skye] Exactly. [Joey] The Arizona Tail is awesome. Its very smooth fun single track, there’s not too many chunky sections of it, its just like flowy through the aspens. You’re kinda going through forested areas, then you pop out in the meadows. It’s a really cool experience to not see anyone and you are in this huge meadow by yourself. The single track is really fun, just ripping through those meadows. [Ranger Dave] Do you feel like just a few people use it a day, or do you really have it to yourself? [Joey] I think it depends on the season. If it’s the middle of through hiking season, a lot of times in the spring, they are trying to complete the Arizona Trail while its still cool in the lower elevations, but up here if you ride in July, August, you’re still at pretty high elevations so its not too hot of temperatures. And there’s not many through hikers. We might have seen one or two other users on the AZT headed north from the park. There’s fire lookouts and just awesome forests, we are always finding fossils too, like, fossils in the Kaibab, and a pretty fun trail I would highly recommend it to anyone. [Ranger Dave] It’s a really cool feature and I feel like when I tell people, have you tried the Arizona Trail, people are not interested, so often. Its refreshing to actually have people want to use that trail. And its somewhere where our parks staff is sending people all the time and they don’t want to hear about it so… [Ranger Skye] If you have a bike its excellent, and even if you are on foot, there’s wild raspberries growing along the side of the trail. The aspens are just gorgeous. [Joey] I think everyone is looking for that view of the canyon off the rim, like no one wants to hike away from the canyon but they don’t realize that the AZT eventually just gets you back to the rim, the further you go, just outside the park, you are back on the East Rim, looking down into the House Rock Valley and the Vermillion Cliffs and it’s just gorgeous. [Ranger Dave] Tell me a little bit about some different factors to consider when you are heading into the backcountry or biking into the backcountry. [Joey] Here on the North Rim, bring water. If you don’t want a grumpy girlfriend, bring lots of water. If you can pack it on your bike, pack as many bottles or bladders as you possibly can just because there is very, very scarce opportunity for water. Sometimes we will bring a water filter just in case we find a spring or something or you run out of water, you just never know what you are going to encounter. It does get hot, sometimes you are exposed when you are in those meadows, its just really nice to have extra water. You can always bring water home, but you can’t get extra water when you are out there. [Ranger Dave] Right, so even for day trips, you are doing that? [Joey] Oh yeah! For sure. [Ranger Skye] Even for day trips. [Joey] We will fill a bunch of bladders and bottles. [Ranger Skye] Especially on the park roads, there’s days where you might not encounter any vehicles out there too so its good to just be entirely self-supported with all the supplies you need to fix a flat, and extra water, like a couple of liters extra in case you encounter trouble out there. [Joey] And definitely bike repair tools. Like bring two tubes, don’t just bring one extra tube, like bring a multi tool, read up on what you can bring to fix your bike. Flat tires are the biggest thing. Just have a knowledge of your bike and a knowledge of like oh if my chain falls off, I can get it back on. Don’t go into the back country without any knowledge of that and just expect your bike to work great. Because working at the shop you just see so many people come in with small problems that could have been fixed out there on the trail, but they just had no idea how to do it. If you’re out at Point Sublime good luck getting back, like, you don’t have the best service and if you don’t have the right tools that going to be a tough ride home, or walk home. [Ranger Dave] Do you feel like you need more knowledge than the average cyclist to do some of these rides, just because you are more independent? Maybe getting help is a lot harder if you do need help? [Ranger Skye] Yeah, I would say so. You’re just pretty far from resources out here. I think the nearest public bike shop is probably St. George, which is 3 hours away. Maybe Flagstaff is the closest. [Joey] Yeah, and to just have backcountry knowledge, not just bike knowledge, but have like an all around knowledge of what’s going on. Maybe bring a space blanket because if you’re out there a first aid kit is something I usually try to bring with us, and some emergency supplies because, what if you crash? What if you break a wheel? What if you have to wait for help and its in the afternoon, and help might be a long ways away. Or your partner has to ride in to get help. You don’t know how long you could potentially be out there. [Ranger Dave] So probably lights too and things like that? [Skye and Joey] Lights. [Ranger Skye] Paper map. [Joey] Snacks. [Ranger Dave] Paper maps are something that I don’t think most people are using when they cycle. So that’s a good one to point out. [Ranger Skye] Its nice to have if you’re not familiar with the area. I think the roads are pretty well marked. In the Kiabab, but there are so many junctions. I use the mapping app Gia, and it’s really useful for planning routes, and I love using that but if that were to fail and I didn’t know where I was out there, those road are really a labyrinth to get back. [Joey] Yeah the forest around here, you just cant see for a very far distance at all. I couldn’t imagine being lost or being off the road somehow. Even being on the road if you had no map and no phone it would be really hard to find your way out. Its really disorienting once you get really deep in the trees. [Ranger Dave] For people who are just starting out, is there any other advice you would give to someone just starting to dip their toes into getting into the back country on a bike here? [Joey] Ask question, ask other people. Everyone has their own experiences, and their own views on their way to do things. They might know a little more than you, they might just have a different way of thinking about it, but that’s always something to consider. Just as questions, just ask a ranger. Ask someone else riding their bike. [Ranger Dave] Is there any kind of community you guys use? Because I know a lot of areas will use a community like at a bike shop or somewhere else, but there really aren’t any shops here. Is there an online forum or anything that you guys are using to get information about rides? [Ranger Skye] I think the best option is the backcountry office. Our staff at the backcountry office know so much about navigating this area and what’s open to bikes, what’s available, I think they would be able to point people in a good direction. [Ranger Dave] That’s a great point, they could even do a backpacking trip via bike. I know we have Hiker/Biker spots up here, so if someone is through biking or through hiking they can just roll up, get a spot for the night, they are first come first serve. But there is a number of them set aside, and you can’t even park a vehicle there so its just for hiker/biker. [Joey] Bikepacking.com as well I think there’s a couple routes in the North Rim area not necessarily in the park, but bikepacking.com they have a gear list, and they have specific routes you can do, and you can kind of add on or not add on, but they have very detailed descriptions of different routes, and stuff to bring with you when you are bikepacking. [Ranger Skye] Yeah we have been thinking of putting up a route on bikepacking.com that incorporates all of the best stuff out her. Maybe going out on the Point Sublime road, through the park, and then outside the park on the Rainbow Rim, coming back in the park along the East Rim and the Arizona Trail. We figured out a loop that would be about 80 miles. It could be a good overnight, the limiting factor is water, so it might require somebody to put out a water cache, but it’s a nice way to see a lot of these areas, especially if you don’t have a high clearance vehicle, because right now neither of us own a vehicle that would make it down the Point Sublime Road, but to be able to get out there and see it on bike is a pretty amazing way to go. [Joey] When you’re riding your bike and a bison comes running out of the woods and then runs down the road in front of you, you actually feel the power of that animal, it’s happened to us a couple of times. It’s just pretty cool to stop on your bike and see this massive 2,000 pound animal go running down the road. It really puts it into perspective. [Ranger Dave] You really are out there with the nature and it is a different thing than if you just did it in your car. [Joey] Yup. [Ranger Skye] Definitely you notice little things, there’s a spot of Point Sublime trail where there’s Columbines blooming off the side of the road. You might not notice when you are bouncing around in a Jeep and its dusty out there. On the bike you are just so much closer to everything, yeah you just notice so much more. [Joey] Good conversation... [Ranger Skye] Good conversations… [Joey] It’s a good way to clear the mind… [Ranger Dave] So, tell me about your bikes that you use. Kind of describe your setup. [Joey] I have a bunch of bikes, and I have used pretty much all of them up here. I have gravel bike that I ride on the trails around the North Rim, and a lot of the road riding that we do. I also have a $5,000 full suspension mountain bike that I will take on the AZT and just go fast and have fun, but the bike I like the most is the one I paid $200 for. Kind of custom built it myself and just built all of wheels and components on in over the years, and that’s the bike I ride more than any of them, and I have the most fun on, but Skye has a great saying… [Ranger Skye] So we call our rigid mountain bikes, they don’t have any suspension on these bikes our fun bikes. Yeah and they are good for dirt roads, they are good for gravel, they are good for trail. We watched this documentary on Youtube, a while back and its something we pulled from there, its ride what you brung. That’s kind of a good expression I think that can be applied to North Rim biking. [Joey] Yeah you don’t need a fancy bike, you don’t need the newest highest quality bike. There is literally something here to ride any type of bike on, and that’s probably the best part about it. [Ranger Dave] So anything else that you want to add? [Joey] Quit driving your car. Ride a bike. [Ranger Dave] Behind The Scenery is brought to you by the interpretation team at Grand Canyon National Park. We gratefully acknowledge the native peoples on who’s ancestral homelands we gather as well as diverse and vibrant native communities who make their home here today.

Butterfly Effect: citizens count! Dec 16, 2021

Grand canyon is a colorful place, but the creatures who live hear are just as dazzling Listen in to learn more about some of Grand Canyonb's most colorful characters and how they contribute to the community of life in the canyon and your backyard at home.

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Kid: Wait what is the net? Robb: This is for catching butterflies and then we are using cameras to take pictures of butterflies. Once a day each year I lead a butterfly count here at the Grand Canyon and we are actually looking at the butterflies that are here in 2021 and we are going to compare to the butterflies that were around in 1950 and 1940 and 1930. You remember 1930? Kid: Yes Robb: Isn’t that great there were butterflies all over the place. We are going to compare. Sometimes in science it is really fun to be able to have comparison. Butterflies, like a lot of animals and plants, we can actually see if changes are happening. We think that the climate is warming really quick, that’s been the trend. Even rain, precipitation, and snow is changing. And then plants will change and then even butterflies will change. Some butterflies will be new. There’s these ones I saw last year and they’re from Mexico. We’re not in Mexico, that’s way over there! So there might be some Mexico butterflies coming across to the US and up into Canada eventually. Emily: Hi, I’m Emily, a park ranger at Grand Canyon. You were just listening to Park Guide Robb Hannawacker, talking to a visitor on the North Kaibab trail. This is Behind the Scenery, a podcast that gives you a glimpse into the park’s goings on. I’ve pieced together a few interviews with staff here at Grand Canyon, discussing the topic of butterflies and why they’re an important part of the ecosystem here in the park. Allie/Kiersten: This is Allie Moskal and Kiersten Kolstad. We are Interpretive park rangers here at Desert View on the South Rim, we’re seasonal rangers. Emily: I asked Kiersten why the park holds a butterfly count. Listen in as she and Robb discuss the importance of butterflies as indicators of climate change. Why do we count butterflies? Kiersten: Butterflies are like a really great indicator on climate and the environment and habitat, butterflies are gonna be greatly impacted by habitat loss whether it’s by direct human activity or indirect like climate change. Also migration of butterflies can help us learn a lot about climate change, why patterns are moving, why is data different from 20, 30, 40 years ago, it can help us clue in on the health of our environment. So I didn’t realize butterflies did play such a crucial role in identifying larger environmental issues. Robb: Kind of exciting, but also a little bit scary honestly. I know that our civilization has done pretty well with a stable climate. Hopefully we’ll try to make it stay stable in the future. That’ll be best for us and probably best for all the other living things too. Emily: I followed up with Robb to understand how the warming trends affect insects. Robb: Generally speaking climate change is bad for biodiversity but since insects the trend, they tend to favor warmer temperatures than colder, some of them might actually expand in range including really amazing butterflies that are currently in Mexico but now being seen in what’s now the United States a lot more. Emily: So now that we’ve learned why it’s important to study butterflies, let’s get practical. How do you actually count butterflies? Robb gave us some practical advice during the count. Robb: Well, the trick is, is you want it to go into the net. Kiersten: Oh, oh Allie try that. (laughing) Robb: I’m so good at advice. (laughing) It’s not going to go in there by itself. Or it could you never know? Allie: I got it! Robb: Yay! Then lift up and it’ll fly toward the top hopefully. Kiersten: Fly to the top! Robb: Is it doing it? You’re getting it. Let’s have a look Emily: We caught and identified a variety of butterflies but there is one special butterfly sought after here on the North Rim. Allie is eager to find one. Allie: So do you guys ever see the Kaibab Swallowtail? Robb: Yeah. Allie: Is it pretty rare to see? Robb: It’s always a treat. Allie: Always a treat. I would love to see them, that would make my day. Robb: I’d love you guys to see it too. Emily: What is this special butterfly Allie is hoping to see? Let’s listen to Robb discuss the Kaibab Swallowtail with some visitors on the trail. Robb: It’s a special butterfly, it’s really sought after by collectors and a lot of them feel upset because it’s hard for them to get permit to collect in the park. We actually have a really interesting story about poachers. Actually it was here and other parts of the world, you’re not allowed to collect at all in national parks. I have actually permit to bring them back to the insect collection. Visitor: Yeah, it’s for science. Robb: Exactly. But for myself, if I was just bringing these home for myself to look at, put in a box and stockpile. To me, that’s kind of weird. Visitor: It’s super selfish! Like collecting arrowheads on the trail, ‘no this belongs to me now,’ no provenance, no nothing. Robb: And one step beyond there that is really scary, and it’s addictive I think is, I could sell these. Back in the 80s they were selling them for $300 for a male and female pair, but today it’s probably much higher. So our rangers need to keep an eye out for poachers. Emily: Wait, tell me more about these poachers… Robb: So what they did instead of falling off into the cliff like I nearly did, they would walk down the well maintained, albeit a lot of mule urine, North Kaibab trail and they would find these little side canyons that had the host plant that these butterflies really, really like. There’s like an oil inside of that plant and they just have to have it as a nutrient otherwise they won’t survive. They will go ahead and just walk off trail and grab as many of these caterpillars. But the caterpillar it’s got the most ridiculous, I mean it’s like a clown. It is black and pink striped horizontal with orange polka dots, so it’s like some sort of cool sock you’d wear from the 1960s, that’s what this crazy thing looks like. So they’re easy to spot and they’re just grabbing these things and then basically raising them at their houses until they became butterflies. They were catching some butterflies with nets, and they were like these little collapsible nets that they had that Bioquip sells. I think they called it the ‘park service special,’ just something you could hide really well and if a ranger was to pass by you could say ‘oh I’m just checking out these plants here, I’m a botanist’ or ‘I’m looking for birds, see I’ve got binoculars’ and you could hide your net really easy. But in the case of the Kaibab Swallowtail, they didn’t really have to net anything. In fact if you net it, that butterfly already had a life, it’s probably reproduced, it’s been flying around for a while and it will show on the wings, all these imperfections. For me, collecting for science, I don’t care if it’s got imperfections as long as it’s identifiable. I think it’s beautiful whether it’s fresh from pupa or not. These guys they’re selling them on the black market so they’re looking for pristine and they’re selling them since gendered sepsis of the two, the male and female look a little different, they would sell them in pairs so male and female pair. Back in the late 80s they were getting $300 each pair. So those caterpillars they raise them in their houses and as soon as they emerge from their pupae they are dead day one as an adult they never had a chance to get out there and do their adult thing, which by and large is to reproduce, so kinda sad but they didn’t want the imperfections that nature brings to their butterflies. So that’s how they made quite a lot of money and I’m not sure if the punishment was enough. Honestly, I don’t know if it’s ongoing or not but it’s the one and only case I know of. Besides they were actually poaching other butterflies around the world but in North America mostly national parks and fish and wildlife areas and eventually they got caught. Emily: Wow what a story. Turns out though this coveted butterfly isn’t even an endemic subspecies after all. We have new scientific research Robb will explain. Robb: The Kaibab swallowtail is not a subspecies it is not a separate segregate. It is a darker population of an extant, Minori subspecies of the Indra Swallowtail, so that’s really recent, it hasn’t been published yet. As it turns out to disappoint poor Baird, who, he’s the author, he’s the one that determined ‘hey this is a new species, or a new subspecies’ looks like he’s wrong, but I think it’s understandable. The phenology, that’s kinda how a gene is expressed, you can see it usually in what a butterfly or organism looks like. Emily: That was a lot of science talk. But let’s be honest most of us don’t have degrees in life sciences. That doesn’t mean we can’t participate in events like the butterfly count. Allie and Kiersten will elaborate. You all were citizen scientists for the North Rim butterfly count. Can you kind of define what that means to be a citizen scientist? Allie: Yeah a citizen scientist is a volunteer that participates in various projects that help the park service and every year the national park service puts on a butterfly count every July to keep track of the species that are living in the area. Kiersten: Also I feel like there are a lot of things that you can do to help park efforts without needing like an in-depth science background. And so being a citizen scientist anyone can learn how to identify and count butterflies. There are lots of things in the park that you can volunteer with that you don’t necessarily need an in-depth science background for, maybe with a little training and then you can help with a larger effort. That’s kind of crucial for being a citizen scientist. Allie: able to collect some specimens, so just learning to identify species, learning their habitat, their host plant, how to collect the species. We definitely learned a lot from Robb. Emily: Would you recommend the citizen science project to friends and coworkers? Kiersten: Oh yeah it was a lot of fun, again, it helps you find a new way to appreciate your environment. I feel like a lot of people go on a hikes and are like ‘oh it’s so beautiful out here’ but there are so many small intricacies in nature and just having that training to be able to look and identify new things and understand what role they play in the environment, it just adds a new sense of appreciation for nature. So I absolutely would recommend it to anybody. Allie: Kiersten and I were both really excited to come up to the North Rim. This was Kiersten’s first time to the North Rim, this was my second. So to be able to explore another part of the park that we work at was really exciting. Emily: So do you have any advice for people that are listening from outside the Grand Canyon that maybe they could do to help support the pollinator population in their home communities? Kiersten: Also because butterfly count did go to the North American Butterfly Association I did start looking on their website and it looks like they do have some efforts where you can start arrange your own community butterfly count. You can get resources there for what butterflies are in your area. That would be a great place to start to get some resources on how to help support these populations. Like Allie was saying, if you have the ability to plant anything that any native pollinator likes, it’s always a good idea, a lot of our pollinators are threatened. Emily: Yeah, we’ll definitely post links to some of those websites where people can find out about their regional native plants that would support pollinators and help them with some basic how to plant gardens in their home communities. Thank you so much for sharing your experience with us, do you have any final message for the listeners? Kiersten: It’s really cool to get out there and to learn a new skill and spend your day out in nature. That sounds so silly and maybe cliché but I think everybody should go find something local in their area. It doesn’t have to be a national park, it could be a local park, get out and volunteer. You really learn a new way to appreciate your environment and want to work for protecting and preserving that environment. So I hope everyone does find something they can get behind in their home town. Allie: It’s definitely easy to find somewhere to volunteer. Pretty much every national park has some type of citizen scientist project going on. I did one back at Indiana Dunes National Park for collection of sap and making maple syrup. There’s always something going on, might not be a national park, but for sure state parks are always looking for people to clean up trash. I see that all the time, so looking for volunteers to do that even. Just committing to your community to help make it a better place. Kiersten and I had a really great time at the North Rim doing the butterfly count, really happy we were able to come out and join you. Emily: Allie and Kiersten left the butterfly count with some new knowledge, but also new friends and new perspective. I will end this podcast with some final thoughts from Robb on that same note. Robb: You know, the ultimate goal is not to inventory butterflies as much as it is to encourage people that have an interest I nature to observe and often times as we are humans we learn from each other, we pick up on each other’s passions. So I think that’s really the ultimate goal of butterfly counts, is to get people that have similar interests together and to kind of enrich that social psychology of nature observation. I think it’s something that we’ve always had, ever since we’ve been people we’ve always been nature observers. I think there’s something very therapeutic and enriching in butterfly watching, bird watching. The same thing goes I think for people who hunt and fish. Might not be everybody’s bag but I still think it’s important to our psychology to recognize that we are a biophilic species. We are not something that is separate from nature. We need it. We need it for inspiration and learning and to learn more about ourselves. It’s just something a little bit innate in nature observation and appreciating all the variety and beauty not just the extreme geology of the Grand Canyon but all the little tiny things too can actually be pretty fabulous if you spend the energy to look into it.

Blurb for website: Have you ever thought, “Wow, wouldn’t it be cool to be a park ranger?” Well, it turns out you can be, for a day at least! Join us for a conversation about how to participate in the scientific research operations of a National Park as a Citizen Scientist. You can make a difference and probably have some fun too!

Theodore Roosevelt: A Complicated Legacy Nov 29, 2021

No one is infallible, not our heroes, not our leaders, not even those who pioneered for the preservation of the natural world. President Theodore Roosevelt left a complex legacy. While he helped to create the National Park Service and set out to protect and preserve public lands, he excluded Indigenous voices. What would it be like to sit down and talk with Teddy today? —What would you ask him? In this episode, park visitors share how they respond to this multifaceted human and the legacy he left behind.

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Show notes: Over the summer of 2021, a temporary exhibit was placed up at Roosevelt Point on the North Rim. Three times during the season, the prompts were changed, and this podcast is a digitization of the visitor responses that were shared in a journal asking questions related to Theodore Roosevelt.

LAUREN CISNEROS (HOST) My name is Ranger Lauren. Over the last two months I created a temporary exhibit at Roosevelt Point on the North Rim. I simply wanted to create a unique visitor experience at a beautiful viewpoint with the name of a very famous President. What I didn't know were the complexities that Teddy Roosevelt contained. This is Behind The Scenery. After a lot of research, I decided to create something that visitors could see all sides of Roosevelt in a short and concise manner. At Roosevelt Point, there is a very clear view of the Bright Angel Fault and you can clearly see the vivid colors and the various layers of rock in the Grand Canyon.

At first, I had very plain print outs of quotes said by TR and a photo of him with a different prompt. These laminated pieces of paper were stapled to an old and bare informational display board.

These quotes were ripped down by visitors three times. I had to re-print and re-evaluate why this was happening. After talking with co-workers, we came up with the idea to make it look more professional by branding it and creating an all in one poster using inDesign. This idea worked, and the only person who has ripped it down since is me!

I was drawn to create some kind of programming here because at the same time in developing this, I was researching a ton on wilderness and Teddy Roosevelt’s involvement. I saw this as an opportunity to bring this viewpoint back to life with some interp.

After a few evolutions I found a NPS brown display case and put my prompts and quotes designed together in one document in a visually appealing way.

There was nothing fancy about it. I found an old waterproof box laying around and found some NPS staff issued journals for visitors to write in. I found a brick and placed it on top of the box, so it didn’t blow away! Honestly, I never anticipated for this to last all season long.

When I started working at the North Rim, my understanding of TR was that he was the father of the conservation movement. I really didn’t know about his involvement with the eugenics movement or his views on race. In the winter months I teach adaptive skiing at Beaver Creek in Colorado so hearing about his views on eugenics was pretty upsetting.

The first quote read, “The light has gone out of my life” the day that he lost his mother and wife on the same day. Teddy Roosevelt was inspired by the Grand Canyon and went into nature often with conservationist John Muir to grieve.

The second quote posted was, “The only man who doesn’t make mistakes is the man who doesn’t do anything.” Roosevelt protected wildlife and public lands by creating the United States Forest Service (USFS) and establishing 150 national forests, 51 federal bird reserves, 4 national game preserves, 5 national parks, and 18 national monuments by enabling the 1906 American Antiquities Act. TR protected over 230 million acres of public land.

The third quote read, “I don’t go as far to think that all good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn’t like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.”

TR was a leader in the eugenics movement (“a belief that the genetic quality of the human race can be improved by the use of selective breeding”), and a believer in the white, European decent being superior to other ethnicities. The quote above is an example of that. However, without TR – the National Park Service might have never been created.

With all these quotes, I wanted the visitor to really feel empowered to write about their opinion of TR. I had three prompts I changed out throughout the summer.

The first one was: What would you most like to discuss with Teddy Roosevelt here, now? What would you say? I was genuinely interested in what others knew and understood about Teddy Roosevelt.

OHLSON: June 23rd, 2021 While I am glad you fought to protect our world; I wish you endeavored to protect the people to whom it belonged. You have preserved the rugged beauty for many white generations.

A complicated man.

CISNEROS: June 26th, 2021 “Teddy, Without the death of your loved ones, would you have NOT saved our precious lands? Would you have continued to hunt until the last animals were poached? Would you still be the typical human; death and destruction of our planet?”

KENT: June 28th, 2021 Manifest destiny was a white settler practice of colonialism that justified the oppression of our indigenous peoples.

What is the name of this land? Names spoken and carried by the wind over this canyon for thousands of years.

White names for ancient places erases our history.

We are not in the past.

CISNEROS: June 29th, 2021 the light has gone out of my life too, Teddy… when I lost my children to drugs.

A grieving mother with a broken heart.

CISNEROS: June 29th, 2021 Though history is complicated by the many interpretations, biases and perspectives of those involved and those observing, we are thankful for the good intentions that helped to protect places like this from the worst impulses of humanity.

More gratitude is owed to the first Natives who demonstrated what it means to live in harmony with nature. Always remember that humans are a part of nature, not part from it.

CISNEROS: Based on the multitudes that TR contained, would you change the name of this viewpoint? Why or why not? With all that is going on in the world today – I wanted to know what others thought if we should or should not re-name this viewpoint. TR was complicated – should we honor him? Or should we not?

HANSEN: July 3rd, 2021 Dearest Teddy, so glad your wisdom preserved this beautiful sight. If a man or woman spent a lifetime making nothing but mistakes, you had the vision, wisdom and drive to preserve this great canyon that in itself is worthy of having your name attached to it.

CISNEROS: July 5th, 2021 Keep Teddy’s name at this beautiful spot to commemorate all he did to preserve this American Landscape. A man cannot and should not be boiled down to a singular act – good or bad but can be recognized for both. In this respect, Teddy Roosevelt can certainly be celebrated for this contribution.

I am sorry though that we treated the indigenous people with hate.

CISNEROS: Mr. President, you were a man of your time! It is impossible for me to judge you by our current standards as I would hope I would not be judged by people 100-150 years from now.

The good you accomplished by establishing the National Park System is greatly appreciated by thousands today. For this and other good measures you performed, we are grateful. For the tragedies you endured, we share your sorrow.

CATON: July 8th, 2021 “Hey Teddy, you inspired me as a child to become the Geology Professor that I am today. You were a great man, but also a racist man. I can’t look past that fact, but you still are the man that helped pushed me to what I am today. Thank you & shame on you.”

BARDEN: July 12th, 2021 “Dear TR, thank you for your wonderful efforts to preserve such beautiful lands. However, I must disagree with your opinion about European decent being superior. If you were alive today, you would see how wonderful diversity is in America. Surely a man with your intelligence and passion for nature would agree.”

CISNEROS: “Mr. President, I have read about you extensively in my younger years and became a great admirer of yours. Your accomplishments are many and the creation of this National Park and the National Park System that followed was but one of them. I do remember, despite my admiration, being shocked and saddened when I read about your feelings and attitudes towards Native Americans. But I also know that you had travelled the west and spoke to many settlers there who described what they saw as atrocities committed by Native Americans, who were only trying to protect themselves from their lands.

Knowing what I do of your character, I would like to think that were you alive today, your attitudes would have evolved.

CISNEROS: July 13th, 2021 Dear Teddy Roosevelt The world is different now. It is a lot more different than I think you’d ever consider. We are facing challenges you’d never begin to imagine, and I’m not sure we should be asking for your advice either… but that is the big question, isn’t it? Are you someone to look up to? Are you a hero? Does the good that you did in the word erase you from your crimes? I understand that you grew up in a world where this was normal… but does this excuse you? Does the time of your birth excuse the prejudice that you pushed into the very roots of yourself? You led well, that can’t be denied. I am just not entirely sure that it means you are right.

Rest in peace, or maybe not.

SHALLA: July 14th, 2021 Dear Teddy, your quote, “the only man who doesn’t make mistakes is the man who doesn’t do anything” seems prescient considering the contrast of this record. You made mistakes, even horrific ones. All men do. But you also made triumphant choices, like this park here. Let’s stop highlighting the worst things someone has done, but in most cases, let’s remember the honorable things people have done. We all have complex stories, let’s remember that.

CISNEROS: How do you form opinions about people? I wanted visitors to reflect within themselves for this prompt. I definitely once again was taken away by the stories shared.

VELTKAMP: August 11, 2021 I love every human’s soul. But I don’t have to love every human’s personality. I just have to remember the difference. BRENNAN: August 2021 Laurell K. Hamilton said, “There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.” Everybody suffers in their own specific way, no matter who they are, what they look like; everyone is the same. We hurt the same, we just perceive it differently and have other ways of expressing it. So just because someone looks okay on the outside, does not mean they are okay. It is OK to hurt, it is not a weakness. KRAUS: August 2021 All people do great and terrible things. We can only focus or judge them, hoping the good outweighs the bad. Is the good in your life something you’ll be remembered for? Or is it the bad? CRISPIN: August 31, 2021 Teddy R was a contradicting person. In many ways he was wonderful, in other ways, less so. I think that some of the ugly things he believed was a function of the times he lived in. Sadly, in some ways he never overcame them. However, I tend to believe if he lived today, he would have never said or thought those things. Teddy did a lot of the things that have created the improved world we enjoy today. His actions more than his words are what I remember him for. Actions are what I judge others by more than their words. May we all seek to live in such a way that make our actions worth remembering. May also such actions outweigh the dumb things we have said at one point or another. P.KENT: AUGUST 14 2021 An opinion of a person is based upon what the observer brings in their experience. If they are taught prejudice from an early age it is hard for them to form another opinion. With personal experiences with another person who is from a different background, we can learn that what we were taught may be incorrect. Prejudice can be washed away by experiencing new places and peoples and cultures where we can learn to appreciate the diversity. Roosevelt certainly appreciated the diversity of nature in establishing the national parks. For this aspect of Roosevelt, we can all be thankful. It was not taught to him as prejudice was taught. He came to the realization through experience. Perhaps if he had spent the time to learn about other cultures, he would have come to appreciate human diversity as well. VELTKAMP: August 26, 2021 Sometimes we must respect a person’s deed from his thoughts, or a person’s professional accomplishments from his personal demons.

GOODKIN: August 15, 2021 I base my opinions on actions and not words and realizing that anyone can change! I was once addicted to drugs for many years. Today I am successful in my career and have lived two lifestyles in one lifetime. My life today is a blessing. I am a good mother, daughter, and friend. Today I always try to think about what someone else is going through. You never know. Treat all people with respect!

GOODKIN: August 26, 2021 I believe that whatever negative thoughts TR had were far outweighed by the good that he did. The same with John Muir. Washington and Jefferson owned slaves. Should we disown them? I think not. Without them, the country would not be the great country it is.

GOODKIN: August 2021 We are not defined by the color of our skin or where we are from… were defined by how we treat others.

MACLANE: August 22, 2021 It varies. It can be the way they look at me or others. It can be the words they use to describe the world around them. It can be their body language, whether they appear closed off or open with facial or body expression.

I have found however, that my own meter for judgement is skewed. I limit my own ability to learn from others and expand my own viewpoint. I believe most people are fundamentally good, but they may size up and judge other individuals in an effort to protect themselves.

This behavior is not something we should immediately dismiss and forgive, but we cannot go backwards. We cannot erase. Those who are exposed to different ways of living outside of their comfort zones have the power to know that different doesn't mean bad.

With that power, the informed must challenge themselves to continue pushing past their comfort zone and truly empathize with the darkest souls and most hurtful people. It's hard work, but everyone who hurts others is doing so from a place of fear. There is some exception for truly disturbed folks.

My advice: Be patient with yourself and others. Continue to learn and challenge yourself to ask "why" when someone upsets you. Their actions may not come from a place of hate, but rather fear. And your own understanding may come from a sense of fear and an instinct to protect against the unknown. Understanding their fear gives you the power to help them see the light.

VELTKAMP: August 22, 2021 Society. In the world we’ve grown up in, at least personally, we are born and made to judge. I don’t believe there is much of a specific reason why. It’s just the hateful world we’ve all grown up in. Every day we judge both the smallest things. Our hair. Our eyes. The stretch marks on our bodies. The way someone might look & their size. Yet, I don’t think we ever just step back and admire the beauty in every person. Opinions are formed from hatred, pain, happiness, and so much more. But we can change to see the world as beautiful. I hope anyone who reads this can find some happiness. Be it from this letter or from the squirrels under the sun. Find a little happiness. You are loved. You are valued. If you don’t believe in yourself, I will. Be happy, safe, and healthy everyone.

From a young 10th grader in the Grand Canyon!

CISNEROS: We gratefully acknowledge the Native peoples on whose ancestral homelands we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant Native communities who make their home here today.

CISNEROS: Thank you for listening and for anyone listening that participated in this project – I wanted to say thank you for sharing your ideas, thoughts, and personal stories. I am so inspired by the responses I received, and I am constantly learning something new every day.

CISNEROS: Behind The Scenery is brought to you by the interpretation team at Grand Canyon National Park.

Dude, It's Just a Rock Nov 23, 2021

A small piece of Vishnu Shist nestled near the Colorado River for perhaps millions of years. Until it caught the eye of one 17 year old with an impressive rock collection. His story begins with carrying his rocky burden out of the canyon and follows his rocky path to the edge of redemption. It’s the story of a young man becoming a ranger. It's everyone's story of redemption. How do you touch renewal at the rocky bottom?

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Transcription: DUDE, ITS JUST A ROCK

(Guitar strumming music) Doug: “… kind of like the Blues Brothers. I was “on a mission from God.” I was going git this rock somehow back into the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Because I had rock remorse. I had rock regret. And I figured by returning the rock I could gain a little bit of rock redemption. And maybe even a little bit of rock renewal.

Jesse: Grand Canyon is defined by rock. The colorful layers, stacked on top of each other, tell the story of how the earth has changed. I’m Jesse, a park ranger on the North Rim and today, on the podcast, we bring you the story of one of those rocks. A small piece of Vishnu Shist nestled near the Colorado River for perhaps millions of years. Until it caught the eye of one 17 year old. It a story of a rock leaving, then returning to the Grand Canyon. It’s the story of a young man becoming a ranger. It’s the story of redemption. It’s another story from ranger Doug Crispin. His story begins here.

(Soft guitar strumming music)

Our family did a vacation to the Grand Canyon where I fell in love with the canyon. I asked my parents to drop me off and leave me, which they did. And that started a park career. Between my Junior and Senior year in high school I worked as a bus boy at the El Tovar Hotel right on the south rim of Grand Canyon National Park. And during my time there that summer I was able to make four backpack trips all the way to the bottom of the canyon.

On one of those backpack trips I had my eye on picking up a souvenir … a rock from Vishnu Shist formation. I knew enough of the Grand Canyon, that I knew that was the oldest rock available in the canyon, or layers exposed. And I thought if I could pick up a Vishnu Shist rock, that would be pretty cool to add to my rock collection.

In the seventh grade, I had a science teacher who inspired me to learn about earth sciences, geology and rocks. And that’s how I got interested in collecting rocks. My parents encouraged me to start a rock collection, which I did. My mother was a librarian at a local high school. She had connections with the public library in town. And she was able to arrange for me to display my rock collection in the local public library. In a glass case. The newspaper reporter and photographer came out and took a picture of sitting right in front of the glass case. I was age 13. It was pretty heady stuff to have my picture taken when I was just in the seventh grade … a picture in the newspaper.

I picked up that pink rock … its about the size of an egg, I packed it out of the canyon, and I just kind of hung to it over the years. I kind of lost interest in collecting rocks in High School. Became more interested in body surfing and auto mechanics and backpacking and other interests. But for some reason, I hung onto this rock as I got rid of all the rest of my rocks in my rock collection.

Song (based on the Beatles song “Get Back”): Once there was a lad who Went to the Grand Canyon Where he found a special stone Picked it up and put it in his back pocket Then he took the rock back home Back ………

Doug’s summer working at the El Tovar started him on the path to becoming a career park ranger. The rock from the bottom of the Grand Canyon followed him as he moved from park to park, first as a summer seasonal, then as a permanent ranger. It travelled with him to 13 different national parks, before he and his wife settled down in Oregon.

Twenty years after I worked at the Grand Canyon, I was living in Oregon. I married a former park ranger. We moved to Oregon, started a family and our son was a year and one-half years old. And I decided to create a time capsule for his second birthday. For Christmas, I sent out empty envelopes to all four of his grandparents who were still alive, my wife and I had an empty envelope each. We had a couple months to decide what treasures and items we wanted to put into our personal envelopes which would be locked into our son’s time capsule, on the occasion of his second birthday. I remember a few things I put in there: my college ponytail that I cut off, my draft card from the Vietnam War era, a marathon medal, and I had also put that Grand Canyon rock in there.

We sealed up the time capsule. It sat on the shelve of our son’s bedroom for the next 16 years. And when he graduated from High School, and turned 18, we called for a gathering of the clan. And we were going to open up our son’s time capsule. Which we did. It was a grand occasion. I notified the television and the print press. And people came from 6/7 different states and we had a great time opening up the time capsule.

I took custody of all of the contents of the time capsule as my son went away to college, and later became a world traveler, living twice in Thailand, Germany and currently living in Japan.

The rock, accompanied by Doug’s college ponytail, and the other contents of the time capsule, sat on a shelf in the garage. It wasn’t until the spring of 2021, that Doug was organizing his things, and getting ready to return to the North Rim for the summer, that he rediscovered the time capsule. He was immediately drawn to the small pink rock. As he picked it up, the memories came flooding back. There was also something new.

And then as I held that Grand Canyon rock in my hand, I thought back to my career, as a career park ranger. Thinking about the many times that I have experienced kids, primarily, that would walk into my ranger station or my visitor center, and proudly showing me their treasure that they have found in the park. Treasures like a freshly picked flower, a pinecone, a live lizard, a shiny rock, things like that. And it was my job as the attendant park ranger to somehow give them an educational message: “yes that’s a beautiful flower that you have there young lady, but really you shouldn’t pick up rocks, shouldn’t pick up the flowers, you shouldn’t pick up the pine cones and what not, those are all protected items. That’s a very pretty flower you have there but please put it back where you found it.”

It was difficult, but it was a duty that park ranger across America have to do regularly. In fact yesterday, in my duties, I saw a woman picking flowers in a meadow and I had to go remind her “those are nice flowers, take all the photographs you want, but please don’t pick the flowers and put them back where you found them.”

So here I am, a career park ranger, with a rock from the bottom of the Grand Canyon. And I started to develop a little bit of guilt and remorse over having that rock. But it wasn’t my rock. I did have to contact my son in Japan and ask permission … if I could return that rock to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. I explained “that I gave it to you as the second generation, it was part of my really cool rock collection when I was a kid, but, it was good intentions, but a bad idea and illegal. And I would like to return it.”

And so he was on board with that. He said “sure, go ahead. I think that’s a good cause.”

So then I developed a mission. I was on a mission … kind of like the Blues Brothers. I was “on a mission from God.” I was going git this rock somehow back into the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Because I had rock remorse. I had rock regret. And I figured by returning the rock I could gain a little bit of rock redemption. And maybe even a little bit of rock renewal.

(song) Back Put it back Put it back to where it once belonged “Put the rock back, son!”

Doug brought the rock with him when he returned to the North Rim for the summer. At the beginning of each season, rangers sit down with their supervisors and discuss their long term and short term goals.

Typically, young up and coming rangers say “I want to be Chief Ranger someday. I want to be park superintendent in ten years, I would like to be Park Director in 20 years, or something like that. But my goals were a little odd, I guess. I revealed my plan to my boss. I said I have the rock I picked up 52 years ago and I am on a mission to return it back into the bottom of the Grand Canyon. If I can do that, I’ll feel I had a successful season.

And I thought … she probably thought “well that’s kind of a weird goal and objective,” but you know I was just keepin’ it real and being honest with her. So she was one of the few people I shared my plan with.

And my plan was to try and get into shape, and hike that rock back down into the canyon on a long weekend if I could do it. But I kept my plan on the down low for two reasons.

One, I had a friend of mine I know if I shared it with him his reaction would be “Dude, it’s just a rock. Why bother? It’s no big deal, man. Just let it go. Forget about it. You’re making too big a deal out of it.” So I definitely didn’t want to share it with that friend!

And the other thing I had on my mind … it’s not easy, you know, at my age, to make it all the way to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. From the North Rim side it’s even harder. So I didn’t want to announce my plan and not be able to achieve that goal. So I did keep it on the down low.

Hiking in Grand Canyon is hard. To get to the Colorado River from the North Rim and back requires hiking nearly 30 miles with more than 12,000 feet of elevation change. Temperatures can be extreme. For highs near 120 degrees at the river, to lows in the teens on the North Rim. It is extremely important that hikers choose the right season, an itinerary that is suitable for their fitness and experience, and train for their trip.

Fortunately for Doug, the best place to prepare for hiking in the Grand Canyon, is Grand Canyon.

So in the ensuing month working on the job I did some patrols on the job, lots of hiking after work and on weekends. I logged over 80 trail training miles, including four long day hikes into the Grand Canyon. And about a month later I figured I’m in shape, I think I can try this.

I reported to the Backcountry Office, secured a three-day backpacking permit, loaded up my pack, including my Grand Canyon rock and headed down the Canyon.

The first day I hiked 6 ½ miles, down 4200 feet. Set up camp for two nights … a place called Cottonwood Camp halfway between the North Rim and the Colorado River and Phantom Ranch. Day two was the big challenging day of my trip. My plan was to wake up early, with a day pack only, and hike about a 15 mile day hike, all the way to the Colorado River and then back to my Cottonwood Camp. Which I left shortly after 4 in the morning and by 7, I was at Phantom Ranch, which is not on the river. It’s a short distance up stream from the river but there I rested and recovered. I wrote a couple postcards, and then threw my day pack on again.

I said, you know, I have to make it all the way to the Colorado River. And boom, but as soon and I saw and heard the river and smelled the Colorado River it brought me back 52 years to when I was a kid and first hiked to the bottom of the canyon.

I got really excited at that point. I pulled the rock out of my pack. I wondered over towards the Silver Bridge, one of the two footbridges across the river. I pondered the history of the rock, and gave it a big toss, threw it down towards, not into the river, but down towards the river. And I said goodbye to the rock. And, I felt great! It felt wonderful. If it’s possible to have a sweaty pack and hiking in over 100 degree temperatures, I floated all the way back to Cottonwood Campground. I just felt I had done the right thing and it felt great.

I was back in Cottonwood Camp. Hung out in the creek the rest of the day, read a book, hung out in camp, and my mission was partly accomplished so I still had to make it out of the canyon. (song) Fifty-two years later Back at the Grand Canyon With that very special stone Hiked it to the bottom of the Grand Canyon Then he put that rock back home

Back, put it back …

So I spent my final night at Cottonwood Campground, there was no tent. I slept on top of my sleeping bag. I woke at 4 in the morning. The moon was up. I started up-trail with my red headlamp on, but after a short 5 or 10 minutes, I turned that off. I got completely accustomed to the moonlight hiking. Had the whole canyon to myself that early and I was singing Cat Stevens: I’m being followed by a moon shadow all the way up the trail until the sun came up.

I was still floating on air. And I made it back to my cabin by about 9 in the morning. Grabbed a shower. Cooked up the pizza. And I celebrated. Mission Accomplished! (Song) Put it back to where it once belonged Back Put it back Put it back to where it once belonged. “Put the rock back, son!”

Mission accomplished.

The rock that had weighted so heavily on Doug, was back where it belonged. But Doug’s mission was always about more than just the rock.

And then, I started thinking about this. Reflecting on my mission. The rock redemption story. And are there any life lessons to be learned from this? And I can say, from a personal point of view: yes. There are several.

And the most obvious life lesson is: Don’t pick up any natural or cultural items in the national parks. They are all protected by law. Leave everything that you find where it is. And I wouldn’t have gotten in this predicament all these years later.

And the other thing I thought about is: It’s never too late, or you’re never too old to do the right thing in life. If it’s the right thing to do, then do it. Who cares how old you are?

And then the bigger picture understanding I think I gained from this story was: Try to make it through life with a minimum amount of regrets.

You hear stories all the time of people who have a falling out with a family member or a friend and they never have a chance to reconnect with that person. And you have to carry around that weight of that unfulfilled, undone business on your mind for the rest of your life.

So the biggest takeaway from this story for me is: don’t have any undone business.

Do you have a thank you that has been left unsaid?

Is there somebody who has influenced you, an influential person that maybe you haven’t sat down and told them that you appreciated what they did for you? Their inspiration.

You know, is there an apology out there that you need to make?

Then my questions is: What are you waiting for?

I would say:

Write that note. Say I’m sorry. Say I love you. Say thanks.

So basically I’m saying: Throw that rock. Because, dude, it’s more than just a rock in you life.

And I can guarantee you this: if you throw that rock, if you live your life with a minimum amount of regrets, you will feel great inside, for the rest of your life.

My name is ranger Doug. I’m a summertime ranger at the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park, and this is my story of rock redemption.

(Soft guitar strumming music) -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks to Doug for sharing his story and writing the parody song Put It Back, with apologies to Paul McCartney.

Behind the scenery is brought to you by the interpretation team at Grand Canyon National Park.

Audio production is by Wayne Hartlerode with music by Doug Crispin, Hannah Veltkamp, Brian Lozano, Mike Bahrmasel, Ana Stevenson and Wayne Harterode.

We gratefully acknowledge the native people who’s on ancestral lands we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant native communities who make their home here today. (song) Back Put it back Put it back to where it once belonged Back Put it back Put it back to where it once belonged. “Put the rock back, son!”

Adam Schallau: Capturing the Canyon Oct 13, 2021

Adam Schallau never imagined what he thought was his one and only visit to Grand Canyon would lead to a decade of photographing the canyon, rim to river. Asking "How much more could there be?" he was surprised by the wonderful perspective Grand Canyon reveals when you looking behind the lens. Join a professional photographer to learn pro tips about photographing Grand Canyon

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Adam: My name is Adam Schallau and I am a full-time professional photographer, and I actually specialize in landscape photography which seems to be pretty rare nowadays. I’m a guy that came to Grand Canyon 20 years ago, thought that would be my only visit, I spent one night. I came back 10 years later and absolutely fell in love and for about the past 10 years now, my passion and my specialty has been Grand Canyon from rim to river. (Sounds of thunder and rain) Kate: My name is Kate, and you're listening to an episode of Behind the Scenery, Canyon Cuts. How did you get into photography? Adam: I grew up being really into art in general not really photography, probably like a lot of people, I didn't necessarily see photography as an art form perhaps. I saw something, as a tool for documenting, you know, what was happening. But I started out with an interest, just like a lot of kids, in drawing. That morphed into painting, mostly working in oils, but I continued experimenting with different types of art, and when I was in high school I was into working with clay on the wheel, still painting as well. Eventually, it was like “okay I got to start thinking about a real career” and art kind of got pushed to the side. So there were several years where I just didn't have a creative outlet and, uh, after High School I was invited to work at a high altitude field research station in Colorado. A place called the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, I actually spent two summers working up there. And while I was there, one of the things I did on the side, I assisted a guy who was a wildlife biologist by trade, I guess he'd say. But he was also a landscape photographer. He was in his mid-to-late fifties and had bad knees, bad back and he said “Hey, do you want to carry my gear?” This is cool, I get to climb mountains, ride mountain bikes. So I started doing that, and I honestly thought initially it was the stupidest things possible. I couldn't understand why we’d get up at 4 O’Clock in the morning to climb a mountain and photograph sunrise, set up this massive large format view camera. It was just this bizarre world to me but that was my introduction to photography. And again, initially it did not take with me. Many years later I started going on trips myself across the American West. And of course, you take your camera with you, and this is back in the film era still. I took the camera to document the trip. And after my first trip, I realized when I got my film back you can do more than document … you can actually put your own interpretive slant into what you're doing in terms of how you build your composition and what kind of film you use to record the light and color. That was kind of the start. I didn't have a clue what I was doing but I could see that there was a real possibility there to share my own vision of what I was seeing. Kate: So, you mentioned your first time at Grand Canyon was just a one-night stay … Adam: That was South Rim, and to the best of my recollections, right around, it was like September 1999 and I was with my wife, Sally. We had actually planned to spend, I believe, three nights and we were camping at Mather Campground, and we hadn’t done a lot of research to be honest, but we did have reservations, so we had a campsite, and we showed up … and had no idea where to go, and I was so very, very new to photography. We followed the crowds ended up at Mather Point, with half the other visitors in the park, heh heh. I was awestruck by what was in front of me. I was just awestruck and intimidated … I had no idea how do you start putting a composition together and the light began to happen and I think I took about three photographs put the camera down and I just enjoyed the show that nature was putting on that evening and it was kind of an end of monsoon type evening some nice clouds in the sky. No real theatrics it wasn't raining, there were no rainbows. It was just very soft, pleasant and a real moment of peace and tranquility. That was fantastic. We went back Mather that evening, we camped add Froze! Heh heh! I had no idea how cold it could get in Arizona. I think a lot of us have heard that story over and over and over again. I had no idea how cold it could get in the desert in the middle of the night and not considered the elevation and long story short we spent the one night before moving on. And, I honestly thought well we've been here, and we've seen Grand Canyon was kind of my thought about the experience. How much more could there be? And again, I had no clue. (Sounds of thunder and rain) My first river trip down the Colorado River through Grand Canyon was an 18-day oar trip in September into October of 2015, so, only 5 years ago and still fairy new in my career in photography and to be honest struggling with the business aspect of it, trying to make a living. But the first person I had met in Flagstaff was David Edwards. And Dave, for those who don't know him, is a National Geographic published photographer, river guide with hundreds of trips under his belt as well. And Dave in September of that year, 2015, was getting ready to run an art trip through the Canyon and my wife said if you have to put the cost of that trip on every credit card we have you need to do it because you need to go down the river with Dave. And we made it work and I signed up for this 18 day trip. It was really an incredible experience because it ended up being a very small trip there only five participants, we had five 18-foot oar boats, we actually had six crew members. We had five people rowing, five river guides plus a swamper. So, the passengers were outnumbered by guides, that was neat in itself, but we had Dave leading, and we had some other big names on the trip. And not to name drop, but just to share what a special experience it was, we had a woman who most people know by the name of Martha Clark she's now Martha Stewart … Martha is one of those Grand Canyon Legends. We had Andy Martin rowing a boat as well, a former park ranger, photographer, river guide, just an incredible individual. Joseph Bennion who is a potter from Spring City Utah was also rowing. Peter Nisbet, who is a credible painter of Grand Canyon and the American West. Here I am, this relatively new guy, surrounded by all these incredibly talented people who really know the canyon, who have incredible passion for the canyon and the river and I can't think of a better way to have been introduced to the world below the rim along the river corridor. To see the world through their eyes and to hear their stories.

(Sounds of thunder and rain) Kate: Do you think there's any like big challenges or misconceptions about photography that a lot of people might not be aware of? Adam: Oh, hah hah, huh. Oh boy, where to start. Oh yeah, because I had my own … that it wasn’t or couldn’t be an art form. The challenges…there’s this belief that the product has to be finished in the camera. And I just I don't believe that's true. It’s easy to drop Ansel Adams name into these conversations. For those people are familiar with his work, or how he worked. The negatives, the film, was just the beginning of the process, and once he got into the dark room he was doing things called dodging and burning for example, which is darkening and brightening parts of the image so that we can kind of control the viewer’s journey through the photograph, you know, drawing attention to certain areas and trying to not draw attention to other areas and we still do that today, digitally. So of course we still end up being asked the question “Do you photoshop your images?” and the reality is it's not fair to say we all do but most of us that are into photography are doing something to our photographs. It's really open to that artist how much they do to the image. Myself, I have a lot of rules or restrictions that I place upon myself. My Photoshop work for example, is limited to contrast and tonal balance. It is really difficult to set it up in the canyon and represent it in a way that resembles something like what we saw. The camera has difficulties recording the brightness of the sky and balancing that with the darkness of the canyon. In my postproduction work I photoshop, I’m working on adjusting those balances. But I find a lot of people who perhaps don't really know the world of photography as an art form don't understand perhaps what goes into creating the final photograph that gets printed and hung on the wall. And the world wants to place a lot of restrictions on how we achieve the final result. My goal is always to be true to the landscape and true to my experience. And what I mean by that is I’m not there to add a sky for example, if it was a blue-sky day and I wanted clouds, I’m not adding clouds. I’m not adding lightning. I’m not, what I consider, faking the image. Another challenge is that a lot of people may not understand or appreciate how much effort goes into making one photograph. I may visit a particular location three, four, five times, maybe even more, before I get the photograph I really want. Kate: Do you have a particular process that helps you, like capturing the light here, do you look for certain like cloud formations or anything like that? Adam: A lot of it is an emotional response for me, on that particular day, where I am at in my life. I spend a lot of time watching the weather forecast here at home and if it looks like the weather is going to be conducive to the kind of work I want to create then I come running up to the canyon and I’m almost always starts with a stop at Yavapai Point. Not that intend to photograph there, but Yavapai has that 180° panoramic view of the canyon and so I run up to the viewpoint and I study the weather conditions. So, I’m watching where are the clouds. Where they were, where are they at now, where does it look like they are moving towards. And then that kind of drives my decision towards where I want to go in the park. And, I do the same thing if I’m up on the North Rim. If I'm up at the North Rim it may be quick stop at the lodge, to try to see what's going on with the weather. The North Rim’s a bit more challenging in that regard because, for example, from the lodge you can't see back around to the northeast real well back towards point imperial. My process always starts with just observing what Mother Nature is giving us to work with. Kate: Do you think being a photographer has changed the way you view landscapes? Adam: Oh yes, oh definitely. I see so much more than I did before I was a photographer. Little details that maybe just get easily overlooked for example noticing how the light plays across the inner canyon. Those basement rocks become so reflective, that’s something I may have just overlooked on my first visit 20 years ago. Now, I’m just noticing all those crazy little details, how the light scatters through dust how it creates a soft painterly effect … just little details like that. Definitely photography has changed how I view the world. Also, with regard to relationships. Relationship between foreground, mid-ground, background … how shapes can play off of each other how they can help one shape highlight another shape within the canyon or frame that shape. Kate: So I see that you teach a lot of different types of workshops. Is there any specific like type of lesson or type of interaction you have with your guests that, like, stick out to your mind and brighten your day? Adam: When I teach workshops one of my goals for my students is that they grow or mature as a photographer or as an artist if that's how they want to see themselves. And what I mean by that is, when we’re learning, we tend to copy the work of others. In my line of work we call it chasing tripod holds. We try to figure out where someone else set up their tripod and place our tripod there but it's easy to get stuck in rut of making everyone else's photographs. So when I work with someone I hope to break them out of that habit. I hope to help them realize or discover their own creative vision. And that’s something we should all be doing, forever, up until our last day clicking the shutter. We’re always maturing and chasing our own vision and defining that vision. But that’s what gives me the greatest satisfaction. I can show someone how to make the kind of photos I like to make, but I want to see what they want to make, what they want to share, and when they can do that that makes me smile. (Sound of thunder and rain) Kate: What do you want for the future of Grand Canyon? Adam: Oh wow. I'd like to see people really respect it. I think it to respect it, you have to have a deep appreciation for it, and I think that's the challenge. You know what’s the average length of a visit for the typical visitor, like three and 1/2 hours, something like that. It's hard to really appreciate the place. I have seen a lot changes in the last 10 years in terms of how people interact with the park when they’re here. There’s the selfie generation now, people seem to be all that just getting the shot of themselves. I'd love to see people slow down and really appreciate the canyon. I just hope we can protect it from ourselves and protect it from being loved to death because I can definitely seeing the signs of that when I’m out at the different viewpoints. I wish people can make more than just the one trip. I was just very lucky. The luxury of time allowed me to begin seeing the canyon in a new way. I learned about the parks artist-in-residence program and ended up applying and being accepted for the next year, and it again it was that luxury of time that helped me develop that deeper appreciation for the canyon, being able to see it in different light, different weather. (Sound of thunder and rain) Kate: Thank you for listening to this episode of Canyon Cuts, a Behind the Scenery micro episode. Brought to you by the North Rim and Canyon District interpretation teams at Grand Canyon National Park Rich: Hey Holly, uh, don’t know if she’ll listen to this.

This episode was produced by Kate Hensel with assistance from Wayne Hartlerode for the National Park Service. This episode was recorded in September 2020 on the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park. Thank you, Adam Schallau for your time spent being interviewed.

In the Field with Emergency Services Volunteer Bob Derr Sep 02, 2021

Have you ever wondered what it's like to volunteer at a National Park? Bob Derr has been volunteering on the North Rim of Grand Canyon for six years in emergency services. Join us as we discuss his time here and and the value of volunteering.

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Bob Derr: My name is Bob Derr, my wife Lori here, we’re volunteers here for Grand Canyon National Park. We perform fire, structural fire, I do and then we both do EMS and search and rescue and a variety of other things whatever is usually ask of us up here on the North Rim [Guitar music begins] Kate Hensel: My name is Kate and you’re listening to an episode of Behind the Scenery, Canyon Cuts. [Guitar music ends] How long have you been volunteering with the National Park Service? Bob: This is year six. Kate: And before you started volunteering with the National Park Service did you perceive it differently? How has that perhaps changed for you? Bob: Well, I don’t know if we had a perception of what it was, we were getting ready to retire, Lori had already retired, I was getting ready to and it's…you know people had talked about “Hey you can volunteer for the park service and do different duties.” We researched on the Volunteer.gov and just started researching what positions were available and then we decided to pick a park to start with, so we decided Grand Canyon. The chief asked about coming over here to the North Rim as a structural firefighter, being a paramedic which I am, and it just escalated from there. Kate: Can you give a brief background on like your professional history before retirement? Bob: Well for Lori she was an administrative assistant in a Catholic School. My history is I started in the fire service in 1971. I’m a retire battalion chief out of Myrtle Beach South Carolina. Been a paramedic since the eighties. I flew eight years as a flight medic. Was in charge of a regional urban search and rescue team in South Carolina. So background in emergency services, I have a pretty decent background. Kate: What was your first Grand Canyon experience? Bob: Jeez, our first experience we brought our kids here. I guess that was back in the mid-nineties. We were doing a cross-country trip and brought the four kids, so we brought the kids here to the South Rim. Came back again, it was about 2013, we were heading out to California for a wedding and stopped at the South Rim again with my sister and her husband. Kate: When you were looking at different volunteer opportunities was Grand Canyon high on the list or was it just something that you fell into? Bob: No, after we talked about what park do we wanted to start with, because our plan was to go to different parks each year, but Grand Canyon was on the number one to start selecting. Kate: And then what brought you back here over and over again. Bob: I think the big thing was that just we love the North Rim. I mean the community that we have here, with the rangers that we work with, you know the people from Forever Resorts. I mean everyone we work with up here, it’s like a small community that’s pretty tight nit you know. If somebody something, somebody was there to help you. So I think that’s it, the environment itself; the weather on the North Rim, the beauty of the North Rim is one of the big things that we like. We kinda like the isolation. You know, away from the crowds. The city that we used to live in we’d get 14-15 million tourists there that used to visit there. So being up here was awesome. Kate: A lot of people might not realize that the North Rim is a pretty seasonal operation, and we get a ton of snow up here, so what do you do in your winters? Bob: While the past three years usually January and February we go to the big island of Hawaii and volunteer at Hawaii Volcanos and do interp[retation] there. And one of the reasons we go back to Hawaii is because Lori is from the islands, so we get an opportunity to stay with family and visit family, and continue our service of the parks by volunteering at the volcano. Kate: Being able to spend so much time returning to the same place that a lot people may only visit once, how has that changed your view of Grand Canyon over time? Bob: I don’t know how much it’s changed my view. When we were tourist visiting the South Rim it was ”oh wow this is pretty amazing place.” But once we started volunteering up here on the North Rim we really got to see Grand Canyon. I mean not just driving by and looking at Grand Canyon but to go out to a lot of different places that most people do not get to go to, or when we’re out on patrol, and really seeing, and even it’s still a small portion of Grand Canyon National Park that we get to see. This year we started kayaking so we got to kayak up by Horseshoe Bend and down the Colorado River. So now we are getting another perspective of Grand Canyon. About the second year I was here my oldest daughter, myself, and a couple other friends hiked the rim to rim in a couple days and being down in the canyon really changes your perspective. You really, really get to see what this beautiful place is. Kate: So before you had mentioned that the community is one of the driving forces that brings you back every year. With the community also being made of so many seasonal workers who often move from one park to another and you don’t necessarily have a lot of longevity of people who stick around, how has that impacted your life? Bob: Having the permanents, again that communities there, and even the seasonals coming in, they’re seeing what the people that are here all the time haver to offer. So we get to meet a lot of new people, mostly a lot of young people that are coming in seasonal in the park service and get to meet them and learn where their from and some of the things that they think about. Kate: What are you most proud of about being on the North Rim? Bob: The thing that we’re most proud of is that we don’t hesitate to help whether it be a medical, a fire call, or we’re on a search and rescue, or somebody locks their key in their car and we go break into their car and get their key. So I think it’s service, I think that what is comes down to. Our entire lives have been service at some point. With Lori working in the school and me doing emergency services in wherever we lived so it’s giving back what it’s all about. Kate: Are there any particularly funny or interesting stories that you’d want to share? Bob: Some of things when you start talking to people cause we just talk to people while we’re taking care of them because were not with them 10-15 minutes and we’re to a hospital like you are in a big city. We’re with them for quite a while, especially if we’re transporting or waiting for a medevac helicopter. So we really get to share a lot stories between each other. Kate: How long are transports usually? If you are doing it by ground. Bob: Our longest was we had to transport a young lady that was pregnant all the way to St. George. So you look at two and a half, three hours one way on that transport. That was our longest. Usually the transports from the time we start the medical call to if we’re transporting down towards Kanab, outside of Fredonia, we actually do a change. An ambulance will come out of Utah and we’ll transfer the patient so we can back up here. It can run anywhere from two and half to three hours on that transport going down and coming back for the entire length of the call. Kate: What are some challenges or misconceptions about EMS work that you think a lot of people might not be aware of? Bob: I think the challenges that I first had when we got here, so I lived the city we had a trauma center within ten minutes of transport time for our medics. So the challenge that I had is I was used to number one: I had a trauma center real close; number two: being a battalion chief in a city like that I had resources I could have by my side within a matter of minutes if it was major incident or there was multiple patients. The challenge up here was again we’re isolated. We have one medic unit up here. We can call for helicopters, but they could be twenty, thirty, forty minutes away. So, the challenge here is definitely rural medicine and being with the patient a lot longer and having to take care of them in the process of that. So our protocols at Grand Canyon, which is pretty amazing, they have us trained to take care of those long times that we may be taking care of a patient or again our resources that we have are limited. Again one ambulance and if we have multiple calls going on, which has happened, we only have one ambulance to take care of that patient and we got to determine at that point if we can get a helicopter in here. So the challenges are just being so isolated. The closest hospital by ground is in Kanab and it’s eighty miles by ground. Kate: What do you want for the future of Grand Canyon? Bob: For me personally, and I think Lori would probably agree to this, that we would like to see the people who come here will respect this place. Not just to all the beauty of the place. What Grand Canyon means not just to the visitors but to the Native Americans, that this is their home. A lot of people I don’t think they really realize what this means to the Native Americans that are in this area. There are quite a few tribes that are here. So, for people to respect it. To see somebody leave trash or to drive where they shouldn’t be driving or to mark up the place with graffiti and that, that’s heartbreaking when you really think about it. They don’t respect it, they don’t understand it. Kate: Anything else you would like to get on the record? Bob: Number one is for people to come and enjoy what our country has to offer: Grand Canyon, and all the parks that are so close. To come and embrace what our country has, but also to think about when you retire giving back. What better way to give back to our country is to volunteer for the park service and Lori and I get to live at Grand Canyon, on the North Rim. I right now, I can look out and see the canyon from where my RV is parked. What a better opportunity to come and volunteer for the park service. [Guitar music begins] Kate: Thank you for listening to this episode of Canyon Cuts, a Behind the Scenery micro episode. Brought to you by the North Rim and Canyon District interpretation teams at Grand Canyon National Park. [Guitar fades out] To learn about volunteering for the National Park Service visit https://www.nps.gov/getinvolved/volunteer.htm and https://www.volunteer.gov This episode was produced by Kate Hensel with assistance from Wayne Hartlerode for the National Park Service. This episode was recorded in September 2020 on the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park. Thank you, Bob Derr for being interviewed and thank you Bob and Lori for your many years of service to the National Park Service and our country.

Your Questions Answered May 16, 2021

You ask - we find the answers together! After google-ing what were the most common questions people ask about Grand Canyon in online searches, rangers Kate and Brendan chat about common interests in the park.

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Kate: [00:00:00] My name is Kate and I'm a Canyon District Interpretation ranger. [00:00:04] Brendan: [00:00:04] My name is Brendan notes and I do the exact same thing as Kate. [00:00:08]Kate: [00:00:08] How many years have you been at Grand Canyon? [00:00:12] Brendan: [00:00:12] Well, I tell everyone that I couldn't hike out, which is why I had to get a job down here. But that wasn't true. I've been here for since 2014, so six seasons cause I leave in the winter. [00:00:25] Kate: [00:00:25] Nice. Same sorta, like I only worked the summer season basically. And then I'm gone in the winter. This was my first season in the Canyon and I was on the North Rim last year. [00:00:34] Brendan: [00:00:34] I think a big part of our job, especially since we're interpretation rangers or education Rangers is to answer questions. And how many questions do you think you get in a day? [00:00:44] Kate: [00:00:44] Maybe like a hundred right now because it's quiet. I bet, like when I was at the visitor center on the North room, I probably got like 500 to a thousand today. [00:00:52] Brendan: [00:00:52] Yeah. I think on the South RIm, like on the holiday weekends, I think I got probably like tens of thousands of questions, but it's more like you get the same three questions, but just like thousands of times, but what is the, what's the most common question you, you have gotten? [00:01:09]Kate: [00:01:09] In the Canyon, I think the most common question is like, is the water on Oh yeah. Like the trans Canyon pipeline. Yep. Yeah. And that, one's always really difficult to answer because I really don't know it was on when I walked by, but that doesn't mean it's still on. Cause it breaks so much. [00:01:25] That one can be a little tricky to answer. [00:01:27] I also think [00:01:28] Brendan: [00:01:28] we get a lot of like logistical questions because we do spend a large amount of our time down here. So I think people don't think we leave, which isn't true, but yeah, [00:01:40]Kate: [00:01:40] I definitely, I think that might actually be one of the most common questions I get is like, how, how does your work life work? [00:01:46]Brendan: [00:01:46] Or how do /you eat? [00:01:50] So Kate Hensel, if you could help me out because I went on the internet and searched for all the most commonly asked questions on various websites. And this is what the internet wants to know. And I was wondering if you could help me answer this. So I just punched it in Grand Canyon and like question Mark into Google and then I just let it auto populate. [00:02:15] So this is what we came up with. So the first one, Kate Hansel, are you ready? [00:02:20]Kate: [00:02:20] I'm ready [00:02:20]Brendan: [00:02:20] What is grand Canyon? [00:02:22]Kate: [00:02:22] Grand Canyon is a big drainage ditch that goes from. Well, like kind of the border with Utah to the border with Nevada just across Northern Arizona. [00:02:37]Brendan: [00:02:37] And what is grand Canyon made of? [00:02:40] Kate: [00:02:40] Rock? So many are rocks old rocks and then kind of older rocks and then crazy older rocks at the way [00:02:48] Brendan: [00:02:48] bottom [00:02:50] when ranger told me and I asked him. Something similar. He said grand Canyon is rocks with dirt and dirty rocks. That's in a way that's not an incorrect. Yeah [00:03:01] Kate: [00:03:01] so it's a lot of sedimentary rocks from, I think the Precambrian era, the most part, I think the top gets into the Cambrian era. [00:03:09]Brendan: [00:03:09] Old Rocks, kind of young Canyon. [00:03:12] Kate: [00:03:12] What are the oldest rocks at grand Canyon? [00:03:14]Brendan: [00:03:14] Well, the oldest one, well, grand Canyon is like stack of pancakes where the oldest and coldest pancakes on a stack of pancakes would be at the bottom. And as you go higher up the stack of pancakes, you have the newer and fresher pancakes. So the oldest rock would be the basement rocks at the bottom. [00:03:29] This is my favorite one grand Canyon. How big? [00:03:32]Kate: [00:03:32] Depends on where you are, but at the North rim and South rim where they. Look across the Canyon to each other. It's 10 miles across as the bird flies or 21 miles to hike. [00:03:43]Brendan: [00:03:43] What if I wanted to drive from the South, from, to the north Rim [00:03:46] Kate: [00:03:46] 200 some miles, [00:03:48] Brendan: [00:03:48] despite it only being 10 miles? [00:03:50] Kate: [00:03:50] Yeah. It's the river length of grand Canyon. So how long green Canyon is, is 277 miles. [00:03:58]Brendan: [00:03:58] And how do I get to Grand Canyon? [00:04:00] Kate: [00:04:00] You can drive to the North Rim and, South rim sides of it, and pretty much drive almost right up to the rim. It's in Northern Arizona, right below the Arizona strip. So you can like come into Flagstaff and then drive North from there, or drive from Las Vegas, which how long has that drive? [00:04:19] You can also get here on the Colorado river or coming from the green river. You're doing a big river trip. Yeah. [00:04:26]Brendan: [00:04:26] Well, you do have the dam in the way now. [00:04:27]Kate: [00:04:27] Oh, that's true. I mean, you can just jump to the dam [00:04:31] Brendan: [00:04:31] if you get enough speed and just like launch yourself [00:04:35] Kate: [00:04:35] Like a Glider on your boat. Cool. [00:04:37] Brendan: [00:04:37] I think was like one of the sweet, like ramps, like a big like evil Knievel style ramp and just hit it. [00:04:45] Kate: [00:04:45] Yeah, please don't do this. (Laughing) Disclaimer, do not do that. This is kind of a segue from the dam jumping thing. And I think I get this question a lot but it is a tad morbid. How many tourists die at Grand Caynon? I think I get that. [00:05:02] You know? I tried to like look up numbers for at one time and I couldn't get something that was like accurate. [00:05:08] It seems like anywhere between like 10 and 20 is normal for a year. [00:05:11] And I think a lot of people have the misconception that everyone's falling off the edge, which really isn't [00:05:16] true. [00:05:16] , no, that's not, I wouldn't say that's even the majority of them. [00:05:19] No, that's kind of a fraction. I think the, the river is I think a major contributor, cause it's a really big, really cold, really remote river, normal problems like car accidents and things as well. [00:05:33] Heart attacks are fairly common, [00:05:35] especially. Yeah. Grand Canyon overall is a pretty safe place. Yeah. Yeah. But stuff happens for sure. [00:05:42] What is grand Canyon West? [00:05:44] Brendan: [00:05:44] We have grand Canyon national park, which is what we're in right now. And then we have grand Canyon, which is the whole Canyon and green Canyon West is not the national park it's owned by the Walapai tribe. [00:05:56] Kate: [00:05:56] Yeah. So that is closer to Las Vegas, kind of towards the very end of grand Canyon. And then they also have the grand Canyon skywalk, which I think is another question we get it's this really big class walkway. But a lot of people don't realize , like grand Canyon West is five hours away from Grand Canyon national park. [00:06:18] Brendan: [00:06:18] So I think we get where's the glass and we have to tell them that they are nowhere near, near the skywalk, [00:06:28] [00:06:28] Sorry, man. Yeah, but I've never been on the skywalk. I've only seen it. [00:06:33] Kate: [00:06:33] I've also never, I've never been anywhere over in that area. [00:06:37] Brendan: [00:06:37] So yeah, it is interesting. Cause it is, it looks very different from this section of grand Canyon. Like kind of you get, Oh, a little bit different rocks, but you also kind of get different animals and different plants in different desert. [00:06:51] Kate: [00:06:51] Speaking of animals, what's the most dangerous animal at grand Canyon? [00:06:54]Brendan: [00:06:54] Humans. Yeah. , but if you want it, but if you want it to go more in depth, statistically, it's the squirrel, the Grand Canyon rocks squirrel, because we have at least one person bite on the hand because they're trying to feed the squirrel. [00:07:07] But I was looking up the record is 30 bites in one day. [00:07:11] Kate: [00:07:11] Whoa! [00:07:12]Brendan: [00:07:12] Yeah. And I, I'm assuming it's from multiple squirrels, but I could not confirm. [00:07:16] Kate: [00:07:16] Yeah. Maybe just a serial biter squirrel. [00:07:18] Brendan: [00:07:18] Yeah. Just go. And just malicious. Yeah. What are some other animals that you've had encounters with? [00:07:27]Kate: [00:07:27] Instead I've had encounters with, I guess they could be dangerous that they weren't cheap, especially when they're like running or in mating season. [00:07:35] And when the males are. Butting heads. Like I bet if you got too close to them, you could have a really bad day. [00:07:41]Brendan: [00:07:41] I think that the biggest danger, well, I don't think one's going to like challenge you to like a headbutting competition, but I've get kicking rocks off is probably the biggest danger that they pose. [00:07:51] Kate: [00:07:51] Yeah. Was the elk on the South rim. They freak me out a little bit. Cause like, they'll just hang out right next to the road and then step, step into it. Cause they're so used to having cars around, they don't care at all. . Yeah. And then they can get pretty aggressive during the rut or when calving season. [00:08:07] Brendan: [00:08:07] Yeah. Yeah. And I also think with grand Canyon, everyone's like super aware of like snakes and Mount lions and scorpions and herbivore. You're like, whatever, like I'm going to put my kid on the elk. [00:08:19] Kate: [00:08:19] Yeah. And then we have the bison on the North rim. We haven't had any like bison verse human incidents, but we have had a Car versus bison on the North rim and the deer and the cattle [00:08:31] Brendan: [00:08:31] The Road from Jacob Lake to gGrand Canyon. North rim is also known as the deer slalom, which is accurate. [00:08:40] Yeah. I always try to avoid driving on it at dusk or dawn last year. Cause it was always like a white knuckle drive. ] that freaks me out. Just thinking about it. All right. Moving on. Who owns grand Canyon? That's a tricky one, because as you mentioned before, there's grand Canyon national park, which is owned by the U S government native American reservation land as well. [00:09:05] Kate: [00:09:05] So you mentioned the Haulapai Tribe in Grand Canyon and then the Havasupai have land in Grand Canyon as well. But the Grand Canyon is also affiliated with 11 different tribes who have historically or culturally have significance at grand Canyon. So really who owns it is not a simple question to answer. [00:09:29] Brendan: [00:09:29] Does grand Canyon have trees? [00:09:31] Kate: [00:09:31] Yes. [00:09:31] Brendan: [00:09:31] Does grand Canyon go through Colorado? [00:09:34] Kate: [00:09:34] No. [00:09:34] Brendan: [00:09:34] Does grand Canyon have water? [00:09:36]Kate: [00:09:36] Yes. So much water. [00:09:38] Brendan: [00:09:38] I think people come down here and they're like, there's water everywhere. Cause they're in like Bright Angel Canyon and you have bright angel Creek and you have the Colorado river, but then you get on Tonto and you can look at the river, but you can't get to the river. [00:09:51] Kate: [00:09:51] Yeah. It's just their view. [00:09:54] [00:09:54] Brendan: [00:09:54] I have drank out of some questionable potholes where there's like green scum and man. After we're hiking on the Tonto all day in summer you're like this pothole, is amazing [00:10:06] delicious [00:10:07] Kate: [00:10:07] scum water, [00:10:08]Brendan: [00:10:08] Grand Canyon flavoring. [00:10:10] Kate: [00:10:10] How much time do you need at Grand Canyon? [00:10:13] Brendan: [00:10:13] I think the average visitor not counting, driving spends less than 10 minutes on the rim, but that's understandable. Cause they usually have a lot of places to go to. We're also people are just driving down the road and they're like, see Grand Canyon, like. 70 miles and then just like turn off of route 40. [00:10:33] So I think it's totally up to you. I would say at least a couple hours at least, but very famous thing. And this wasn't here. This was where someone went to a visitor center in Yosemite national park. And they say, Oh, we only have two hours at . What should we do? And apparently the ranger said, you see that rock over there, go sit on that rock and wheat, because he only have two hours at you, 70 national park. [00:10:59] So I would say as much as you can any length of time you can afford a Grand Canyon is worth it. Even if it is just like 10 minutes. Yeah. Alternatively people have literally spent their entire lives. So, you know, it's up to you really? [00:11:16] Kate: [00:11:16] Why is Grand Canyon called Grand Canyon? [00:11:19] Brendan: [00:11:19] It had a bunch of different names for a while. But I think John Wesley Powell, who did an expedition via the river through Grand Canyon was kind of credited naming for it. But I think it had a bunch of different names way before Grand Canyon, but that's the name that just kind of stuck? I don't even think John Wesley Powell is like a hundred percent confirmed with naming Grand Canyon, but yeah. [00:11:44] Kate: [00:11:44] Why Grand Canyon famous? [00:11:48] Brendan: [00:11:48] Cause it's very big. I think that's it right? [00:11:54]Kate: [00:11:54] Like, look at all those layers, [00:11:57]Brendan: [00:11:57] but I guess it's also famous because the miners didn't make any money here. They're like, Oh yeah, giant hole in the ground. We're going to find the gold and then didn't find gold, we're going to find trying to silver and they didn't find any silver. So, and they did find a lot of copper, but they couldn't really make any money off it, but then they had all these sweet trails. I think they were just really good promoters of the grand Canyon. So that could be another way. [00:12:23] Let me know if you've got the sun before grand Canyon coins kill you. [00:12:28] Kate: [00:12:28] I actually haven't gotten that one. [00:12:30] Brendan: [00:12:30] It's a weird question. [00:12:33] Kate: [00:12:33] From the Condor signs? I typed in grand Canyon. And then the third one was the coins. Kill you. Question Mark. I think that might be referencing cause there's a couple of signs, like at Mather point and then plateau point has it as well in the Canyon, we're talks about how if you throw coins into the Canyon, so sort of wishing, well, California Condors will eat them cause they like to eat shiny things and then it's super bad for them. It can kill them. [00:12:59] Brendan: [00:12:59] I always thought it was like an empire state building thing where grand Canyon so big. If you Chuck a penny off the ramp, it's going to like accelerate and then like hit someone in since it fell so far. It's like traveling at like the speed of a bullet, which isn't true because think, I don't think 5,000 feet like a penny. It would probably hurt, but it wouldn't kill you. [00:13:19] Kate: [00:13:19] I don't know. [00:13:20] Brendan: [00:13:20] But also grand Canyon. Isn't like a straight pit in the ground. No, there's a few spots where you could maybe get it to go fast enough, but like most of the times it's going to hit rock. What about it? Two weeks, probably a thousand feet, 2000 feet to the river. [00:13:33] That's pretty good. That's no higher than like the empire state building. I actually don't know how tall the empire state building. [00:13:39] So I have a book from a former river guide and park ranger, and this is some of the. Questions he's been asked. So let me know what you feel about these. So grand Canyon, when do they turn the lights on in the Canyon? [00:13:58] Kate: [00:13:58] I'm trying to come up with a funny answer [00:14:02] Brendan: [00:14:02] how many undiscovered ruins are there in the Canyon? [00:14:08]Why did they build the Canyon so close to the hotel? [00:14:12] Kate: [00:14:12] It's better for the tourists. Yeah. [00:14:15] Brendan: [00:14:15] Why is the department of the interior, which is what we work for in charge of everything outside, [00:14:21] because naming has to be difficult. How old is a mule deer have to be before? It turns into a mule, a hundred years old, a hundred years old, but I've also gotten when what elevation do the mule deer turn into elk. [00:14:34] Yeah. Yeah. 7,000 feet, I guess. [00:14:40] What type of uniform does a cattle guard were asked by a passenger on a tour bus after seeing a cattle guard sign? [00:14:47] I think, well, we did talk about like dumb questions, but I don't really think there is a dumb question, your grand Canyon, because this is a truly strange place. [00:14:56] And I think despite like, there is like dozens upon dozens of books written about it. There is a lot that I don't think is really recorded well or like something you really can't just look up on the internet. So I think the only real place to learn about grand Canyon, it's just asking tons of questions, even if they're really, really dumb. How do you, how do you feel about that? [00:15:21] Kate: [00:15:21] I definitely feel like there are some questions that you pause and go like, huh? I wonder how you came to that conclusion, but ultimately yeah, if you've never been here before, it's really hard to understand the scale of this place. Hmm. And even just like, for me, who hikes in the Canyon quite a bit, I still don't understand the scale of this place. [00:15:39] Really. So a lot of questions just come from it being so different from anywhere else a person can go. Yeah. [00:15:47] Brendan: [00:15:47] So Kate thanks so much for answering some questions with me. [00:15:52] Kate: [00:15:52] Yeah. And we'll have to keep track of other questions we get. If you have any questions about grand Canyon, You can send them our way and we'll answer them in the future. [00:16:01] Brendan: [00:16:01] Yeah. We encourage really obscure and really weird questions and we will, and if you send them to us, we will try to answer them to the best of our ability. [00:16:09] Kate: [00:16:09] It'd be cool to do like a prize for somebody who sent the most out there question. [00:16:13] Brendan: [00:16:13] Yeah. Well, I think the common game that we know is like stump the ranger, or if you stumped the ranger, you like win. So yeah, if you can stump the ranger, well, we'll send you a condor sticker.

Canyon Kinetics Apr 04, 2021

How can you prepare for a hike into Grand Canyon? Explore the ups and downs of canyon hiking on the human body. Preventive Search and Rescue A.K.A. “PSAR” about share how you can best prepare your body to get ready for a long hike.

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CANYON KINETICS – Transcript L: Leslie Grove - unnamed hikers B: Brendan Oates A: Anna Marini S: Stan Lindstedt A: I won't consider myself a through-hiker just 'cause it was just 400 miles but I have done a 400-mile hike of the PCT... L: Wait, did I hear that right? That hike was ‘just 400 miles’? I think Anna and I might have different definitions of the word “just”. L: Welcome to Canyon Kinetics, a Behind the Scenery Canyon Cut. My name is Leslie and I’m an intern here at the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park. In my last podcast episode, What to Eat in the Heat, I chatted with all manner of canyon folk in my search for the perfect Grand Canyon snack. (Spoiler alert: it was salt. No really, salt, anything with salt.) In today’s Canyon Cut, I’m chatting again with rangers from Preventive Search And Rescue here, A.K.A. “PSAR”. While my last episode focused on how to best address your dietary needs as a summertime hiker in Grand Canyon National Park, this episode will explore the “ups” and “downs” of canyon country hiking – and how you can best prepare your body physically before descending below the Rim. You’re listening to Canyon Kinetics, a Behind the Scenery Canyon Cut. - ‘Down is optional, Up is mandatory’. The weight of that is starting to grow on me as we come back up. - I personally am, like, not a huge hiker but I trained a little bit for this B: Okay. - -and, uh… well, we trained to go from the bottom to the top; not both ways. But I ended up doing a pretty good job, I mean, I’m in decent shape.

B: Nice. And how did you guys – so, I know you said you trained a little bit – but how did you guys prepare for this hike otherwise? - So, like, seven of our friends all live in Portland and we, uh, we've been running up and down stairs at one of the parks. And then I was doing, like, body weight exercises, trying to prep for this hike out. - And I live near the beach in LA, so, I took- I just walked in the dry sand for like 2 1/2 miles after surfing every day. B: Is it hard to get, like, the elevation? - Yeah, I thought that would work out my calves out a lot – oh, and I also packed a pack so I had, like, 20 pounds on my back. B: Okay, sweet. L: I remember sometime in the past year, I was at the gym back home, just on the treadmill. And usually when I’m on the treadmill, I get this kind of tunnel-vision and don’t really notice the world around me. But this time, something caught my attention. There was someone using a machine in the row ahead of me, this individual on the StairMaster. And he had this massive hiking pack that he – I assume – had fully stocked with whatever he would take on a potential trip and he was just going up the StairMaster. And now that I think about it, that was probably an excellent workout for whatever this person was training for, I assume some extreme mountainous trek. But at the time, I couldn’t help but think… the StairMaster is hard enough as it is! Like, without however many pounds of gear were loaded up on his back. And this was just practice! So that kinda blew my mind in that moment. How do you prepare yourself for a hike? What questions do you ask yourself before stepping onto that trail? Here’s Anna Marini, Grand Canyon PSAR Lead, with her approach: A: Before my hike on the Pacific Crest Trail, I was definitely training and doing training hikes with my backpack on. You know, making sure you know your gear is helpful because that's gonna be on your back and you don't want to carry too much. And what happened with me personally when I was on that hike is, I injured myself because my pack was too heavy and I probably didn't train correctly. So, after that I have completely changed how I want, you know, how I want to train for things like this in the future. I am a big advocate for hiking poles. After I did a long distance hike in 2015, I have realized that I can't leave home without my extra set of arms. They just are such an assist with hiking uphill and downhill to save your knees, you know, and to have a little bit extra stability especially if you have a backpacking pack on, you know. It's so heavy so it's nice to be able to have that balance and have that support for your body I'm getting a little older and so I wanna I can't just bounce back as I did when I was in my young 20s right and so I wanna make sure that my body is ready and prepared for those- for the hiking that I do here today and the possible extended hikes in my future. L: Anna started us off with some excellent ideas on how you can begin training for a hike. But there’s one thread that she mentioned that I really want to emphasize – hiking downhill. Here with an explanation of the goings-on in our bodies when we hike downhill is physiology professor-turned-PSAR Ranger Stan Lindstedt. S: And, as I mention to people on the trails, we’re an upside-down park. Normally, you go up a mountain until you get exhausted and then turn around and come back. But hiking down first can be deceptive. If they hike down in the mornings, it’s cool, when you turn around all of a sudden it’s a lot warmer and it’s a lot harder going up than down. The challenges of hiking uphill and downhill are very different. So, hiking uphill, the big challenge is the amount of energy that’s required by the muscles and the amount of heat that you’re producing – people are not aware of the fact that anytime you use your muscles, you’re producing heat. That’s great in the winter, if you’re cross-country skiing, but not so good if you’re hiking in the summer. So, you have a huge amount of heat that you have to get rid of. And that’s where sweating is important. Hiking downhill on the other hand, it’s not energy, as much as it is biomechanics. Anytime that you’re hiking downhill, you use your muscle as a break. And that is, especially on a long hike, for example, hiking into the canyon, that is something that we don’t do very often. And your muscles are very plastic in the sense that they’re used to, whatever it is, the way you use them. And if you’re using your muscles in a novel way, using your muscles as a break, hiking downhill, the muscles themselves are likely to respond with microdamage. And that damage can be pretty significant. So, I always - we all have had experiences where we’ve talked to people who have done a long downhill hike, woken up the next morning – or worse, it’s 2 days later – and they have pretty serious... it’s called delayed onset muscle soreness. And that delayed onset muscle soreness results in muscle weakness. So now when they’re hiking uphill, they’re not having as much muscle strength as they would have had if they didn’t have that muscle damage. So now you’ve got a hiker, who is down at the bottom of the Colorado River, very sore muscles, and those muscles are now weaker than they normally would be. And that hiker now has to hike out and they’re not going to have fun doing so. L: Personally, I wouldn’t want to be that hiker, would you? What can you do before you start your hike to avoid being in a situation like that? Anna and Stan have a few more pieces of advice regarding building and repairing muscle, knowing your personal limits on the trail, and gear for hiking in a place like Grand Canyon. S: That kind of muscle use is called eccentric muscle use, using your muscles as a break. And for those people, you want to have a sufficient amount of protein in your diet that you can replace that protein that got damaged in your muscles. And so, the protein diet will provide the building blocks for new proteins for yourself. So that’s the extent to which I would recommend making sure that you have an adequate amount of protein in your diet. Not for calories, but for the building blocks necessary to repair any muscle damage that will inevitably be caused on a long hike. A: I think there's a couple different categories of people. There's people that didn't really look at a map, didn't really look at the time, you know, just kind of decided to keep walking downhill 'cause it's really easy to walk downhill, right? There's people that plan their day as far as timing. Like, we're going to hike for another hour and wherever they get, you know, they stop, which is kind of a good thing – until you realize that going downhill is very fast so you make it farther than you planned in an hour. And then there's those people that are, like, we’re turning around at 3 Mile, at the 3 Mile rest house. So, there's, you know, a couple of different types of people and you can kind of gauge through conversation what kind of those kind of types those are. So, with all that I always encourage people to stop before you get tired 'cause you need to save your energy for the hike up. And little trick that we use is, I tell people to spend a few minutes, turn around right now, and hike uphill. You know, feel how difficult that's going to be and realize that that's going to be the rest of your hike out is that much hiking and exertion. And so that's something that we like to encourage people to do when they're not quite sure when they want to turn around, you know, try to hike uphill for a little bit, see how that feels. But people surprise us every day, you know. You really can't predict who is going to get sick and who's not or who you know I even fall and get hurt. You know, I don't judge anybody wearing sandals 'cause I love wearing hiking sandals myself but say it's flip flops that don't look sturdy enough or it’s loafers that really will probably be uncomfortable but who knows maybe they hike in them all the time. I don't know until I ask them, right? I think it's it's more of what you're used to, hiking-wise. It's just whatever your feet are going to be happy in, is my best recommendation for footwear. And as far as clothing… I am really an advocate for sun protection all around so not only do I wear sunscreen but I also wear some clothing and that sun clothing is made out of material where when you soak it in water it's actually really nice and cool on your skin so you'll see the PSAR rangers in the creek full on or under the water spigot completely trying to drench themselves because it's actually really nice and cool when your when your body is soaking in water in the heat of the day. We call that “Grand Canyon air conditioning”. L: Honestly, I could have used some air conditioning on the trails this summer, even up here on the North Rim! Anna, Stan, any closing thoughts? A: I don't think so. I think it's just more, you know, telling… making sure people know that if they need to take a moment before they step on trail to think about what's in their pack. To think about, did they have breakfast, did they drive all night from Las Vegas so they could get to the Canyon, you know, what is their – what's their training then, like, before this hike.

Even a simple day hike, people can get into trouble and not have fun the rest of their trip. So, just taking that moment before they step down trail to- making sure that they thought about what they're about to do. And a, you know, three-mile round trip hike isn't a big deal for a lot of people but anything can happen to anybody and you never know when your body is going to have a hard time. So, do what you can before you start hiking to prepare so you could have a fun time. I always start with the belief that everyone is there to really enjoy the experience. And so, I tend not to be very rule-oriented as much as I am experience-oriented. So, my job is, when I’m interacting with people, is to try to join them as a partner. I like to ask everyone, “Hey, where are you headed today?” And oftentimes, I can give them an alternate turn-around location that maybe isn’t as deep in the canyon, but is a wonderful place to – and I’ll say this – a great place to stop and have a snack, enjoy the view, drink some more water, and then head back out. I do this because I myself love the Grand Canyon so much and I want to make sure that our visitors leave the Canyon loving the Canyon as much as I do, to ensure that their experience is one that they really enjoy. And they leave the trails saying, “Wow, that was fantastic. I want to do that again.” And I know that’s only possible when their hike is enjoyable and they don’t exceed their own limitations. L: I think that that is the key to hiking in Grand Canyon: knowing your own limits. It’s really important to take the time to consider two things: realistic goals for your hike and how you will achieve them. Before hitting the trails, ask yourself: ● What brought me here? ● How have I physically and mentally prepared myself for this hike? ● What supplies have I chosen and why? ● Have I had an honest discussion about my abilities and expectations for this hike with my hiking mates? ● What resources are available to me? What questions should I ask a Preventative Search And Rescue Ranger? ● How can I hold myself accountable so that emergency response resources can be directed towards those in serious need? If we all take the time to prepare ourselves for our hikes and listen to our bodies, we can all have an amazing experience visiting the Grand Canyon. This has been a Behind the Scenery Canyon Cut. A Grand-Canyon-sized thank you to Anna Marini and Stan Lindstedt of Grand Canyon PSAR, Ranger Brendan Oates of the Inner Canyon District, and everyone else who lent their voices to this podcast. Here at Grand Canyon, we gratefully acknowledge the Native Peoples on whose ancestral homeland we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant Native communities who make their home here today. For more information about Preventative Search and Rescue operations at Grand Canyon National Park, refer to the Emergency Services webpage at nps.gov/grca. And if you run into a roving PSAR Ranger, say Hi! And have an honest discussion about your hiking capabilities, expectations, and supplies. PSAR Rangers, volunteer and full time, can be found at trailheads and along the trails in the Canyon to help you make the best of your experience. If you enjoyed this podcast, I encourage you to listen to “What to Eat in the Heat”, my other Behind the Scenery Canyon Cut episode, in which I interview Anna, Stan, and others about dietary health while hiking in Grand Canyon. Alright, all this talk of muscle damage is making me sore. I’m gonna go stretch or something. Bye!

What to eat in the Heat Mar 22, 2021

Planning a hike into Grand Canyon? What should you feed your body for strenuous exercise in a hot, dry climate? Preventive Search and Rescue rangers share their favorite trail snacks and pro tips how on to avoid a sufferfest in the heat. Explore how to fuel your body for the beautiful challenges of hiking in canyon country.

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WHAT TO EAT IN THE HEAT – Transcript

L: Leslie Grove

- unnamed guests B: Brendan Oates A: Anna Marini S: Stan Lindstedt

B: If you guys were to hike to the River and back in a single day, would you do anything differently? Anything the same?

- I wouldn't bring chocolate. - [Laughs] L: Hi everyone! My name is Leslie and I’m an intern here at the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park. If it wasn’t already apparent from my heavy breathing right now, I am recording this while on a hike. I’m making my way south on the Transept Trail towards the North Rim Visitor Center, and while I have a relatively short hike ahead me, I’ve stocked my backpack with a 48-ounce bottle of water and my favorite snack for a light hike – rice cakes with peanut butter.

You know, before coming to the North Rim earlier this summer at the start of my internship, I had never seen the Canyon before. And actually, I had never really spent a lot of time in the Southwest in general. I’m a Midwestern gal and the dry heat here in the canyonlands really took me by surprise, especially considering I went from living at 600 ft elevation to over 8,000 ft elevation here at the North Rim. Luckily, the North Rim offers a good amount of shade, but once you step out from under those protective branches, you can heat up very easily.

Knowing that this hot, dry, elevated… – and beautiful, I should add -- place would be my home for the coming months, I started asking around – “What are the best trail snacks?” / “How much water should I be drinking?” / “How much hiking in a day is too much?” Because, honestly, I had no idea. And it turns out that the answers to these questions vary a lot based on whom you ask.

You’re listening to a Grand Canyon Behind the Scenery Canyon Cut. Once again, my name is Leslie, and I’ll be hiking you through how I learned “What to Eat in the Heat”.

This podcast is broken up into 3 parts. First, I’ll share what I’ve learned about hiker rescue operations in the Canyon – covering instances of when people didn’t know what to eat in the heat. Next, I realize just how little biology I remember from high school, as I explore what goes on inside our bodies when we don’t properly nurture ourselves in the canyon climate. And last, I reflect on everything I’ve learned in putting this episode together. So, without further ado, let’s hit the trails.

I started off this project looking for a single, catch-all answer, like a cheat sheet, to how to best pack my lunchbox before hitting the trails in and around the Canyon. I chatted with both coworkers and Park visitors, and started with an easy enough question: “What is your go-to snack while hiking in Grand Canyon?”

Oh, and shout-out to my coworker Brendan for doing some awesome detective work for me on the Inner Canyon trails.

- Okay, so I have here… dark chocolate peanut butter with butter toffee peanuts- - It’s so melted! - It's so melted, you can't see into the bag. - When I’m doing a day hike in the heat, I specifically am looking for foods with a high salt content. My go-to food that I would never eat at home – which is delicious on a super-hot day when I’m sweating – are Vienna sausages. - Sometimes I love having the stuffed peanut butter, like pretzels? - Oh, okay. Oh, those are awesome. - Aw, they’re great. - I really like cheddar crackers. I am a snacker at heart, so I have a little jar and I put probably 5 different types of salty snacks in there, kinda little bit of a hodgepodge. And I like to have variety, because it’s really nice to make sure that you have something that you want to eat. - And I met someone who said they had trail mix and it was just gummy worms with gummy bears…? - Oh my gosh, hah. - So, yeah, technically still a mix! L: Do any of these answers surprise you? If you’ve hiked in Grand Canyon National Park in recent years, you, too, may have been asked this question, likely by a uniformed ranger with a group called PSAR, or Preventive Search And Rescue.

The goal of PSAR is to educate and support hikers descending into the Grand Canyon, who may be unaware of or underestimate the dangers posed by the hot, arid canyon climate. PSAR is intended to minimize the need to request emergency extractions by Search And Rescue (or SAR) teams, hence the “preventative” in Preventative Search And Rescue.

I spoke with 2 PSAR Rangers to learn about their experiences in educating the public about dietary health while hiking at Grand Canyon National Park. A: Everybody does PSAR whether they know it or not. It’s something that I think everyone does when they work for the Park Service if they interact with folks, from trail crew, maintenance, to people working the visitor centers or lodge folks.

L: I’m here with PSAR Lead Anna Marini, with how she first got involved with PSAR, and her approach to connecting with visitors when on the clock as a PSAR ranger here at Grand Canyon.

A: I’ve been a Park Ranger in the Park Service for nine seasons now.

I used to work in Big Bend National Park in West Texas. And it's a large park in landmass but small park in personnel and so everybody was kind of trained in a little bit of everything.

I was often interacting with people and I found that I really enjoy helping people plan their trips or giving them suggestions on what to do, how to stay safe, to make sure it’s appropriate for their entire family or their entire trip.

And I didn't realize PSAR was a thing until I heard about the Grand Canyon program through some coworkers and I kind of realized, “Wow, I could do this all the time. That's really cool.”

We try to figure out peoples why’s. You asked why I did PSAR, well I ask why they're here. You know, what do they want to see here today? And most people don't have a plan; they just know the beauty of Grand Canyon, right. Once somebody tells me, “Yeah, I don't have a plan for today,” and I say, “Well, let's make one together.” And usually people are receptive to that.

L: I pulled some numbers from the PSAR database to illustrate just how many people Grand Canyon PSAR rangers interact with in a given year. So, here goes: In 2019, PSAR rangers made over 160,000 general contacts with visitors, took over 21,000 preventative actions, and performed more than 700 hiker assists.

A: So, it's really cool for me to know that I was a part of those numbers since I was here last year, so that's kind of neat. But yeah, what does that mean? So, when we’re down on trail PSARing, we carry little clickers with us. And we’re keeping track of what we’re seeing.

So, general contact: we have had a conversation with somebody or even just a “Hello,” you know, with a visitor on trail. They recognize me as a Ranger. You know, I have my Ranger hat on, I have my shirt, my badge, everything. They possibly recognize me as somebody that they could ask questions to or get help from later – that type of thing.

L: When I had my coworker Brendan interview visitors in the Canyon for me earlier, he was having conversations with folks that are pretty similar to what a PSAR ranger would have with hikers during a “general contact”. Let’s listen in:

B: How’s the hike going so far? - It’s good – we started at sunrise, tried to beat the heat, we didn't really succeed in that. B: Yeah, it’s like… thermometer says… 140. - Yeah. Oh my gosh, that was very rewarding. I came back up here, like, after we got down to the River, hiking back up, just like every, every shady spot we stopped for like 5 minutes and hydrated. - Yeah. B: And when you guys were hiking down, did you see any of the signs, like the guy throwing up? - Yeah! - Oh, yes. The guy throwing up, that's sus’d me out. I was, like, I don't want to be that guy, I don't wanna be that guy…

B: Have you been that guy yet? - No! I’m hangin’ in there, I'm doing very well, I’m proud of myself.

B: Did those signs – I know you don’t wanna be that guy – but did those signs make you feel any different? - It definitely made me pay really close attention to how my body was feeling. - Yeah. L: So, that’s a playful example, I’d say, but sometimes those quick conversations, or general contacts, can turn into a more serious conversation, or a preventative action, based on what hikers’ responses are.

A: I ask, you know, what they have with them: Did they pack a lunch? You know, do they have snacks for everybody in their party? That type of thing. I find that people are so excited to get hiking that they don't stop by the market to get food for the rest of the day, or they don't realize how long they are going to be out so they didn't bring enough food, you know, for the whole day or their whole trip, or they don't know how far they're hiking, you know, and by the time they realize that they run out of food.

In that conversation, though, if we ask them what their plan is for the day, what supplies they have, things like that, and we turn that into more of a preventative conversation, like “Oh, I really don't think it's a good idea to go down to the River today and here's why…” or “I really think you need to have more food or water with you,” things like that, then we consider that a preventative action. So, we gave them 21,000 acts of knowledge, is how I kind of see that.

And sometimes, those preventative actions turn into a hiker assist later.

L: Volunteer PSAR Ranger Stan Lindstedt shares one such example of a hiker assist:

S: I was at the 3-mile rest house, and that’s what we call “the sweep”, we do that in the afternoon, and it’s pretty tough, because we’re down 3 miles in the middle of the summer. It can be really hot down there and almost every time I’m down there, I’m involved in what’s called a “hiker assist”, where we’re actually helping someone physically.

But I was there and a young man, a 25-year-old, came in, collapsed on the floor of the rest house, and started shaking. He wasn’t even planning on going to the river, but he decided spontaneously to do so. So, he had been to the river, was on his way back, and that’s when he collapsed in the rest house.

And he hadn’t been drinking anything, which is, you know, a phenomenal shock. And I was like, “Why weren’t you drinking?” And he said – and it’s important to note at this point he’s from South Carolina, and therefore what I’m about to say will make more sense – he said, “Well, because I wasn’t sweating.” So, his experience was that you’re wet if you sweat. And because, of course, in the super dry heat we have in the Grand Canyon, the sweat evaporates right away. That’s what it’s supposed to do, that’s why you sweat: to keep yourself cool. And he had been losing a phenomenal amount of water and was seriously dehydrated. Because he was 25, we could bring him back and within a couple of hours, he was fine, and he was able to walk out on his own. But it did require some intervention.

A: That 700 hiker assist number, that comes from people that we actually needed to help out. Whether that they just need a few more salty snacks to get out of the Canyon, electrolyte powder, they may need a Band-Aid for their blister, they maybe they completely forgot their water bottle and they’re on South Kaibab with no access to water – well, here's a water bottle for them.

Sometimes that hiker assist turns into a Search And Rescue incident. Search And Rescue is a little interesting term because it sounds like we’re actually having to look for them -- sometimes we do – and the rescue also sounds very dramatic as well. Sometimes that means we need to have an EMT or a paramedic come down and assess this person more.

You can kind of see how that changes overtime, right? You know, sometimes it's just the general contact but we may see that general contact later in the search and rescue. It’s kind of interesting. Sometimes I talked to somebody in the morning and then later in the evening I'm going to help them again.

B: And would you guys tell anyone who’s hiking to the River and back in a day, like, any advice? Besides not bringing chocolate? - Bring, uh… There's not water at the River! Bring as much water to the River as you physically can. - [laughter]

S: Most people understand that they have to drink. But what people understand less is that not only are they losing water in their sweat; they’re losing a great deal of salt. Sweat contains over a gram of sodium per quart of sweat, so you lose a lot. The more you sweat, the more dehydrated you become, and then you can get into these physiological conditions.

L: I’m chatting again with PSAR Ranger Stan Lindstedt, who, as my luck would have it, is a retired professor of physiology.

S: The messaging in the Canyon has changed in the last two years to – instead of “drink, drink, drink”, it’s now “drink when you’re thirsty.”

And that’s really important: is to, to not try to second-guess your own physiology. If you’re thirsty, please drink, and the other thing is, always pay attention to: are you urinating? And when you do urinate, is it really dark in color? – in which case, you’re not drinking enough. Or if it’s just completely clear, you’re drinking too much! There should be some color to your urine.

L: In a place like Grand Canyon, you are constantly reminded of how small you are. Just standing out on the Rim, I am minuscule. I’m an ant, you know? But when Stan explained to me what goes on inside our bodies on a cellular level… Oh my goodness, I am a giant! I am this huge organism with this entire universe inside of me.

And within that universe… there’s a lot going on – understatement of the year – but I… luckily, I had Stan walk me through it, to explain to me exactly what happens inside our bodies when we don’t sufficiently replace those salts we lose when we sweat.

S: So, the individual cells, are constantly communicating with your blood. And the concentration of the blood determines to a great extent what gets into and what gets out of cells. So, when you start messing around with the concentration of salt in your blood, what you’re really doing is changing the concentration of important constituents inside the cell.

And it’s inside the cell where life exists. So, you can think of the blood as this constant bath that’s trying to make life as perfect as possible for all of the cells, the hundred trillion cells, that make up a human body. As soon as we start changing the composition of the blood, we will change the composition of the cell.

And that can have super drastic consequences for the person that is under those conditions. One of those, that’s very dramatic, is hyponatremia, where now what happens is excess water goes into the cell, the cell expands and swells. And most of our cells, we can handle that, but the swelling of the cells in the brain can be fatal.

L: If you didn’t catch that, that term for extreme salt deficiency is hyponatremia, not to be confused with hypothermia, which is a whole different story and honestly deserves its own podcast episode.

S: If you drink too much, what you’re doing is diluting out your blood and “hypo-”, low, and “-natremia”, -natremia refers to sodium – so, you have a low salt content in your blood. And while that may not sound like it’s something bad, the consequence of that is that you’ll have swelling in the brain: cerebral edema.

And, any time that you have swelling in the brain, now you’re losing central nervous system function, and that can really, really escalate to a life-threatening situation, quickly.

People can – and have – in the Canyon died from cerebral edema.

So that one [hyponatremia] is the most serious – that isn’t the most common. What’s the most common are just people having heat exhaustion, where they are mildly dehydrated, they are… just… overcome with the conditions of the Sun and the heat.

Things that taste good when you’re losing salt are not necessarily things you would eat at home. And one of the things I eat exclusively when I’m on PSAR, are little cans of Vienna sausage. Turns out, that those tiny cans of Vienna sausage can contain 1,200 milligrams of sodium! It’s an enormous amount of salt. So, it’s a great replacement.

Some people like sweet things, some people like fruity things, some people just like a hard-boiled egg – whatever it is, that’s great, but the most important thing is to make sure that your salt intake is adequate and then the nutrition – as far as I’m concerned – is whatever tastes good to you. L: So, what did we learn? How can you avoid becoming a statistic? Let’s recap: as a rule, carry more food and water than you think you will need when hiking into the canyon… so that if your trip is extended unexpectedly, you’re prepared. And remember – pack something that you know you’re going to want to eat. As long as you’re keeping an eye on your salt levels, it’s literally to taste!

And if you run into a roving PSAR Ranger, say Hi! And have an honest discussion about your hiking capabilities, expectations, and supplies. PSAR Rangers, volunteer and full-time, can be found at trailheads and along the trails in the Canyon to help you make the best of your experience.

Remember: hyponatremia and dehydration are both serious conditions that can have lasting effects on your health. If you need help preparing for your hike, take a moment to chat with a PSAR ranger, park ranger, or park employee, any of whom would be happy to guide you in planning your trip. Like PSAR Ranger Anna says, “we all do PSAR” here at Grand Canyon.

Now, I’d like to take a moment to share something that I realized as I was investigating the world of Search and Rescue and emergency services here at Grand Canyon.

I count myself lucky – very, very lucky – that I have these resources at my disposal should I ever need them, but personally, moving forward, I am going to do everything I can to make sure that I am best-prepared for any hike that I undertake: in terms of water, food, gear, buddies, everything, so that I minimize the chance of having to call on these emergency response teams.

You shouldn’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it, but I think it’s important to communicate that every time a ranger or EMT sets out on an emergency mission, they are putting themselves in harm’s way in order to get that sick or injured person to safety.

Every extra case of water bottles or life-saving bag of chips is carried into the canyon by PSAR rangers themselves, and when an injured hiker is unable to continue their hike out of the canyon by themselves, it’s PSAR rangers who literally help carry that person out. Or, it’s an emergency responder who has to navigate on a helicopter through the canyon, which is very dangerous, by the way, in order to airlift someone out.

So, before hitting the trails, ask yourself: o What brought me here? o How have I physically and mentally prepared myself for this hike? o What supplies have I chosen and why? o Have I had an honest discussion about my abilities and expectations for this hike with my hiking mates? o And how can I hold myself accountable so that emergency response resources can be directed towards those in serious need? If we all take the time to prepare ourselves for our hikes and listen to our bodies, we can all have an amazing experience visiting the Grand Canyon. This has been a Behind the Scenery Canyon Cut. A Grand-Canyon-sized thank you to Anna Marini and Stan Lindstedt of Grand Canyon PSAR, Ranger Brendan Oates of the Inner Canyon District, and everyone else who lent their voices to this podcast.

Here at Grand Canyon, we gratefully acknowledge the Native Peoples on whose ancestral homeland we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant Native communities who make their home here today.

For more information about Preventative Search and Rescue operations at Grand Canyon National Park, refer to the Emergency Services webpage at nps.gov/grca.

If you enjoyed this podcast, I encourage you to listen to “Canyon Kinetics”, another Behind the Scenery Canyon Cut I produced, in which I interview Anna, Stan, and others about the biomechanics of hiking in a place like Grand Canyon.

Alright, I’m gonna get back to my hike. I’ve been sitting for a while. See ya next time.

Bison - Learning Sustainability with an American Icon Mar 03, 2021

How can a diverse set of skills be used to solve complex problems? This episode explores the uniqueness of the North Rim bison herd, and what it takes to implement a bison management plan that prioritizes a healthy ecosystem.

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Bison: American Icon Transcript

Jesse: Grand Canyon, where hidden forces shape our ideas, beliefs, and experiences. Join us as we uncover the stories between the colorful walls, and add your voice to what happens next at Grand Canyon. Welcome, this is Jesse and you're listening to Behind the Scenery. Samara: It’s just so nice seeing all the different sizes. Adam: Like I can tell there is an older male, some older females, as well as some younger calves. Skye: I get really excited I usually have my binoculars with me and then pulled over on the side of the road with all the tourists. William: It’s just exciting! Miranda: It’s tricky. Scott: I don't want to put get into the whole manifest destiny and genocide that occurred here, but I'll leave it at that. Danielle: they’re just such an important species in many many ways. Dave: you end up getting to know some of the animals when you spend time with them. Adam: It reminds me of an older simpler time. Margi: It’s just great to see them in the wild, which you don’t see very often. Danielle: To see them on the landscape anywhere is really special and really exciting. Adam: Just does my heart good to see things like this still. Really beautiful. Skye: Watching the calves play around and watching the males wallow. Samara: We're looking for bison, but we didn’t expect to see so many so close together like a little family. Dave: It's a very rewarding, not monetarily wise, but very rewarding job and experience to have working with the buffalo. Megan: People are starting to realize that Buffalo you know alongside humans that relied on them are the keystone managers of the North American ecosystem. Scott: The return of the Buffalo Nation to the Dakota people here. Jesse: Grand Canyon is not first place most people think of when they think of bison, but if you drive past the North Rim entrance station there's a decent chance you can see them grazing, wallowing, or lounging in the meadows. There's somewhere between 400 and 600 bison on the North Rim, but they haven't always been here. The story of bison on the North Rim is complicated. It’s tangled up with issues that reach far beyond the national park. Issues like over-hunting, climate change, colonization, and figuring out how to decide what belongs. To start untangling the story let's go back to the beginning. First, here's Megan Davenport from the Inter Tribal Buffalo Council to clear up a question I had: is it bison or buffalo? Megan: Both terms, bison and buffalo, are absolutely correct. There's also hundreds of native languages that have words for buffalo as well. We try not to get too hung up in this one’s correct and this one’s not. We think it is fully common and acceptable to use the term buffalo, but they are one in the same. Skye: Yeah, so our modern bison in North America are descended from Pleistocene bison. I'm Skye Salganek and I’m a biological science technician based on the North Rim and I’m the field lead for all studies related to bison. Jesse: I recruited Skye to help me understand the story of bison in North America, and the bison on the North Rim specifically. Skye: Their horns where about 7 feet wide. Jesse: What? Skye: Our modern bison are quite different. But they are one of the largest mammals in North America. They’re coming back from the brink of extinction. In the 1880s there were 325 individuals left in wild and now there's about 500,000, so not get back to the numbers they originally were. Jesse: What would those have been like? Skye: I've read 30 million. Jesse: 30 million. Skye: Yeah 30 million across North America. Jesse: From 30 million to 325. Skye: Yeah Jesse: And that was mostly from hunting? Skye: Yeah that was primarily from hunting in the 1860s and 1870s. After the bison had been haunted to near extinction there were a lot of carcasses and a lot of bones leftover across the plains. There were so many bones that they could fill two trains going from California to New York. But now they’re on the up and up and it is amazing thing to see them in a National Park or ranch or wherever the chance. Our bison herd was established in 1906 by Charles Buffalo Jones. In the 1860s and 70s he was hunting bison and was one of the best hunters out there. He boasted being able to hunt up to 10 bison in a day and skin them as well. Yeah, so it's kind of ironic but later on he felt a lot of remorse about playing a major role in the near extinction of the bison. When there was hardly more than 300 individuals left in the wild he was out there rounding up the last of the individuals, sending them to ranches to breed and re populate. In 1905 he went to Theodore Roosevelt and got him to create the Grand Canyon National Game Preserve and they brought in bison from a ranch in Texas and tried to re establish bison through re introduction but also interbreeding with cattle. He thought he could make a more robust cattle with tastier meat and the fur would still be valuable in the fur trade and he imagined that this would be a very valuable animal so he tried to cross Galloway cows with bison. Jesse: He eventually went bankrupt, right? Skye: He did. The project was unsuccessful. It went bankrupt. Jimmy Owens became the new game warden of Grand Canyon National Preserve. He took charge of the bison and later on Arizona Game and Fish bought the heard from him, and they managed them down in the House Rock Valley. 1990s they started moving up to the plateau spending more and more time. They would return the House Rock Valley for rut, they would go there during the hottest time. Jesse: Weird! Skye: Yeah, it is weird. Then, about 2009, they stopped returning to House Rock Valley at all and primarily spent their time in Grand Canyon National Park. With so much hunting on the boundary it really forces them into the national park land. Jesse: Right, there’s a year-round hunt on the forest for bison, and so they know where the boundary is now. Skye: They sure do, you can see it from the GPS data. Jesse: When the bison stopped leaving the park boundaries, scientists at Grand Canyon started to notice changes. To get a better understanding of what was changing and what Grand Canyon planned to do about it, I called Miranda Terwillegar. Miranda: I’m Miranda Terwillegar, and I'm a wildlife biologist here Grand Canyon. And I'm also the bison reduction project leader. This bison herd it either at the extreme edge of the natural range or outside of the natural range of bison, and as such it would have been a very small herd and they would have not stayed in one spot they would have moved and the area for periods of time, which currently does not happen. And part of that is because of people being everywhere and so they don't have the ability to move the way they did historically. That’s true of all bison herds every single unit that manages bison has a problem because they have areas where the bison are not allowed to migrate out to, whether that’s a city, or farm, or ranch, or whatever they're just a lot of places that the bison used to be that they can't go anymore. So because of this, their population was growing they were in fairly small area of the park and we started to notice resource damage. They were damaging springs – trampled, muddy, devoid of vegetation. Meadows - from tall grassland into well cropped vegetation, kind of like a pasture. Archaeological and cultural resource sites trampled and destroyed. A lot of things were happening that were of concern to resource managers here, and so we started talking to the Forest Service and the state of Arizona Game and Fish Department about our concerns. All the agencies agreed that heard was too high. The state had always managed the herd at about 100 animals while they were in House Rock. Jesse: There are as many as 600 now. Miranda: And so as part of that the agencies agreed to do some management to reduce the herd. Because the herd is primarily on the North Rim of Grand Canyon, Grand Canyon did natural and environmental planning and compliance in the form of an environmental assessment for a 5 year short-term reduction of getting the animal herd below 200 animals. Jesse: Herd reduction. What does that mean? Each of the last two years Grand Canyon has corralled bison and shipped them to a new home. Skye explains the process. [Background]Skye: When it’s full it’ll probably just start spurting out of that blow hole. [Background]Melissa: What about this one? [Background]Skye: Probably that one, too. Skye: Right, so we've been bating animals into a fixed corral for two years now, started in 2019. [Background]Skye: I left the corral early yesterday. I was pumping water and I pumped a full trough… Skye: We use water primarily, but we also use food and salt [Background]Skye: …was stuck in the capture pen, and it couldn't figure out how to get out. I was like “oh it's going to get it I'm just gonna stay here keep watering,” but it was like running against the fence… Skye: Just get it established as an area where there is food and there is water and there's all things nice it's a great place to hang. [Background]Skye: I’m gonna go leave you guys to figure this out because I don’t want you to get hurt and then I went, I like park the truck… Skye: And then we will shut the gates. For the actual corralling process once we've successfully captured it really takes a village. [Background]Skye: It was kind of cool. The herd wouldn’t leave without the calf. And all these females are on the other side of the fence… Skye: Veterinarians, biologists from not just our park, but other NPS parks, collaborating agencies that bring in biologists all of the North Rim staff help out – interp, law enforcement, and maintenance. It really takes a whole lot of people. The majority of the personnel at the corral are working up on the catwalks and there are these walkways raised about 6 to 7 feet above the ground. From up there and you can move the bison around with long flags and rattles. This is important because they are herd animals and they'll try to stay together, but for processing we really need one bison at a time. So we try to keep a quiet environment at the corral and use their natural behavior to separate them out. Processing includes running them through the corral and then biological team is collecting blood and tail hairs for genetics. We're putting a metal ear tag in and a pit tag that's like the microchip. We’re putting on collars to the larger individuals. They don't travel well so we'll just collar them and re release, same thing with the smaller calves. Yeah and then the trucks will come in from Inter Tribal Buffalo Council and we’ll load them up and they’ll start their journey cross country to go to various tribes that are receiving them. Danielle: A big bull once, I’ll never forget this, he just started just trying to bight me. Jesse: That’s Danielle Buttke. She's the one collecting most of the samples Skye just mentioned. Danielle: My name is Danielle Buttke and I am a wildlife veterinarian and public health service officer for the National Park Service, and I served as the on-site attending veterinarian for the corral operations. Typically what we'll do is individually identifying each of the animals so that we can go back in the heard and figure out who is who. We always take hair samples, that’s where we get the genetic material to look at the genetics of these animals. We collect blood samples so that we can test them for disease exposure to other diseases etc. And then we occasionally will also take nasal swabs too, because some of the bacteria that are an important pathogen for bison can be transmitted in the respiratory tract from animal to animal, and so that's another sample we often collect when we're handling these animals. And then we will look at the mouth and try and age the animal by looking at their teeth, and then look at their feet look for lesions that could be indicative of some of these diseases of importance when we're talking about transport and kind of get a get a look at the rest of the body of the animal really quickly. They don't understand why they're there. This is not a natural environment for them and so I'm at the same time just absolutely thrilled and also really feeling like wow I need to minimize the amount of time that they were there. You can see how terrified they are. Some of them react differently. Some get angry, some get quiet, some are a relatively unstressed considering the circumstances. I kind of read each animal and then modify the amount of exam that we're doing or the samples were collecting based on how the animal is in the shoot. But it's certainly a very humbling experience to be that close with them. So we're actually doing the little bit of examining we can under a high stress handling environment in the shoot, you know at least enough for us to understand if they're healthy enough for them to be shipped across state lines or not. Jesse: In order to ship bison the park has to test them for disease to make sure they won't carry pathogens to other populations. Through that testing process, bison managers have learned… Danielle: Generally these animals are pretty darn healthy and this is what we see with cattle, too. You know when you're out in open air, able to move around across the landscape, and grazing on your natural diet animals are generally healthier than say if you're kept in confinement, if you're not able to actually graze living food, and if you're not able to move around. One of the pathogens that are important to producers are the respiratory pathogens and then the parasites. And parassites are kind of a perfect example, if you live where you poop your at really high risk, and when you can graze and move around on the landscape you're going to have fewer parasites. We in the wildlife community are really trying shift away from this disease focus to a health focus, because you recognize that your resilience and your healthiness determines your disease outcomes. You know a lot of people can be infected with a certain pathogen and do just fine if they are healthy, and same for animals. You know if you've got a good diet, if you have the appropriate density, and this is in part why this operation so important, you have the resources you need you can fight off a lot of these pathogens. Once they exceed that carrying capacity they start degrading the quality of the resources which can then in turn degrade their health. Jesse: Genetic analysis was also conducted during the project the results were surprising. Danielle: A lot of folks assumed that there was a tremendous amount of cattle in genetics in the herd, and we did find some cattle genetics, but it was at a much lower level than I think a lot of folks had thought, and the really interesting part is we found some really interesting bison genes that didn't seem to be present in other DUI conservation herds. When you think about how you animals were left on the landscape, the overall North American bison population has had a pretty significant genetic bottleneck, which means that really any diversity of these alleles could be important given the selection pressure that was so placed on it back when they were hunted almost to extinction. So it highlights the conservation value of this herd beyond what folks had assumed with possible with a herd that had been traditionally interbred with cattle or at least attempted to be interbred with cattle. You know we don't know, for instance, that say maybe there's a gene present in the Grand Canyon heard that allows for them to withstand drought better. You know, we don't know that at this point in time. But what we do know is that maintaining as much genetic diversity as possible in general leads to a healthier population that's more resilient to any type of stressor, from disease to drought to heat. And with a warming climate it's really important for any species we're trying to conserve to maintain as much diversity as possible so that they have the best chance of adapting to the changes they will see. Jesse: After learning all this, the question I was left with was “how should we decide what belongs?” This is something that these three thinking about a lot. Here's Miranda: Miranda: It's tricky honestly and there's several reasons why we make this. One, I personally do not believe the science will ever be fully decided whether or not the North Rim of the Grand Canyon was in within the native range. Yes there are lots of maps that supposedly depict what the historic range was. Map making wasn't all that big of a strong suit in the 1900s. Archaeology tells us something but you know it's really reliant on what could be preserved in the system. Whether we will ever have enough hard data say yes or no is, I really think, unlikely. I think there probably were bison, probably not very many. They may have only come in every now and then. They are pioneering animals, you know the young males will wander miles and miles outside of their range, but again I don't think I don't think that is something that we can hang our hats on to make that decision. And I think early park management was trying to do that. There are honestly politics at play into this. These bison and are very important to the state of Arizona, and it is very important to them to keep them on. I don't think politically we would be able to get to a point where we say we're just going to eradicate them. Case in point, the state of Arizona has introduced 17 new bison to House Rock Valley. If we were to eradicate the ones on the Kaibab, they might just open the gates and let those ones up. And then when you throw climate change into these questions and the fact that species ranges are moving, I think that complicates the issue of when do you leave a species be, and what is native and what is range expansion and what is truly invasive non-nativity. And I think it's a question that the Park Service and all land managers are probably grappling with countrywide. If the habitat where, for example, the redwoods can no longer sustain redwoods but they can live somewhere else, do we move them and have them move somewhere else or do we have them go extinct. That, you know, this is a big philosophical question, it's a very difficult question to answer. And I think we are addressing that with several species within this park and there are no easy straightforward answers. A lot of different things play into it whether it's the biology, the practicality, the politics all those things have to feed into that final decision. Skye: Yeha, it is a difficult decision to make for resource managers that are trying to balance all these different resources. I think the park service motto - to preserve and protect - it's tricky when we're changing world. To preserve things as they were when the Park Service came into existence 100 years ago, it's preserving a snapshot in time and sometimes that's not super realistic. Danielle: When you think about why a National Park any National Park was created, oftentimes their enabling legislation is to conserve a specific set of species and conditions that were present when the park was created. And with climate change a lot of specific species and conditions are no longer possible on the landscape. And what this means is that our public lands established for conservation purposes can no longer, alone, accomplish the conservation goals that as a society hold dear. We’re looking at a future where we have to really think very broadly beyond our borders for conservation. It doesn't matter if it was native to an area or not, we need to instead, I think, ask the question does this species need conservation assistance and can this unit help out? We really need to change some of that really historic condition type mind set if we're going to continue to conserve these species with climate change. The idea of preserving this tiny mosaic makes sense when there's ecosystem integrity everywhere, but that's just not the case. There isn’t, in my mind, anything that's entirely natural anymore. You cannot go anywhere without seeing some aspects of human influence and because of that defining what's natural maybe isn't the right question if you know our goal is really to protect the planet. And as a scientist you're trained to be impartial, you know, and just let the data speak for itself, but because we are also dependent upon this planet as human beings we're never going to be impartial. We're always going to be biased. I think we need to do a lot more as a scientific community of, not necessarily, you know, I don't think advocate is the right word, but speaking up for conservation, speaking up for those resources, and being willing to kind of manage in the face of uncertainty a little more than we have in the past. And there's a really interesting effort that the Climate Change Response Program of NPS has done a tremendous amount of work leading to define what is native, and under climate change what can we expect from our interpretation of our policies, interpretation of our legislation in terms of accomplishing the greatest good for conservation. And this is really going to require this broader landscape, multi scale initiative that goes far beyond our borders. I think Grand Canyon bison are kind of are emblematic of this, right. There's this debate about whether or not the historic range of bison includes this part of the country or not, but that's not really I don't think the right question to ask under climate change. I think the right questions to ask is “is this suitable habitat and can it contribute to the conservation of the species, while still adding to the broader naturalness and natural resource value of that ecosystem?” And that's really I think the question we should be asking. And there's knowledge that I just don't think we're tapping into as much as we need to be to meet the goals that we have. Indigenous knowledge, particularly with the species that is so important to indigenous people, we're really missing a huge opportunity to make a bigger impact if we're not relying on that knowledge more heavily in their management. Jesse: Today people like Skye, Danielle, and Miranda are thinking about whether or not buffalo belong at Grand Canyon because of the decisions that were made about who or what belongs more than 100 years ago. The industrial scale bison hunting that nearly wiped out the species in the 1800s wasn't just about hides or sport, it was a tool for controlling indigenous people and for removing them from their homelands. I wanted to get a better understanding of this part of the story, and what it means for tribes today to receive buffalo from places like the North Rim. With some help from folks at Grand Canyon I got in touch with Megan Davenport from the Inter Tribal Buffalo Council, and she helped set up a call with Scott Anderson. Scott is land manager for the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe, one of the tribes that received buffalo from Grand Canyon this year. Scott: I am Scott Anderson. I am the land manager for the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe of Flandreau, South Dakota. I’m also the manager of the buffalo herd and have been a member of the board of directors for Inter Tribal Buffalo Council for roughly 15 years now. Historically, you know, the buffalo was the economy. The Dakota people we supplement out diet with buffalo, but we're also on the edge of the woodland where there was deer and fishing going on. But as we migrated west like the buffalo it became a very important part of our economy, and to have that restored in last 30 years to the people here has been a blessing. My predecessor Wes Hanson, he was a part of ITBC when it first started I believe. We started with some animals from Badlands National Park and it's taken off from there. Jesse: Here’s Megan to give us a little more info on the Inter Tribal Buffalo Council. We'll hear from her again in a minute. Megan: My name is Megan Davenport and I'm the wildlife biologist for the Inter Tribal Buffalo Council. ITBC is a federally chartered tribal organization. We have a membership of 69 tribal nations that are restoring buffalo herds to their land. So of the things that ITBC does is provide technical assistance to tribes in managing their buffalo herds, or starting new buffalo herds, or growing their herds and everything kind of under the sun. So our organization has a couple different main programs. One of those is a grant program called the Herd Development Grant. We also have the Surplus Buffalo Program. Since 1992 we've been working with public lands, so places like the National Park Service and US Fish and Wildlife refuges, and a number of other state, federal, and also private entities in order to transfer surplus buffalo from those places to tribes that want to grow or develop their herds. It's sort of a win-win situation for both the parks, and also for tribes because basically any buffalo that are behind fences eventually will grow and exceed the capacity of those lands. I mean it's a species that used to roam the entire continent in very very large numbers, so in order to kind of offset that grazing pressure and help maintain a healthy ecosystem on the public lands ITBC has been basically arranging the logistics and also transporting, paying for the transport of those animals, and helping match up those animals with tribes that want to grow their herds. Scott: It’s very important to diversify our herd’s DNA. We received 32 buffalo from 3 different national parks in the last year. 14 buffalo from Wind Cave National Park, two bulls that originated from Yellowstone, and then 16 buffalo delivered from Grand Canyon. It’s fun to watch. Initially the Grand Canyon buffalo were off on their own, and now today we pulled out into the pasture and they just surrounded us and were actually bouncing the truck around. The Grand Canyon herd has merged with the rest of our herd and has adapted well. We have a lot of our members that consider themselves to be traditional Indians and don’t practice Christianity, but our traditional religion, whether it be the Sun Dancing or other types of ceremonies. I, myself have Sun Danced since 1975. Buffalo play a role during the Sun Dance. It’s been a spiritual journey as well as cultural and economic. The return of the Buffalo Nation to the Dakota people here. There's 560 federally recognized tribes in the United States, you know, plus all the reserves in Canada. I would like to see more tribes become members of Inter Tribal Buffalo Council and expand these numbers to other tribes Turtle Island and start helping these tribes diversify their economy. Megan: Yeah I agree with Scott entirely. There's such a room for growth and ITBC’s membership. And what that actually means is many, many thousands and thousands of Buffalo returning to tribal lands and also returning to tribal people. You know, tribal people have always been the leaders in restoring buffalo, and have been managers of the buffalo for tens of thousands of years. A lot of times when people think of, you know, oh buffalo doesn't have any predators or you know that's just ridiculous. It's always been humans and some other large, you know grizzlies and wolves and things like that. But recognizing that many different nations within the US have been leading this movement of restoring buffalo, which now today is getting some well deserved recognition as a really important movement, people are starting to realize that buffalo, you know, alongside humans that relied on them are the keystone managers of the North American ecosystem, and are so very important in restoring grasslands, and maintaining habitat for other species, and you know all these other ecological roles. So, you know, the more tribes are able to manage buffalo in the way that they decide to do so as sovereign nations, and are also recognized outside of that for their expertise in managing and restoring buffalo, and restoring and managing, you know, all ecosystems across Turtle Island, then you know that's something that's positive for everyone. And that's something that you know everyone can learn from. Jesse: I think what struck me most in learning about the North Rim buffalo herd is just how connected it is to the world outside the boundaries of Grand Canyon, even though it rarely leaves them anymore. It's exciting to hear from wildlife managers who are adapting the way they think about buffalo and other species in response to climate change, but the question that still looms for me is how or if agencies like the National Park Service will include indigenous knowledge in the decisions about what belongs and how to manage changing ecosystems. Here's Megan with the last word: Megan: There’s a type of kind of western science, like European western science that, you know, has this myth that all of North America was a wilderness before Europeans came here. That's just garbage. The depth and diversity of how people have been managing sustainably for tens of thousands of years the North American ecosystems is really incredible. And not, you know, not as many people spend enough time or the education system doesn't necessarily teach those kinds of things either. So, you know, if you if you learn about how tribes are managing buffalo you get to see and learn about a lot of that. Jesse: And if you aren't a member of a tribe. Megan: We are all neighbors to, you know, 570 plus federally recognized tribes. And if you're listening and you want to know more about buffalo, look around you and find one of the tribes that's local to your area and maybe try to learn from them a little bit about buffalo, and about whether they have a current or historic relationship with the animal, or with any of the species that are local to your area. Jesse: Thanks to Scott Anderson and Dave Ross of the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe, to Megan Davenport of the Inter Tribal Buffalo Council, and to Daniel Buttke, Skye Salganek, Miranda Terwillegar, and Melissa Panter of the National Park Service for lending their voices to this episode. We also heard from visitors Adam Allred, Margi Ness, Samara Rangel, and Williamson Semple. Behind the Scenery is brought to you by the interpretation team at Grand Canyon National Park. We gratefully acknowledge the native peoples on whose ancestral homelands we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant native communities that make their home here today.

Dams Part One: Dams Alter the River Mar 02, 2021

Welcome to the water world at the bottom of a mile-high desert! In today’s episode, we'll explore how the Glen Canyon Dam changed the Colorado River through one story about wildlife struggling to survive in a damned world. The big picture of development invites you to consider ongoing inquiries about how to balance the stuff you need with the life you want to see.

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TRANSCRIPT:

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[Audio: water splashing noises]

Bob

We’re walking upstream in the little gorge below the barrier fall at Shinumo to our second net in a pool in a tight, dog-like turn where yesterday we saw at least four humpback chub. Hopefully, some of those fish will be in the net.

Kate

Hidden forces shape our ideas, beliefs, and experiences of Grand Canyon. Join us as we uncover the stories between the canyon’s colorful walls. Add your voice for what happens next at Grand Canyon! 

Kate

Hello and welcome. My name is Kate. You are listening to Behind the Scenery.

Welcome to the water world at the bottom of a mile-high desert. Tributaries and streams flow down steep cliffs and side canyons to meet at the river. The Colorado River in Grand Canyon is sandwiched between dams at both ends of the park, Glen Canyon Dam at the top and Hoover Dam at the bottom.  After Glen Canyon Dam blocked the river in 1963, people started noticing that it impacted the community of animals and plants at the bottom of the canyon. The dam altered the riparian world downstream. A wave of change hit the aquatic environment– that’s home to water bugs and fish! It changed the river for people too. In today’s episode we are going to explore how the Glen Canyon Dam changed the Colorado River. We’ll share one story about the struggles of wildlife to survive in a damned world.

Bob

So let's talk about what the River was like prior to dams, just to draw the contrast. 

Kate

This is Bob Schelly. He is a fisheries biologist for the Native Fish Ecology and Conservation Program at Grand Canyon.

Bob

So the Colorado River, which is a big desert river draining pretty arid landscapes. Pre-dam is characterized by really large snowmelt-driven spring runoff events and so it was typical in a spring runoff to see flows through Grand Canyon in excess of 120,000 CFS, so that's a cubic feet per second…

Kate

A cubic foot is about the size of a basketball. So imagine 120,000 basketballs flooding past you every second.

Bob

So you have these big sediment-laden spring floods and then during the summer the river levels would drop to comparatively low base flows of 5000 CFS or less. And in addition, those floods would carry lots of driftwood, woody debris, they would build enormous sandbars and create backwater habitats related to the deposition of sediment and there would be a temperature difference. You have very warm water in summer and of course in winter at base flows, the coldest temperatures, close to freezing.

Kate

A flood that big was like flushing the toilet, a big whoosh down the canyon...It purged things, but also brought nutrients into the canyon body... It was like a seasonal detox.

Bob

 Post-dam pretty much all those details have changed. So now the reservoir upstream, Lake Powell, behind Glen Canyon Glen Canyon Dam, captures big spring runoff so you don't see a pulse. So it's in effect it's flattened that hydrograph. You no longer have the big floods through the Grand Canyon, and the base flows don’t get as low as they did historically.  

Kate

The canyon used to have a pulse, a heartbeat that ran with the seasons. The dam flatlined that pulse....if the river is the heart of the canyon, the dam changed how that heart beats. 

Bob

But you see more daily fluctuations because the dam is generating power and at peak power demand they increase the release. So over a 24-hour cycle, you see rise and fall of the River, which in the in the years right after dam closure, was quite extreme.  

Kate

And it was extreme for humans too. There are people on the river in Grand Canyon, floating on rafts and kayaks, navigating rapids all the time! At night, they tie in their boats, big enough to carry 15 people, to stakes on the beach and settle in to sleep to the sound of the river. 

Bob

You hear stories about people boating through Grand Canyon and waking up after a night’s sleep and finding their enormous S-rig 10 feet up on the beach, just stranded. These days that daily fluctuation is less. It might be on the order of 1 1/2 or two feet but you have daily fluctuations and a more constant hydrograph throughout the year. And it's a cold clear release because it comes out of the bottom of the reservoir, so in summer now the river is very cold which didn't used to be the case, and in winter the water is actually warmer than it would have been pre-dam

Kate

The River is so cold, it's really hard to swim in! The changes that happened to the Colorado after the dam changed many aspects of the corridor in Grand Canyon from the size of beaches to the experience of voters to the lives of the plants and animals that depended on that watershed. So today's story goes underwater with the fish. Let's meet Rebecca Koller who has a long career at Grand Canyon, extending back over 20 years. She had her start in the vegetation program and began with fisheries in 2016. Rebecca is now the natural resource specialist for the Native Fish Ecology and Conservation Program.

Rebecca

So yeah in Grand Canyon originally there were eight native fish in the Grand Canyon river and six of those are endemic

Kate

Endemic means that creature only lives in that geographical location. So these endemic fish are special because they only live in the Colorado River watershed that's around the Canyon.

Rebecca

And four of them have been extirpated and two of them are now endangered.  

Kate Let’s look at that word extirpated. It's similar to extinction in that they have disappeared, but instead of disappearing from the entire world, they've been rooted out of a local area, similar to how grizzly bears, which are on the state flag of California, are extirpated from California today.

Rebecca

So I might have mentioned the Colorado pikeminnow has been extirpated from the Colorado River through Grand Canyon. It does still exist I think in pretty low numbers, huh Bob, in the upper basin. Yeah, they’re declining. And that was that was one of the one of the large predatory fish and the other ones that have been extirpated from Grand Canyon is the bonytail chubs, the round-tailed chubs and is that it? Yeah. And the pike minnow. Rite, rite. So and then the other two that are endangered or the humpback chub and razorback suckers.

Kate

Out of the eight original native fish, the humpback chub is a crowd favorite. 

Bob

the humpback chub is special within this group in that they’re long lived fish, 40 plus years, and they’re, they’re habitat specialists in canyon-bound regions. So pre-dam humpback chub were not widespread throughout the basin. They were found in canyon reaches that have would have big rapids and deep water within gorges that have this pool-rapid kind of morphology. 

Kate

Within the mile-deep gorge of Grand Canyon, the river pools into eddies after going through rapids with waves taller than people. It was the perfect habitat for the humpback chub! What else is cool about the chub? When you look at it, it has a face kind of like the canyon mules. This narrow, rounded face, and above that face rise a big hump.

Bob

And large adults develop this weird fleshy hump that sticks out above the head and there have been a number of theories why because its not just humpback chub, it’s the razorback sucker, you can tell by the name, that feature above the head that makes them deep-bodied. And the theory that I like most, and I think there is some experimental evidence to support it, so why multiple lineages evolve this feature this humpback like feature is that Colorado pikeminnow which was the one big predator prior to invasives gaining a foothold in the basin, are gape-limited. So they can't open, even though they get very big, pikeminnows can get 6 feet long, at least they did historically, physically opening their mouth is surprisingly limited for as big a fish as they are. And it turns out that humpback chub and razorback sucker, once they reach a certain size and the hump starts to develop they become invulnerable to predation. They don't fit into the mouth of pikeminnow except the very largest pikeminnow. 

Kate

These fish evolved, especially to interact with each other, in this specific place. This doesn’t happen everywhere! So we are looking at a predator and prey relationship that went on for centuries before the river was dammed....time enough for our chub to evolve one mean hump that was too big, and too tough for the shark of the Colorado to swallow!  Now that the dam is here, the entire population is completely caught in the Grand Canyon between the two dams.

Rebecca

Sure, yeah, so as Bob mentioned earlier, the humpback chub is the largest population of that chub remaining in Grand Canyon and it's centered around the little Colorado River and it's sort of thought of as the center of the humpback chub universe. And so as a result of the dam operation, it was identified as a conservation measure to establish another second spawning aggregation of humpback chub within Grand Canyon, recognizing that that little Colorado River population is, you know, it's still vulnerable to catastrophic events. Say weather events, flooding or contamination or whatnot. So, so it was identified that that was important to establish that second spawning aggregation and so I think in the 2000s or around 2000 there was a study published looking at potential other locations for translocation, other tributary locations, and in that study it was identified, three sites were identified. They identified Havasu Creek, Shinumo Creek and Bright Angel Creek as potential translocation areas that would support humpback chub population. And they were looking at like water quality, temperature and then also the presence of non-natives 

Kate

Remember this?

Bob

Kate

Between 2009-2014, a fish crew at Grand Canyon began pro-actively reintroducing humpback chub to Shinnumo Creek, giving them another home to recover from the dam. 

Rebecca

And all indicators up to that point where that the fish were doing well, they were, they were growing and surviving in Shinumo Creek. And then in 2014 there was a fire on the North Rim and subsequent flooding into that Shinumo drainage which essentially wiped out all of the all of the fish population in that Creek including the humpback chub, bluehead suckers,  speckled dace and all other fish species there so, so it was, it was I think what is interesting about that whole project was again we learned that you know these populations of humpback chubs continue to be vulnerable to those catastrophic events. Fortunately, we've done work in Havasu Canyon and Bright Angel.

Kate

When you have an endangered species like the humpback chub that only lives in a small area, a catastrophic event like a fire or flood could cause them to go extinct. In order to increase the habitat range of the humpback chub, the fisheries crew would have to tackle another problem, the fact that invasive species are outcompeting the humpback chubs in the creeks they once called home.

Rebecca

So we started electrofishing the entire reach of Bright Angel Creek, which is about 13 miles, in 2012. And that effort involves backpack electrofishing with crews of, you know, 6 to 10 people.

Kate

I met fish crew down in the backcountry at Bright Angel campground and joined them in the water as they pounded in a weir that would keep non-native trout out of the creek. Afterward, we met back in a roundtable at the employee cabin so that we could get the scoop on non-native fish removal.

Nick

Ok, my name is Nick. I've been involved with this project for quite awhile now. I forget how many years, but I guess my favorite part about this is you're in this pretty magical place. In my opinion, you're doing really good work. Work like I mentioned earlier, we're restoring these native fish or we’re trying to restore their habitat. Yeah and I guess get to outreach to people and explain what we're doing and especially having those people, some of them have come and volunteered on our crew, and just, I guess over the years we've seen people with a negative outlook kind of switch to a positive outlook and we're seeing more native fish and more people that are on board with this.

Mike

Uh, my name is Mike. I've helped out with this project on and off since 2012, and I've also done fisheries work throughout the Colorado River with similar fish as down here. And it's just kind of cool working on this project which is, you know, it's the same goal as projects elsewhere that I've worked, with the same species, different place. And I don't know, it's just it's cool being a part of the project that has gone on for this long and is really great people working here.

Ray

My name is Ray. I have been a technician here for this week is my sixth season on the Bright Angel crew and what I really like about this job, in this position, is that you know, this being my sixth year, and working the last five years you actually notice a difference every year as you work down from the source all the way down the Colorado River 13 miles of electrofishing, you can see a difference in less and less nonnative fish and more and more native fish. So I think the biggest thing for me is just being able to see that difference over a period of five years. It's pretty awesome! Makes you want to keep coming back keep doing this work, and another thing is just in terms of the job, the place you get to work in the bottom of the Grand Canyon. That's pretty awesome! People you work with are pretty great, so my best friends I met on this job. And it doesn't help that my supervisor is in the room but the people you work for us agree and not just saying that 'cause he's in the room here, but I really do think that yeah, you work for great people with great people, in a great place. It's pretty awesome.

Nick

So I guess we're down here I the main goal is to create a habitat friendly for the humpback chub which historically lived in bright Angel Creek or at least it's assumed at least down in the River like Delta area of right Angel and there are lots of Brown and rainbow trout in it now thanks to some people back in the early 1900s stocking it who worked for the Park Service.  

Kate

Yes, Rangers were stocking creeks in the 1920s with sport fish from Europe like brown trout and rainbow trout. There are pictures of rangers on mules slung with old milk cans full of non-native fish. In Bright Angel canyon, rangers were even operating a fish hatchery to actively stock the creek with lots of non-native babies. The non-natives flourished after the dam was put in, out-competing local fish and interrupting the river food chain. Today’s fisheries crew had a lot of work to do, or undo, in Bright Angel Creek. 

Nick

I guess the whole goal of the project is to protect the resources within the park for future generations and unfortunately our predecessors did put nonnative fish into the creeks, but now we're restoring those native fish that are here or at least making it making the habitat available for them so they can potentially persist into the future for future generations to come experience.

Ray

Nick that was beautiful!

Nick

Thank you, Ray.

Mike

I guess we can talk about how the tributaries within Grand Canyon are kind of like a stronghold for the native fish. Well, could be. I guess the River is highly modified. You know Glen Canyon dam is up there releasing cold, clear water that's super unnatural for this river’s historical flows and sediment load and so the tributaries are really important to the native fish for spawning and for, you know, the like rearing of younger fish and so this is like just one little piece of a larger effort to like restoring the chubs as there's other projects in another tributary or two restoring the shed.

Ray

Well I may not be as qualified discussed this, but just from personal observation from talking to people who have been coming to Phantom ranch for 10s of years, one observation it could be from trout removal or not but trout kind of prey on macroinvertebrates and so I think people notice more birds entering the area that are feeding upon flying insects that may be where otherwise have been consumed from trout. But now that niche has opened, more insects maybe include some more birds. Coming to think, the last Christmas bird count they got a high species richness count.

Kate

One of the concerns about the brown trout is they aren't just outcompeting native fish, they are eating everything in the creek, from the small native fish like speckled dace to those aquatic insects which start their lives underwater but become flying insects like caddis flies and mayflies. They are the base of the food chain for a lot of birds. One of the neat things that I've observed in my time down by Bright Angel Creek is over the past couple years, I'll never forget the first time I saw a great blue heron going through the creek and catching those little speckled dace minnows. The amazing thing is you likely would not have seen a heron there five years ago because the trout had eaten out their traditional food source.

Bob

I would say a benefit of trout removal is this expansion and really increasing numbers of native fish is an although some of these natives are endangered and still can't be angled in sportfish yet. I think one day that should be an ultimate goal because fish like the humpback chubs and round tail in the upper basin and maybe one day in Grand Canyon, the large native predator pikeminnow which could grow up to six feet long. I think that one day those fish could be very appealing to people to angle the native fish that evolved in this system. And for people who are trout enthusiasts I think there are plenty of places to go and fish for trout in their native range but one day I'd like to see Grand Canyon as a destination for anglers who are interested in fish diversity where it's found naturally and it would be the experience of a lifetime to catch a large pikeminnow in the Grand Canyon. For me that would be angling gold.

Nick

It is about 13 miles from the source all the way to the confluence of the Colorado River so it's pretty cool we get to start up in October basically starting at the source Rangel Creek actually consists of Roaring Springs and Angel Springs and we were fortunate enough to be able to shock up the entire length of Roaring Springs an Angel Springs in October and then by around February ish mid January we make it closer to the confluence and it's pretty cool because as we start up at the top at Angel Springs it's the leaves are starting to change and then throughout the season's working or wait downstream we dropped elevation chasing fall all the way down to confluence since it's kind of cool that you know we just work with the leaves as they change. 

Kate

As I went out on my winter backcountry patrols, I would look down on a team of women and men and waiters in their hands were yellow human sized ones that they would jab into the water.

Nick

excited about that the description just because anytime were shocking in the stream is 2 Electro Fishers so there's a it's a backpack base that you wear and there's two of 'em so they'll be two people wearing them should have followed by netters people getting fishes or shocked up in bucket or his people bucking fish that are netted anyway long story short people when they walk past us on the trail they make the job you probably hear this joke you know once a day twice a day but at least once a day that looks like we're Ghostbusters big square backpacks watching ghosts down there nude talk with them or tell about little bit about the project and what we're doing is really good public outreach

Mike

I feel like like we're walking on bowling balls.

Bob

What’s that show?

American ninja warrior. Climbing over cascades, through overhanging vegetation and climbing up over waterfalls. It's pretty arduous getting up the creek and sometimes people can slip and top their waiders and you know, need to take 5 but it's it is an adventure getting up the creek. 

Kate

Working in fish crew requires a blend of wilderness skills and meticulous data collection.

[Sound clip of collecting data with splashes and Enya playing in the background]

Mike and Bob and Nick

Well everyone, the whole teams in in the creek. You’ve got your two shockers up front and when the whole team's down there, you say, “Ok, everyone ready?” and then you say, “OK shocking!” You check your time and the shockers put their thumbs on the on the anodes button and we're off and any any trout that are within like an 8 foot radius of the the wand will be drawn into that anode ring at the end of the wand. And after, if they reached a distance from that they'll go…What's the word? Techne. But they just just like when they're knocked out. What’s a scientist word for knocked out can sort of pretend to understand. OK so they’re stunned once they get close enough and thankfully the creek is really clear and sometimes they might get stunned deep down or sometimes they shoot across the field but usually you can see them 'cause they got a white belly and they kind of flash and netters Test will scoop them up. Sometimes if you're in a big cloud of dace they'll just be flowing downstream like they look like leaves or something they just keep coming and coming and coming. But yeah, we're mostly just scooping every single fish we see and putting them into buckets filled with water. At least the natives get the buckets with fresh water and then next we dispatched the the trout and put them in the dead bucket for processing later. Yeah it's pretty exciting sometimes when the water is flowing pretty fast and in a group of there's five to eight of us in the stream and we're trying not to fall, we’re slipping around and then shout and Fisher shooting like 3 legs the waters fans were trying to net fish and or like hey 

Kate

For the past decade, fish crew would return each fall. Over time, what they found in their studies started to change.

Bob

So when this project was initiated in about 2012 trout both Brown and rainbow trout were the predominant fish species in the Creek and they were very dense so that over the course of a whole season more than 10,000 trout were removed whereas today we've succeeded in reducing trout by more than 95% and last winter we removed only around 300 Brown trout so that's very successful suppression effort and the other side of that coin is that we've seen a real rebound of native fish is both in numbers and in their range. 

Kate

10,000 trout in the creek meant buckets of non-natives lined the creek. This is a huge success story in Grand Canyon. In today’s world, isn’t good to hear about a species coming back from the brink? Now finding a non-native fish can be it’s own challenge. It’s a big deal! 

Ray

It's pretty exciting sometimes when the water is flowing pretty fast and in a group of there's five to eight of us in the stream and we're trying not to fall. We’re slipping around and then trout and fish are shooting like through our legs. The waters running fast. We’re trying to net fish and or like, “Hey Mike!” is officially over there. Gets it. Jumps, jumps across the channel, scoops up the fish! I got that trout! I got that trout! And then it's pretty exciting, and then if we're up top like around Cottonwood, we maybe we haven't seen any native fish yet and where, you know, the water is flowing super-fast and we're trying not to fall again and, you know, these trout going between our legs. We’re netting. All of a sudden someone pulls up the net and there's a, there's a maybe a flannel mouth or bluehead sucker in there and we're like, “Yeah! first sucker of the season this is awesome and just kind of very exciting very exhilarating it's almost like it's almost like we're ghostbusting separate trout busting.

Mike

Trademark! Yeah, the trout are very, they're quick, so you can't. It takes awhile for you to hone in on like, just where do you stick your net when you see them? It's kind of, it's like a game almost, like tennis. I don't know, go for the head.

Nick

Or hockey, a lot of people who play hockey are pretty good at netting. Another thing too is with larger trout especially for entering a pool they can feel that electrical field before hand and it's often that they'll charge at us to try and break that field, so sometimes they won't actually. You have to bring you’re A-game if you want to catch those trout, and that's what our goal is.

Mike

Yeah, the big trout are the ones we're after because we're going in during spawning season and so we want to get the big ones that are carrying the most the eggs, you know, and the ones that are going to produce a lot of offspring. And so if we catch a big trout, that's that's a big deal that we're cutting out possibly hundreds of offspring that could be, you know, raised in the creek the following year. But also getting little ones is just as important.

Mike

Which brings us to the end of the day. So we're removing brown trout and rainbow trout from the creek and this kind of ugly part of the creek or the project, but also kind of cool. Every trout that is removed from the stream is used for beneficial use. We don't just, a lot of other removal projects you just throw the fish along the bank or sink 'em but every single trout that we take out of the creek either goes to human consumption or to aviaries at the Hopi and Zuni reservations. And so every fish we catch we are cleaning or bagging them and we're carrying them all the way back to the bunkhouse and putting in in vacuum sealed bags and freezing 'em and the next time the helicopter comes down we send them out.

Kate

What makes this fish program unique is that none of the trout are wasted. Each trout is used for beneficial use for people or other animals, and this was brought about in collaboration with Grand Canyon’s Traditionally Associated tribes. These are people groups that have called the canyon home for thousands of years. Many of the tribes expressed concerns about how the program was operating in a sacred space.

Kate

At this point, we're going to explore an oral history conducted by Paul Hirt of Arizona State University. We're going to listen to clips from his interview with Kurt Dongoske who has been involved with the Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management program since 1991. Kurt was the director and principal investigator for the Zuni Cultural Resource Enterprise and often represents the Zuni tribe on issues related to River management.

Kurt

Anyways, so when I was at Zuni in 2008, um, a Zuni religious leader came in and asked me, “Are they still killing fish and the Grand Canyon?”…………….I said, yeah. He said, “That’s not right. They should stop that.” And I said, “Well, why?” And he explained to me, well he explained to me this story….. 

Clip from Zuni in the Grand Canyon film

The Eastern travelers came to the Little Colorado River where the Haiyutas warned them that as they crossed, they must hold their children tight. Then in the middle of the river, they children began to turn into water creatures. Fish, turtles, frogs, and snakes. Some parents dropped there children into the water where they were lost. They mourned but when they came to the place of the Co Co they heard singing. They were the spirits of their children. Thus all aquatic life are the ancestors and kin to the Zuni People.

Kurt

That event: that all aquatic beings are Zuni children, are viewed as Zuni children, whether they’re native or not native doesn’t matter. And so from a Zuni perspective, you are killing these fish, you are killing Zuni children. You’re killing beings that Zuni has a special relationship to.    

Kurt

I think there’s a lot of, a lot of benefit that western science could take from the Zuni perspective of this sense of stewardship in the sense that the environment that you’re dealing with is composed of multiple sentient beings and that your actions on that environment have consequences, long-term consequences. I think it would make scientists much more respectful of the animals they handle, how they treat them, how they deal with them, what sorts of projects they want to design.   

Kate

Let's hear from another oral history of Leigh Kuwanwisiwma who was director of the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office for thirty years. He is the leader of the Hopi Tribe and has been involved in the Adaptive Management Plan in Grand Canyon on the river since around 1989.

Leigh

The big one is the electrocution of those trout. That was a big controversy initially to Hopi cause we were the only one who commented on that proposal. So our record stands that one the initial area that they were going to zap those trouts by the thousands was right at the Confluence, you know, a sacred site. A very sacred site to us. You know. And it encompasses this kind of concept of the spiritual domain. So, well, it’s our finality, as I told you, it was also the beginning of our spiritual life. I one day hope to become a Cloud Person to visit all of you people. That’s how we believe. So it’s the beginning of life for us. So, our [road noise]– I said to Kurt, you know how I would best explain it? Is that they kill all these fish. They’re taking life away from living creatures. And Hopi, when they do their prayer feathers and prayer offerings, it’s for the perpetuation of life. It’s not for the end of life. Nah. So even though that proposal had a purpose, because the effect on the humpback chub, and overpopulation, you know, it just didn’t sit well with me (road noise and wind noise). If they dare do that, it’s going to create this aura of death. That was our argument.

Rebecca

As many people know, Grand Canyon is sacred to a number of native tribes in the area. And our work was, you know, it, it has significant impact to, to non-native fish in Grand Canyon and that was of concern particularly to the Zuni tribe. The work that we're doing in Bright Angel Creek which is removing the brown and rainbow trout, was of concern to the Zuni Tribe. Their, a very sacred place to them is Ribbon Falls. And so it was through lots of consultation with them and other tribes that it was decided that all, all fish that we remove from, from Bright Angel Creek or, or otherwise, will be safe for human consumption. So all of the fish that we take out of Bright Angel Creek we clean and freezer seal and then we'll take that fish and it becomes, we’ll fly it out and it's available for, for others, you know to, for human consumption. We've delivered fish to Zuni as well as Hopi and Navajo. Some of the smaller fish that we remove from the creek that's not easily cleaned we’ll freeze and we’ll give that to tribes for their ceremonial eagles. And so we delivered fish to Zuni to their aviary, we've also delivered fish to Navajo to the zoo there. So we try you know, as much as it's feasibly possible, to, to save any of the fish that we, we take from the creek or the river and give, you know make it available for people or, or animals, other animals. So I think that's really important component of the work we do. You know there's just a lot a lot to consider when we do any kind of conservation or restoration work in Grand Canyon, and there's I think it's important to recognize the other, the tribes that hold it sacred.

Kate

The damage caused by Glen Canyon Dam is done. So now what do we do after the fact? How do we manage a degraded ecosystem? How do we protect the resulting endangered species and how do we do so as human beings with a respect for life? These are the negotiations we face. In December 2020, National Geographic published an article “Human Made Materials Now Equal Weight of All Life on Earth.” A quote from the article reads, “The total weight of everything made by humans from concrete bridges and glass buildings, to computers and clothes is about to surpass the weight of all living things on the planet.” Many theorize we are about to enter a new era, the Anthropocene, where humans are the dominant force shaping the planet. At the start of the 20th century, the mass of human created stuff weighed about 35 billion tons; today it's 1.1 trillion tons. That means every person generates more than their own body weight of manufactured stuff in one week. As countries across the world continue to develop in a global economy, over the next 20 years that stuff is predicted to double. Projects like Glen Canyon dam are exponentially growing all over the world. Creatures like the humpback chubs are being driven to the brink of extinction. Places like Grand Canyon National Park are some of the only safe havens left on earth for plants and animals, places they don't have to worry about crossing the road or having a house built in their backyard. Let's wrap up with a question we can all ask ourselves. How do you balance the stuff you need with cultivating a richer life? My name is Kate and thank you for joining us on another episode of Behind the Scenery. We gratefully acknowledge the native peoples on whose ancestral homelands we gather as well as the diverse and vibrant native communities who make their home here today.

Acknowledgments:

Special thanks to Paul Hirt of Arizona State University for his permission to use his audio from the GCDAMP Oral histories he conducted.

Special thanks to Kurt Dongoske and Leigh Kuwanwisiwma for their support in using their interviews.

Special thanks to the fisheries team for going above and beyond in both interviews and collecting audio in the field.

Thank you to Jan Balsom and Mike Lyndon for support in the podcast development.

Produced by Ceili Brennan and Kate Pitts.

Music and sound engineering by Wayne Hartlerode. Special thanks to Joe Scrimenti for contributing his song “Invisible Present.”

Valentine's Day Episode: A Canyon Romance … Times Three Feb 14, 2021

At age 17, future park ranger Doug’s parents dropped him off at the Grand Canyon. How did this experience shape his life, and what are his three distinctive canyon-influenced loves and romances?

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Good day, and welcome. My name is Becca. I am a National Park Service ranger, working at the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park.

Today I would like to share with you a Canyon Cut brought to us by Ranger Doug.

Ranger Doug has a story to share … a story of love, romance, and the Grand Canyon. The title is: CANYON CONNECTIONS A Canyon Romance … Times Three!

I will let ranger Doug introduce himself. This … is his story.

My name is Doug Crispin. I’m 68 years old and I live in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

This is a story of my first visit to the Grand Canyon. I was 17. This was like the Chevy Chase classic station wagon family visit to the Grand Canyon. We left Southern Calif there actually three generations of us including our Grandma. She didn’t ride on the roof! She actually rode in the passenger compartment. The family ended up at Mather Point for the first time. We walked out. I can specifically remember looking down into the abyss and thinking “wow, This is awesome, this is great. The Grand Canyon is just really really cool.

So I asked my parents … just drop me off and leave me. Which they did!

But the back story is I went into the employment office and Fred Harvey, the park concessionaire, and I got a job working as a Bus Boy at the famous El Tovar hotel. Then I asked my parents to “drop me off and leave me”, which they did! And I spent the rest of my summer living and working at the Grand Canyon. How cool is that?

Now, the job itself, you know, wasn’t very good: busing tables, and working six days a week, split shifts, take home pay 93 cents an hour.

But, I got to live and work at the Grand Canyon so I told my roommate, Elmer, I said, we get off work at 10 o’clock tonight. And we have one day. Let’s hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

We loaded up our packs, and we headed straight down the Canyon when we got off work. Got down to the river maybe 2, 3, 4 in the morning, something like that. Had a quick snooze on the beach and then continued all the way down to Phantom Ranch. I can remember stripping off our clothes and jumping into the swimming pool located at Phantom Ranch.

Looking all the way back up to the rim and thinking “wow, this is great, this is the life. Swimming at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.”

Now we couldn’t enjoy it for too long, because we had to hike all the way back up and go to work the next day, which we did. But after my summer work season ended, I stayed on for another four days. And this time I took a more leisurely trip, all the way down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Camping the night at Indian Gardens, as well as Phantom Ranch. And more swimming in the Phantom Ranch swimming pool. Loving life!

After … when it was time for me to go back home, I handed my camera to a tourist along the canyon rim. And I said, now watch … I’ll give you a signal and I want you to take my picture.

Then I carefully climbed over the rim, which you are not supposed to do these days, I had found a little limestone opening, a natural rock arch and I crawled down over the rim, sat crossed-legged in this opening and I waved at the tourist and he took a couple pictures of me.

Because I had a plan.

I wanted to use that picture of me at the rim of the Grand Canyon for my senior Yearbook picture. It didn’t make the scrutiny, unfortunately, of my Yearbook Committee. But nevertheless, I didn’t care. It was my senior class picture taken at the Grand Canyon.

I made small little copies, wrote corny sentiments on the back like seniors do, and handed it out to all my high school friend.

That introduced me to the idea of living and working in the Grand Canyon which I thought … or in any national park, which I thought was pretty cool at the time. Now a few months later, on Veterans Day, I talked a few of my friends into driving all the way out, in November, to visit the Grand Canyon for the first time for three of my buddies. Now we needed a place to stay, and again, don’t do this today, it’s not legal, but I found a small, abandoned miner’s tunnel just below the rim, not too far from the El Tovar Hotel … maybe a mile away. And that’s where the four of us rolled out our sleeping bags. And for Veterans Day weekend in 1969, we slept in an abandoned miner’s tunnel. Had a great time. All my friends loved the Grand Canyon. And were very envious of me getting to spend the summer there in the park.

Two years later I talked a friend of mine into hiking rim to rim to rim, which we did. And on our way up from the South Rim headed towards the North Rim, we camped at Cottonwood Campground. I was 19, my friend was 18 which put us at prime draft age as the Vietnam War was still raging in 1971. I was politically opposed to the Vietnam War, but, you know, if my draft number came up, then I would be faced a very important life decision. What’s going to happen? As luck would have it, the draft lottery selection occurred while we were at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. And spending a night in Cottonwood Campground, we met some hikers who had just hiked down from the North Rim. And they had a current newspaper with them that they were getting ready to burn in their campfire. We snagged that newspaper from them and we were able to look up our draft numbers as they had printed the draft lottery results. And that is where I found out, that my name would probably NOT going to show up on the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington DC, which today contains over 58,000 names. So I have a very close attachment and affinity to Cottonwood Campground, in the bottom of the Grand Canyon, cause in a way, that kind of saved… may have saved my life, and saved me from going to Vietnam.

I was starting to acquire and … an affection and a love for the Grand Canyon at a very early age.

On that rim to rim to rim hike, I collected a small bottle of Colorado River, dirty, muddy, water as we crossed over it the second time. I took that back and had it for all these years at my college desk. Occasionally I would shake up this bottle and turn it all muddy. And a day or two later, I would see all that Colorado River sediment had settled out at the bottom. And that’s how I kind of remained connected to the Grand Canyon during my college years.

Now when I graduated from college, I still on my mind, on the idea of working for parks as a possible career. I worked in another park concession job, I worked as a volunteer national park ranger, I worked park maintenance jobs, and eventually worked my way up to a permanent national park ranger job, which was, you know, a childhood dream of mine. In 1979 I started dating a former Grand Canyon National Park summertime ranger who had worked at Desert View as a fee collector. I met her working in parks in South East Utah. We started dating. And we started building a romance.

A couple months after we started dating in ‘79, I got accepted in 1980, to go to the National Park Ranger school located at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. I was so impressed, my girlfriend would drive 250 miles, one way, from SE Utah, to visit me on her weekend. I thought that was a very special women that would do something that … just to see her new boyfriend. We continued to grow spiritually together, we started to have a spiritual connection to the lands of the American Southwest, the peoples, and the stories. And two years after my Grand Canyon ranger school, my friend contacted me and said “hey, I have permit to take rafts through the Grand Canyon. I am planning a 23-day trip. I would like to know if you and your girlfriend would to join me? I am only taking seven people, and six of the seven or either current or former national park rangers?” I said “heck, yea man, let’s go.”

So that was a wonderful time to spend together, my girlfriend and I. Twenty-three days sleeping on a tent on sand bars, doing day hikes, fighting the rapids, and enjoying the Grand Canyon as only the way that rafters can.

And two years after that I proposed to my wife and we actually got married, standing right on the rim of the Grand Canyon. A place called Shoshone Point. I can truthfully say that was one of the happiest days of my life.

After getting married on the South Rim, we drove all the way to the North Rim spent our first honeymoon night together in a cabin at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. And we continued to spiritually connect with each other and the Grand Canyon.

A short time after that, I did leave the National Park Service, I moved to Oregon, and we bought a house. We had a child and we started a family life. Eventually I retired from my State of Oregon job. My wife recently retired from her career in education and we started making plans together like retired couples do. My wife remained healthy for about three weeks, and then she got sick and suddenly died about four months later. And that happened last year, which, you now, obviously, completely turned my whole life upside down.

So … people have different ways of dealing with grief and loss. How do I deal with it? Well the first thing I did was I shaved off all of the hair on my head. I couldn’t look in the mirror and picture myself as the same person again. I wanted everybody to know whenever they looked at me that I wasn’t the same person again. I had suffered too serious a loss. Grief, kind of like your hair slowly growing back … maybe it could help get through this loss and grief, you know, about as fast as your hair grows, which isn’t very fast. And then last year, on the Anniversary of our wedding, I made a pilgrimage to Shoshone Point. And walked out there. Sat quietly by myself on the very end, had a quiet moment. I said a prayer for my wife and thought of those 40 great years that we had together.

But, I was facing an uncertain future. Or, you know, some people said no future. You know, you lost … I lost my life partner. My whole life had been turned upside down. So I was contemplating: what should I do with my life?”

Grief counselors usually say don’t make any radical or sudden decisions after you suffer a loss. I had made the decision that I did not want to lose my national park career. That’s my third love in life. Let me backtrack a little bit. You know, I had an early exposure to the Grand Canyon and what park work may be. I started at the very bottom working my way up, and eventually, you know, served in five different national parks in five different Western states. And I was a career national park ranger in two separate national parks. When I left the National Park Service and moved to Oregon, I continued in my park career. I was an Oregon State Park ranger. I stayed in the profession. A total of 25 years I worked as an Oregon State Park ranger. And I retired … when I retired from that job, with my wife’s blessings, I returned to working as a summertime ranger for the national parks.

And since I retired, it was 11 summers ago, I’ve worked in eight different national parks. So if you put all that together, my career has taken me to about a dozen Oregon State Parks, 13 national parks. I have been in the park profession for a total of 48 years. I did not want to lose that profession. I had already lost my life.

I love working as a park ranger because I am helping to preserve the best of America. Some people call national park rangers “America’s Storytellers”. They’re guardians of nature, and of history, and of culture. You know, there are many great professions in the world … you can go into medicine, you can go into education, but I like to call park rangering one of the last great American professions. And I did not want to lose that.

I made the drastic decision after my wife died, I’m going to sell our family house, which we had lived in for 25 years, and devest myself of all of my worldly possessions. I took some duct tape, I measured off a 4’ by 7’ rectangle in the garage, which is the size of my pickup truck bed, and whatever I wanted to keep in my life after my wife died, I put it in that little rectangle. If it didn’t fit in my truck, I ether sold it or gave it away or otherwise got rid of it.

I worked with my supervisors … my old national park. They wanted me back. They said, you know, “take whatever time you need for grieving.” I said “the sooner I could get back, the better, cause that will be a measure of normalcy in my life.” Because I like doing the ranger walks, I like giving the ranger talks, leading the tours, giving the campfire programs in the campground. Giving out hiking advice to people in the visitor center. Helping the park visitors being connected to the parks. I was very anxious to get back to that national park lifestyle.

This year is 51 years since I worked as a bus boy at the Grand Canyon. So in a way, you know, I have come full circle with my life. Bookends. Started my career now I am working as a summertime park ranger here at the North Rim of Grand Canyon. In a way, I feel I am honoring the memory of my wife. And, I am rekindling, and keeping alive my park connections by wearing my ranger hat every day.

Some people say “ranger Doug, you know, why do you keep doing this? You’re Age 68, you have Social Security, you’re on Medicare, you don’t need this for finances. Why do you keep coming back? And I tell them, because, you know, I’m surrounded every day by inspirational scenery. There are very powerful stories in the national parks concerning the people, and the places, and the times. And I want to be part of sharing that story with the American public.

And, let me just give you an example of how special national parks are and how they have been so special in my life.

I have witnessed Old Faithful geyser erupt 350 times. I have hiked to see Rainbow Natural Bridge 91 times, hidden in a remote corner of Southeast Utah. I have seen wolves, grizzly bears and moose, sometimes in the same week, at Grand Teton National Park. And for a whole month as a volunteer ranger, I fell asleep every night in my tent, to the sound of Yosemite Falls, off in the distance. And I’ve climbed wooden ladders, stone steps, and I’ve entered Cliff Palace cliff dwelling in Mesa Verde National Park, a total of 142 times. And sat there and admired this ancient village and the story represented by these folks. And today, I enjoy a Grand Canyon sunset every day. It is a part of my life. The park ranger profession is my third love and it allows me to have these and many other unique and special experiences.

What would I say to the person contemplating coming out to visit the Grand Canyon, or any national park for the first time? You know, I would say Go for It. Give the Grand Canyon a chance. Or any other national park. You know, the Grand Canyon doesn’t care about your race, your age, your gender, your economic situation. It doesn’t care what your immigration status is, your sexual orientation. You know, just stand by the rim of the Grand Canyon and gaze into it. Watch the sunset on the rim.

Be inspired. Be wowed. You know, be humbled. We need places like this in America, where, I like to say, you can recharge your emotional and your spiritual batteries. Will visiting the Grand Canyon for the first time change your life? Probably not. But it could! You know it happened to me.

My name is ranger Doug, I’m a park ranger at the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park, and I approve this story and message.

Before we go, we have a final invitation for you. Think about somebody you know. Somebody in your life. When the time is right, set aside a moment with that person. And ask. Ask them to share a story about their life. Then listen.

This has been a Grand Canyon National Park micro podcast. A Canyon Cut

Entitled CANYON CONNECTIONS A Canyon Romance … Times Three!

I’m ranger Becca. Ranger Doug, thank you for sharing your story and your voice. And to all those listening, near and far, thank you for your time.

Magic of Manzanita Feb 04, 2021

While spending lots of solitary time at Manzanita Ranger Station this summer, Park Ranger Ceili Brennan reflects on reminders that we are never the first to love a place.

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TRANSCRIPT:

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CEILI (HOST AND NARRATOR): What do you see when you picture the Grand Canyon? Is it massive? Full of light and shadows and colors? Can you tell how deep it is? Can you make out the details of anything familiar? Does it look like wilderness? What’s even down there? Let’s find out. Hi, I’m a Park Ranger, Ceili, and you’re listening to an episode of Behind the Scenery: Canyon Cuts. In this episode, we’re going to zoom way in to a specific spot in Grand Canyon, where two side canyons, Bright Angel and Manzanita, meet. But first, travel into your memory with me for a moment. You’re a kid in the summer. School just got out, its hot. You take every possible opportunity to get in the water. Where are you in this memory? Who are you with? What are you wearing? What are you eating? Keep these memories in mind as we explore one of my favorite places in the Grand Canyon.

This summer, I’ve spent a lot of time at Manzanita Rest Area, or Manzanita Ranger Station although it goes by other names too. To get there, you start on the North Rim of Grand Canyon, on the North Kaibab Trail. At the trailhead, it’s relatively cool, shaded by ponderosa pines and spruces at 8000 ft above sea level. Just 5.5 miles and 3840 feet of downhill hiking will bring you to Manzanita. The ranger station is a brown house right next to the confluence of Manzanita and Bright Angel Creeks. In the summer its very hot, and is amidst cacti and lizards. But because of the creeks, has some big Cottonwood, Box Elder and even Fig trees nearby. There are several backcountry ranger stations in Grand Canyon, each with their own character. Manzanita doesn’t have the views or day-hiker activity of Indian Garden, or the river and canteen culture like Phantom Ranch does. It’s the only one on the corridor trails without a campground right outside. It’s the furthest away from the bustling city that is the South Rim, but closest to what feels like my Grand Canyon home, the North Rim.

My other home is my family’s porch near the Atlantic Ocean. I’ve grown up dripping saltwater, drinking coffee on cool spring mornings, and hanging out late into summer nights on that porch. Summers were spent with my brother, cousins, and neighborhood kids, in bathing suits all day, in the water or on the porch.

When I first visited Manzanita Ranger Station, the porch is what caught my eye. Leafy vines creeping up the pillars help keep it shady almost all day. The creek and cicadas are the soundtrack to time on this porch, in the rocking chair, sipping an electrolyte drink after a long hike. Some porches have a sweeping view, but this one looks straight into a cliff. Luckily, they’re cliffs of maroon and golden Bright Angel Shale, swirly Tapeats sandstone and the majestic redwall limestone. From many viewpoints on the rim, these rock layers are too deep to see.

Around sunset when it starts to get cooler, I gravitate towards the helipad. While its main function is keeping a safe space for helicopters to land, it also serves as an extension of the porch. There may be no better place in the Canyon to eat dinner, lay down, and watch the stars appear.

When I’m at Manzanita, the photo album on the bookshelf inside is never far from my mind. It’s filled with photos of this same porch, the same creek and trees and rocks, but they’re transformed by time.

This wasn’t always Manzanita Ranger Station. It used to be and is still often referred to as Bruce’s house, and was the home of the Aiken Family. Bruce Aiken kept the pumps running at the nearby Roaring Springs, which pumps drinking water to both the North and South. When he took the job and moved here with his wife, Mary, and baby daughter in 1972, they never thought they’d stay for 30 years. As he ran the pumps and captured the scenery around him through his art, the 3 kids grew up, climbing cliffs, doing schoolwork, building forts, selling lemonade and swimming in the creek.

In the album, there are photos of babies crawling in a patch of grass amidst the canyon’s rocks, toddlers in sneakers and bathing suits on the NKT, kids fishing knee deep in the creek, a pool party after a rock fall dammed part of the creek into a lake, adults laying in hammocks and sitting in the same chairs that I’m sitting in now, chatting and laughing. Piles of colorful rock collections around the porch. Bruce getting ready to hike human-sized canvases in and out of the Canyon. Trail-side lemonade stands.

The album is labeled in ballpoint pen, “This is what went on here at Roaring Springs over past several decades ~1972-2005 Enjoy, Bruce”.

It seems I’m even more mesmerized by the cliffs, rocks, smells and sky around Manzanita, because I can’t help but see it all through the eyes of these kids. Everything is amazing through the eyes of imagined kids, exploring this place, their backyard. As Mary said of her kids’ schooling here, “The classroom is endless.” This is true of Grand Canyon, and of outdoor spaces around anyone’s home. While the bottom of Grand Canyon could not be more different than where I grew up, the photos in this album look familiar to me. I also spent summers in sneakers and bathing suits, in and out of the water all day, my brother, cousins, and any other kids that were around also explored every inch of our backyard and sold lemonade to passersby.

The story told in these photos is a popular one. There are countless photocopies of magazines and book pages that tell parts of the story of the Aiken’s time living in the Grand Canyon. My favorite photocopy is from a book, telling some of this story from Mary’s perspective. She says, “’I’d be out on the heliport and I’d hear these distant voices. I would look up and they would be way up on a ledge at the base of the Redwall cliffs. I’d see these tiny figures, these dots of color. I couldn’t even look at them; I’d have to come into the house. But I couldn’t say anything to them. They were just like little mountain goats. I didn’t want to make them afraid they were going to fall. That was hard for me.’”

I can imagine what it might feel like to be a kid growing up here. As I watch the sunset from the helipad and look up at the cliffs, high and steep around me, I can also imagine what it might feel like to be a parent here.

Recently I spent a whole week at Manzanita Ranger Station. It’s the middle of summer, usually a very busy time in the Canyon. But between Covid and fires on the North Rim, I only saw 5 hikers in all those days. So instead of talking to hikers, I’ve been imagining the lives captured in this photo album, searching for signs of their days here. One late afternoon, I was hiking along one of the same trails I’ve hiked on many times. I was focused on the terrain, how the steepness, the side drainages, and the flood zone left little area to safely live, to build a home. I came to a spot that was flat and away from danger of flooding and stopped to look around. All of a sudden, walls came into focus, more and more of them. Angular rocks stacked up on top of each other sometime in the last thousand years, and flat floors. I knew there to be archeological sites all over Grand Canyon, but had never seen these, despite passing by so many times. I imagined photo albums from these homes. I wondered how the photos would be different than the Aikens’ album, and how they’d be similar. They would probably still include kids in the water during hot summers, and parents squinting up into the cliffs for them. I started to see other parts of Grand Canyon, not only through the eyes of the 3 kids in the 80s who grew up at Roaring Springs, but through the eyes of all the kids since time immemorial who grew up here, played here, and through the eyes of all of their parents who worried about them and worked to raise them. Grand Canyon is proposed wilderness, and has been a National Park for 100 years. But to Grand Canyon National Park’s 11 traditionally associated tribes, and their ancestors, it has always been, and still is, a backyard, a home, and a sacred place. What can we learned from reminders that we are never the first to love a place? What are you leaving behind to express your love for your favorite place? This episode of Canyon Cuts was brought to you by the Interpretation Team at Grand Canyon National Park. We gratefully acknowledge the Native peoples on whose land we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant Native communities who make their home here today. Music is High Ride by Blue Dot Sessions, and Springish by Gillicuddy. Tracks provided by Free Music Archives. Thanks for tuning in!

People of the Canyon: Meet a Wrangler Jan 14, 2021

Meet the fascinating folks who live, work, and recreate at Grand Canyon from rim to river. In this episode, explore what life is like as wrangler, packing mules up and down steep canyon trails.

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Kate Hensel: Hi, I’m Kate, and you’re listening to Behind the Scenery, Canyon Cuts. This episode of Canyon Cuts was recorded on the front porch of the Phantom Ranch Ranger Station, down at the bottom of Grand Canyon. (sounds of mules walking by) This episode I was joined by two wranglers, Tex and Macy. Tex Parker: Tex Parker, and I am one of the wranglers here on the South Rim and this is my second season here. Macy Alford: My name is Macy Alford, I’m a wrangler out here as well. This is my first season out here and I’ve been here for almost a year now. Kate: What was your path to becoming a wrangler? Macy: Well first of I didn’t know what to do for college after I graduated high school. So I went up to Yellowstone first, my Grandparents who told me about it, and then I had a friend come from here she was like “Hey go check it out.” Alright cool, so I came out here and loved it ever since. Tex? Tex: I came to the Grand Canyon for the first time in 2011, fell in love with it. Cam back two years later and because I had found out that they did the mule ride. I did the mule ride as a guest and boy I had the time of my life. Did it again in 2014 and I said this is going to be a pretty cool job they have here. Did it again the next year and said I need to get this job. And so, I had growing up riding, I had the experience and I brushed up on my skills since it had been a while at a facility in Brooklyn. They had trail rides on the beach out there. And here we are today. Never gets old. Kate: Can you just kind of describe what your job is to someone who might never have been to Grand Canyon before? Tex: Wake up really early Macy: Yes (laughter) Tex: (Laughter) We have to brush and tack up the mules. Greet the guests. We do two rides here. An overnight, two-day ride to Phantom Ranch. Or a two-hour ride, three-hour with instruction, at canyon vista. So, then we take out the guests and we’re in charge mostly of their safety. Keeping an eye on them, ensuring everything goes well. Macy: If anyone’s not feeling good or anything like that Tex: Especially with heat, that’s a major concern for us in the summertime Macy: Like she said, in the summertime we try to get them down as early as possible so nobody can have any issues. Kate: So, you mentioned early morning starts, how early are we talking? Macy: Up there we clock in at like 4:30a, down here sometimes 4:00a? Tex: In the summertime Macy: In the summertime, yeah Tex: Another part of our job, which is really my favorite part, is we also get to give interpretive talks on the ride. Kate: Do you have a favorite spot or thing to talk about? Tex: I enjoy the rocks; I think geology is really interesting. Especially because from the rim you cannot see how cool all of these rocks from the second half down, how they actually look down here. Macy: I’d say one of the points I really like is Skeleton Point. Tex: Good choice Macy: ‘Cause I mean it’s crazy, it’s such a narrow pathway and you got the rock wall on your side and then you got this ginormous vast of area you can look at with, of course, a nice little drop-off. And then Phantom Ranch is really cool. Tex: The Narrows on the Bright Angel Trail in the Tapeats Sandstone is really cool too. And I love just before Oh Jesus Corner as you’re going through that gateway into the metamorphic rock and you can see Devil’s Corkscrew, all the switchbacks below. That’s a beautiful view too. Kate: What would you say is something that surprised you most when you started this job? Something that you didn’t expect when you applied? Tex: Good questions. I think maybe how much the wranglers do to keep an eye on the people and make sure that they are safe and all of the things that people could encounter on the ride surprised me. Because they make, and I guess we do now (laughter)… it look’s like a piece of cake from the outside. But really there’s quite a bit that goes on for ensuring the safety of all the riders. Macy: Yeah. My other thing was, because I’ve worked with horses a little bit as a kid with my dad as an able rider and roper so I got into that with him, but the skills of all the mules like how sure-footed, and how strong they are. I mean they just push themselves and they’re just amazing. It’s hard to explain mules, like once to get to know them and stuff, like their personalities and everything, and really get to work with them it’s a really great experience. Kate: How do you get to know the mules? Tex: The bosses ride them to make sure they’re legit and good for us. They come saddle broke but they’re still very young. They’re about five years old and so they’re pretty green. Macy: I was going to say I think we have a few that are three maybe Tex: As wranglers it’s our job to start riding them first out on the canyon vista ride and really get them to settle down and keep riding them until they are safe enough to turn over to the dudes Kate: Could you define dude for me? Tex: We just refer to dudes for guests. Macy: Mules that people can ride easily without being scared that they would do something crazy. Kate: Do you have any funny, or interesting, or just stories that stand out from your time here? Tex: My recent story is that we have to open and close the gates while we feed the mules. They bring in this little Bobcat machine and feed them. So, I was standing at the gate one day and there’s this cute, cute large mule named Vike who came over and wanted attention. Mules are very, very affectionate. So I said “hi Vike,” loving on him, loving on him, he takes off. Then later he comes back with a friend, Hance, and I say “hi you guys” and I’m petting them then Hance disappears so I’m loving on Vike. All of a sudden my hat gets yanked off my head, because we have these long things called stampede strings that we put under our chin to keep our hat from blowing away. Well Hance had decided to grab that and he ran away with my hat and I was chasing him and cursing at him and he was just flinging that hat all over creation having the best time. And eventually it ended up on the ground with a hole in it. (Laughter) So they are very funny. They hold in their farts too. They let it rip right in our face every morning. Macy: I felt bad for a guest one time. One of our mules, Delilah, she has some…I mean they’re pretty ranky. Tex: She is a very gaseous mule. Macy: She is, and we were going on the trail and we were coming up above two-mile. We were coming around all these switch backs and there was this guest at one of the corners and he’s breathing pretty heavily, and I was like he’s probably running or doing something. And all of a sudden, we started going and all of a sudden I see Delilah’s face and I was like “Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it.” And as she is coming around the corner she lets it rip. I mean, she just lets it all out as she is turning the corner. I could smell it all the way in the back. And this guy breathes it all in, and he’s just sitting there and starts coughing and everything and I’m like “I’m so sorry!” I felt so bad for the man. I was like, golly. Tex: There’s two times of the day that are my favorite with these guys. That’s in the morning when we come out here, especially down at Phantom, because we sneak up on them and they’re laying down. And they’re so cute. They’re looking at us like mom, just fine more minutes, I’m not ready to get up to work yet. And then after we unsaddle them for the day, they will go and roll and we just watch them. We give them a round of applause for the ones that roll all the way over. Very entertaining. Macy: Sometimes some of them will be on hill or in a little hole and they’ll be on the side where they that can’t turn the other way and your like “You can do it, I believe!” Kate: What are some challenges or misconception that you have to deal with? Tex: That’s a good one. The first one that come to mind is as we pass some hikers, not many, some people believe that riding the mules in the canyon is a cruelty to them. And that is not at all the case, these guys are so in shape, they’re really like Olympians. They work out every single day. The amount of weight of a person on them is negligible given the amount that they weigh. Just like backpackers, you don’t want to carry more than 20% of your weight on your back. Same thing with the mules, we’re not overburdening them. Macy: We make sure that if someone’s over we’ll be like “Look we’re sorry but we can’t.” We’re not going to do that to them and put them in that position. Tex: They’re very strict on the weight limits. Macy: Very strict. We make sure to take care of these guys, especially with that kind of stuff. Tex: Some people think that we’re working them too hard and yes, they do have to go uphill, however, they love their job. When we are picking out mules for the next day and putting them into the other coral there are mules that try to get in. They want to work. Macy: Yeah, they will try to run in and fight the other ones and you’re like “Come on back off!” Tex: “It’s not your turn yet!” Macy: I will say I have a lot of people tell me that on the trail that don’t they hate doing this? They actually really enjoy it. They really like to do it, it’s a lot of fun for them. Kate: Do you have a favorite interaction with one of your guests? (Weather rolls in, rain is heard in the background along with intermittent thunder) Tex: I will say I have the best time with the groups, especially if the entire group is together, we take ten riders at a time down to Phantom, and it is so much fun to have the groups that are hooting and hollering and having a good time. I love the people who chit-chat and talk and have a good time on the ride. Macy: I’ll even have people on my rides sometime yell yee-haw out of fun and you’re like yee-haw! When they’re having a good time, I’m having a good time. Tex: Absolutely. Kate: Is there anything else you would like for the future of Grand Canyon? Tex: I think that the park service is doing a really great job, to be honest. Especially with all the things that I’m seeing y’all put out. I think outreach and education is really important, especially with online and podcasts venues right now, just so that we continue to have funding for these parks we have to out to as many people as possible, especially minority groups. We want everyone to continue coming to the canyon so they can see how special it is and really experience it for themselves. And if you do come to the canyon I would really suggest, ensuring it’s safe, get below the rim. See inside the canyon because it’s a whole other ballgame. Whether you go down for a hike a little ways or you ride the mules down or even getting on the river, it is just so special and you can’t see it all from the rim. I personally would like to see more, and I know you are already working on it, about the native people. From what I hear there’s an intertribal council that you guys working with but I cannot wait until that information comes out. We have a fantastic museum collection on the South Rim. I would love to see more of that available to the public, because they have a whole museum with all the river boats out there. Kate: Is there anything else or thoughts about your job that you want out there? Tex: Best job in the world! Macy: Oh yeah, definitely, couldn’t ask for a better job. There’s always something different in the canyon and it’s just very spectacular, especially with the different weather that comes in too. It’s amazing. Tex: That’s absolutely true. You see new things. I love seeing people on the rides especially, or even just hiking in the canyon. This place is really quite magical, and it can really touch you on a very deep level. I love when that happens and you really make a connection. Kate: Do you have a favorite joke you tell? Macy: My thing is I like to tell my guests we can’t teach you how to ride like John Wayne, but we can teach you how to walk like him. (Laughter) Tex: The hikers that we pass, especially going uphill, they always make a comment about how we have the easy way. I like to tell them, just wait until they get off, or ask them how their rear end feel right now. The people who work at Phantom can easily tell who hiked down and who rode the mules down. And the answer is “The hikers don’t want to stand up and – Tex and Macy together: – mule riders don’t want to sit down.” (sound of mules walking by) Kate: Thank you for listening to this episode of Canyon Cuts, a Behind the Scenery mini episode brought to you by the North Rim and Canyon District interpretation teams at Grand Canyon National Park. (sound of mules walking by) Male voice: Hello! Is this the Uber we ordered? hahaha

This episode was produced by Kate Hensel and with sound editing by Wayne Hartlerode. This episode was recorded in August 2020 on front porch of the ranger station at Phantom Ranch in Grand Canyon National Park. Thank you, Tex and Macy for sharing your perspective from the bottom of Grand Canyon.

New Year's Special - Delight Dec 30, 2020

2020 has thrown challenges at everyone. Why don't we zoom in on the things that delighted us? Grand Canyon National Park rangers share the delightful moments that gave them solace and joy throughout the year.

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Austin:

I would you know kind of spin around 'cause you're just kind of moving on the rope and then take a break because I was super tired and you know kind of shaky and just like try to take deep breaths to calm myself down, and I would have this moment where I'd be like “oh, I'm in the middle of the Coconino Sandstone. I'm free hanging next to the Grand Canyon and I'm seeing this amazing view-scape” and that was a really cool. It's like these weird moments from this like whoa this is super cool this is super unique and I'm in this really beautiful place and then very quickly juxtaposed with like slipping rope noises and terror.

Jesse: I'm Jesse,

Austin: I’m Austin,

Jesse:

and you're listening to Behind the Scenery. That's where you say “the Canyon Cuts.”

Austin:

Oh, the Canyon Cuts, oh sorry.

Jesse: It's been a weird year, I think for everybody everywhere, but it seems exceptionally weird here. We had like the delay in opening because of COVID. We had like a pipeline break.

Austin:

A fire that made it so we couldn't leave and people literally had to hike across the Grand Canyon to work.

Jesse:

Yeah, they closed the roads. It burned up all the power lines, we were on generator power for weeks.

Austin:

Our food was flown over in a helicopter for a brief moment, which was very very odd.

Jesse:

Yeah, but kind of cool. It was kind of cool to get a food bank delivery via helicopter.

Austin:

Yeah it made me feel very important.

Jesse:

And now like the pumps are failing down at Roaring Springs again.

Austin:

It's really hard to be surprised by new things happening where they’re like “oh yeah the pumps broken and they flew it out to Phoenix and it can't be repaired.” We're kind of just like “oh yeah makes sense.”

Jesse:

Makes sense it’s 2020.

Austin:

Right exactly, in any other here you'd be like “hold up, what's going on?” like this is not normal. But this year it's just kind of like just another thing.

Jesse:

I think I came up with this idea while we're in that canyon down in the Coconino, sort of inspired by an episode of This American Life and the Book of Delights by Ross gay. Why don't we just do a whole episode just about things that are delighting us. And the specific memory that triggered that for me was exploring the canyon down in the coconino sandstone. We’d repelled down into the canyon, we were climbing back up the ropes. I think you were just getting on rope and climbing the first pitch and I was just sort of sitting on a ledge, and while you were sort of like flailing around in the brush trying to get on rope I was just looking at the columbines that were growing out of this water course. And then this rufous hummingbird, like this shimmery red hummingbird, comes up and buzzes by me and starts going up to those columbines and drinking nectar from each one of the little Flowers. And it was a funny juxtaposition because it's like such a delightful moment for me, I'm watching this super cool bird drinking out of these really beautiful flowers in this place that's like a pretty narrow little slot canyon, and then I'm also hearing the sounds of you kind of struggling up this rope. Trying to figure out this new device that was not working as well as it should have been.

Austin:

There is like this analogy here. That's kind of what we're going through in 2020 some of us are “the Austin on the rope” but like having this really scary time, and then there's like these other weird moments where I have found myself in and obviously you have where it's like there's this unrest. There's things happening. They’re not happening directly to you but we're still finding these moments of like solace.

Jesse:

Without further adieu here are moments of delight from Rangers across the Grand Canyon Doug: This is Ranger Doug on July 11th with my delight diary moment. Before work I went out for early sunrise run from my cabin. I saw the whole Sky turn red as the sun came up, and even though it's mid July I could still smell the beautiful smell of lupins in and around my cabin.

Jeff:

Last night I was reading outside near my cabin while group of juncos were flitting around. Slowly they would hop closer and closer as they pecked around for food. Eventually the mature birds were hopping around my feet. While I watched the older birds hop around, a younger junko crash landed on my book. Still learning to fly, and apparently still learning to land, the little bird slid down the page coming to rest in my hand. Quickly realizing where it landed, off it flew.

Doug:

I notice afternoon clouds are starting to build. We haven't had any clouds for such a long time. Maybe we're going to get an afternoon or evening thunderstorm. I hope. (Sound of heavy rain)

Ceili:

Yaaaaay rain!

Jesse:

Our first big monsoon rain of the year here on the North.

Ceili:

I’m hiking on the South Kaibab Trai.l I just met a visitor that went to the same school that I did and played sports, and then two hikers right behind him went to schools that played against our school in sports. And it's really hot day so I told them not to make our conference look bad.

Brendan:

Oh no! I slipped on this cliffside. I am currently hiking a route. It's going way better because I've almost reached the top and I have found the route again. But I am hiking while holding this iPad to record, which I don’t think I've done ever. One of the delights of working in the Canyon District, you get to do things you've never done any other place. Oh, I’m almost to the top, this is exciting. I’m very tired. But what I think I take for granted, which is funny because I’m in the Zoroaster Granite, it is how I get to do this every day for work! Even though it's going to be like 115 today I am truly lucky and privileged to be down here, and to not only hike, but also to share everything that's down here. Hope this quality isn't bad, goodbye!

Jesse:

We just heard from rangers Doug, Jeff, Ceili, and Brendan. Behind the Scenery is brought to you by the interpretation team at Grand Canyon National Park.

We gratefully acknowledge the native peoples on whose ancestral homelands we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant native communities who make their home here today.

Hey Ceili! What's the best advice you got from your college cross country coach?

Ceili:

Not to make our conference look bad or look stupid. It was delightful!

Produced by: Jesse Barden

Polly Pod Dec 01, 2020

Grand Canyon hired its first female park ranger in 1930. What has changed 90 years later?

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Becca: We are indebted to her for being the 1st and we are indebted to all the people who are being first now.

Jesse: You’re listening to Behind the Scenery, the Canyon Cuts. I’m Jesse, a park ranger on the North Rim, and we just heard from my colleague Becca

Becca: I’m Becca, park Ranger, North Rim

Jesse: talking about Polly Mead. Grand Canyon's first female park ranger. We recently got our hands on an oral history interview with Polly done by the parks creative media specialist, Mike Quinn, in 1995. Becca and I sat down and had a conversation about what we heard. What do you know about Polly Mead?

Becca: I know Polly was the first woman ranger at Grand Canyon, is that correct?

Jesse: That's right.

Becca: And I know I've seen a picture of her wearing a hat that's shaped like kind of like an upside down Tulip. I get the sense she was a passionate thinker but that's basically the extent of my knowledge.

Jesse: OK yeah. I'm just going to play clip for you that will give us a little background on Polly Mead Polly studied botany at University Chicago and her first trip to Grand Canyon was part of the trip out West with her botany class.

Polly: As we were going through the Kaibab Forest us my professor said “do you notice how the trees come right down to the edge of the Meadow and just stop? He said that would makes an interesting study to see why the tree lines just stops suddenly like that at the Meadow.” I thought haha! That’s the subject of my thesis for my Masters. So when I graduated from college, my aunt and benefactor gave me a choice. She said “I’d like to give you a gift of a trip to Europe or trip to the Grand Canyon to do your research work.” I've never been to Europe. So, I tried to cover the whole plateau. It took me a long time, mostly on horseback. I had a plant press on my back and I’d go out and collect specimens. At night I’d put a bed roll on the floor of the forest and sleep there. All I needed was a canteen of water and a bed roll.

Jesse: So Polly came from the University of Chicago, she came from a big city and she came out West and was just like for her research just traveling around camping alone every night on horseback. you've camped alone, right Becca?

Becca: Yes I have.

Jesse: In fact I think you're working on a podcast about camping alone.

Becca: Yeah, the working title is Becca Camps Alone.

Jesse: Tell me about your experiences camping alone.

Becca: Before I started camping alone I thought I would feel more confident out there by myself. The first time I camped alone I spent the first little portion lying in my sleeping bag in my tent planning what I would do upon human attack, but as time has progressed and I’ve camped alone more I still have that in my mind, but I also have other things in my mind like “oh I'm happy to be here and I'm glad I can do this.”

Jesse: I think she also experienced some of the same things you talked about, too.

Polly: When I was doing my thesis work I had a little pistol, because I thought I'm a woman alone. I might need it if there were any drunken man or something like that. So one time I was out in my bed roll asleep. I heard footsteps going around me. I put on my hand up to get that pistol and I went to sleep. In the morning there were footprints of a deer all the way around me. Jesse: At the end of her research Polly needed to get to the South Rim to talk to the park geologist about including the geological information of the Kaibab Plateau in her thesis. Polly: Now I didn't know any other way but to just walk across. And I did. Of course, I was 25 then. So I walked down. Nobody knows how big Grand Canyon is unless they have walked every step of the way and across the river with still boots and blistered feet. I got up the South Rim. I didn't know that there was a, maybe there wasn’t the Kaibab Trail going out to Yaki Point, I only knew of Bright Angel so I had to walk all across the Tonto and go up Bright Angel. I was so tired I couldn’t sleep, but anyway some kind person hauled me a pail of water and I made it.

Jesse: Shortly after that Polly got a job at Grand Canyon, so her path was research at Grand Canyon, job at Grand Canyon. Of course, there were there barriers to that:

Polly: I had trying to get a job with the Forest Service but they wouldn’t take me because I was a woman. Period.

Jesse: I just wanted to ask you what is your path in getting to Grand Canyon?

Becca: Sure, my path to Grand Canyon was not planned in advance. I was working for a nonprofit based out of Atlanta, Georgia and we hosted a training on the Sout rim of Grand Canyon. Todd Nelson, the volunteer program coordinator, reached out and said “hey would you like to take this position?” I was quite close to saying no. I had written on my planner “say no to Todd.” And then I just procrastinated it to the next day and pushed it to the next day and kept not saying no. So after some more reflection on how much of an opportunity that really was I decided to take that chance and move to the South Rim. And when I first visited the South Rim I was walking around the Albright Training Center and I just had this thought, this feeling: “Oh, I’m gonna live here some day.” And it came true so I worked a year coordinating facilitating volunteer experiences based mostly on the South Rim. I fell in love with Grand Canyon, I fell in love with that community. I was not ready to leave after the first year, so in a collage of different jobs (ski instructing nearby, working on a chainsaw crew, teaching preschool in Grand Canyon for about six months) it all led to the North rim position I hold now, which is the second time I’ve returned to it.

Jesse: Can you just describe what it is you do as a park ranger?

Becca: I see it as my job to provide and facilitate spaces of learning and discovery or where folks can create their own meeting and make their own connections with this special place. What that means on the logistical level is giving educational programming. Sometimes it's tied to a specific tangible topic like geology or the California Condor and sometimes it covers more expansive content like stories of resilience in Canyon, or uranium, or other sticky topics that we want to dive into.

Jesse: Our roles as interpreters have evolved somewhat over the years especially in the last five years. I think if you were a park ranger at Grand Canyon in like 2015 your job description might sound almost exactly like Polly Mead’s, which is the next clip I’ll play for you.

Polly: We lived in little cottages and I lived with 2 other women who worked at the office. I took people on nature hikes or gave campfire lectures at night. And then my main job was to be stationed out a Yavapai where the bus loads of people would come and I would give lectures to a group of people right there at Yavapai.

Jesse: Sound pretty familiar, right?

Becca: Sounds familiar and more perhaps deeply rooted in specific content to express.

Jesse: Sure, yeah, and also we don't really like the word lecture.

Becca: That's true, the language we use has changed.

Jesse: I'm going to play just a couple other clips for you and I'm just interested in your reaction. There are some similarities and differences in her job description and I want to see if you've noticed similarities or differences in this other facet.

Polly: One time I was giving a lecture, oh it was such a good one, on the rim of the canyon. Getting everybody so interested in the canyon and how old those oldest rocks in the bottom were, and how many years it took to the carve the canyon (200 million or whatever it was). I asked if there were any questions. One man put up his hand and asked “how old are you?” I wasn't there at that time.

Becca: Yeah that's a familiar dynamic. so I'm aware that like my response today might not be my response in a year but, honestly when I hear that I’m like “yeah Polly!” It’s just obnoxious and a little undermining and a little patronizing. And those adjectives, especially experiencing patronizing moments from visitors is familiar to me. That being said I assume most visitors mean very well.

Jesse: It wasn't just comments from visitors to Polly had to deal with. Not all of her coworkers were happy to be working with a woman.

Polly: So I was very proud of that job. And some of the men ranger naturalists resented the fact that I was a woman and had the same position they did, and made it a little bit difficult. When I say give me a hard time it was just an attitude that I felt. That wasn’t important, I thought.

Becca: Yeah, so when I first came to Grand Canyon in 2017 realities of sexual harassment at Grand Canyon were very much on the surface of, in my view, most folks and most work groups’ consciousness. I was very excited about that. I think part of that stemmed from ignorance because I didn’t fully understand at the time the depth and trauma of being so isolated and in a backcountry setting and experiencing sexual harassment. Not just in an office, but when the person who is victimizing you is like also your tether to survival, but anyway the reason I was excited that sexual harassment was on the forefront of Grand Canyon consciousness, was because I felt like “yeah sexual harassment exists everywhere.” And the fact that Grand Canyon is thinking about this, to me, is a step the right direction. Perhaps some male colleagues weren't sure how to act and they were navigating their own fear around that. To me, that's great you're growing. Growing uncomfortable and also it's helping the whole community be healthier and safer. Place in terms of like reflecting on my own experiences around like gendered dynamics in the Park Service I find I definitely benefit from having women leadership and women around me and not being the 1st. And I also feel more challenging gender dynamics in general from my interactions with visitors for sure. Jesse: Polly may have been alone as the only woman ranger at Grand Canyon, but she wasn’t the only woman ranger in the park service.

Polly: I can’t say I was the first woman ranger naturalist because Herma Bagley was the 1st at Yellowstone. When there was the superintendents conference at the Great Smokies she was there. And she and I were going off into the woods and just talk about plants all the time. She was a wonderful person and a wonderful botanist.

Jesse: Polly’s only female counterpart in the Park Service worked at Yellowstone National Park. She had to go to the superintendent's conference at the Great Smokies to have interaction face to face with her. How is that similar or different from your experience?

Becca: Super different from my experience. I am surrounded by powerful women in the Park Service and specifically at Grand Canyon. The women around me, both in my work group and beyond have shown me in some ways that more is possible for me. So for example I never considered law enforcement before I got to Grand Canyon, and though I don't think it's the career path I'll choose, when I arrived in Grand Canyon and discovered a whole number of women who are doing incredibly competent thoughtful important work in the front and backcountry, that opened up a whole sphere of possibility for me just in how I conceptualize that work. I don't need to look far for allies here of all genders, and I don't need to look far for women doing incredible things that I admire and collaborate with, so that is a huge change.

Jesse: I think like without seeing yourself in that position it would have been challenging to know that that's something that is an option.

Becca: Yeah, I agree I think this ties into so many current and continuing conversations about why representation matters. It matters to see people that you see yourself in in positions of leadership and just in positions of leadership and in diverse jobs across so many spheres. It super matters. Jesse: Well, the last clip I want to play for you is, well, I’ll just play.

Polly: I got my job in 1930. And I was so interested. I loved that job, and I sort of thought I would go on with it. But my husband said he didn’t want his wife working, so I said yes dear. That’s the way we did in those days.

Becca: What a loss, not only for Polly personally, but for the Park Service and for Grand Canyon. When I hear that I just think of all the people just like Polly. Yes, Polly was first here and alone in terms of her gender identity perhaps in her work group, but I think of so many people who past and perhaps present have had more experience where it's like that's what you did in those days or that's what you do now or that's the role of the wife or mother or a person of this gender or a person of this racial identity. The boxing in is a real tragedy I think for the individual and for the collective.

Jesse: Yeah, to me this is this is so heartbreaking, especially after knowing how hard she worked to get to that place, getting her undergrad in botany, doing her Masters research on the North rim of Grand Canyon, being denied by the Forest Service because she was a woman, and then finally becoming the first woman at Grand Canyon to do this job, and to love it and to do it well for a year and a half and then to be told by the person she loves that he doesn’t want her doing that job anymore. I can't imagine what she must have felt in that moment. So at the end of that clip she just sort of laughed it off saying that's the way it was in those days, and I wonder if that's what she would say today.

Becca: I wonder that, too.

Jesse: I'm mostly just thankful for Polly for doing what she did and being the first woman at Grand Canyon and being a pioneer in that way. I’m thankful that we have this audio recording of her, thanks to Mike Quinn for doing this oral history. It's incredible to be able to hear her voice.

Becca: I share your sense of gratitude for Polly, I really do. And I feel like there's so many different ways to frame what we know of her story or at least what I know her story. We can frame it as a triumph we can frame it as a triumphant and temporary assertion of the patriarchy. However we choose to frame it I think the fact remains that this seems like an incredible scholar and human being and that's something to celebrate.

Jesse: This episode of the Canyon cuts is brought to you by the interpretation team at Grand Canyon National Park. We gratefully acknowledge the native peoples on whose ancestral homelands we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant native communities who make their home here today. Hey Polly, what do you think of the Park Rangers working at Grand Canyon today?

Polly: Bunch of cowboys. Rough men, but they were very very shy. I want to chat you know talk to them a little bit, but they wouldn’t talk

Credits: Music and sound production by Wayne Hartlerode

Many Hats of a Park Ranger Nov 24, 2020

Rangers have a multitude of roles and responsibilities. How does the idea of "wearing many hats" manifest itself in all our lives? Let's find out with interviews from rangers who work on trails and maintenance of Grand Canyon's backcountry!

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Jake

The coolest thing about the grand canyon Is that it gives you a chance to participate in a legacy of extraordinary people I think this place really calls people to rise to the occasion it also has been doing things that I never thought I'd be doing in a million years

Austin

Hello, my name is Austin and I’m a Park Ranger at Grand Canyon National Park and this is behind the scenery the canyon cuts. When I first started working for the Park Service, I was also amazed by the extraordinary people doing a wide variety of things as National Park Service employees. While visiting parks when I was younger, I was always under the impression that everyone who worked at a National Park was in fact a Park Ranger. However, as I got to know the park service better, I came to understand that this term was a sort of “blanket term” to cover everyone working in a national park. Though many folks wear the signature “flat hat” of a park ranger and maybe even have those exact words in their job titles, there are a wide variety of jobs underneath this hat, and many more employees that wear completely different hats in their work in National Parks. Especially in a National Park as unique as the Grand Canyon, nobody is just one thing. We all carry a variety of identities or wear a lot of different hats in our work and also our lives.

[Acoustic guitar melody plays briefly]

The idea of wearing many different hats is something we will explore through a series of these episodes. We will talk to rangers across and sometimes even inside the Grand Canyon. Rangers interviewing other rangers in offices, backcountry ranger stations and sometimes even on the sides of the trail they are working on. By listening to their stories, their hats they wear and some of the interesting aspects of their jobs perhaps we will learn a little bit more about the wide variety of jobs in national parks, and the unique roles that some of grand canyon’s employees are called to.

However, National Park Service employees are not unique in this. We all have a variety of roles, a variety of hats we wear. By listening to each other’s stories, we can better understand the complexity of all individuals, and maybe find common ground by looking past our most obvious traits.

[Soft guitar melody plays]

Please join in on our first conversations where one of our inner canyon rangers recorded Jake-Lee and Tristan Blue at a backcountry ranger station as they interview each other about their jobs and the many hats they wear working in the trail’s division at Grand Canyon National Park.

These are the many hats of a park ranger.

Jake

Are you wearing we've got a great show today we're going to be talking about hats how many do you have Boston are you wearing weed I'm Jake Lee and I am a trail maintenance worker here in Grand Canyon National Park and basically what I do on a day to day basis is build structures in the trail to prevent erosion and I guess I should think about a better description of my job title quite laboris commit yourself to a lot of labor's tasks my official job title is a motor vehicle operator and laborer and basically what I do on a day-to-day basis is used various and tools and power tools to build walls check steps and structures like that in trail

Blue

I’m Tristan BLUE, everyone just calls me blue since it’s easier to remember. I work for the compost division on trails, I have the exact same title as Jake. But I have a couple different hats that I wear working on compost. I like to tell people that I’m a janitor with nice calves with the amount I hike through the canyon. Sometimes I tell people I’m an instigator cause I’m always stirring up

(Sound of squirrel chirping in the distance).

It’s kind of weird with compost, when they first put you on it, they tell you you’re going to be doing a lot of different things from the get-go. Sometimes you’ll be expected to do random electrician work like switching out fuses or you can be checking out pumps like a Plummer. Making sure the lines are clear. Even more out of my wheelhouse, they will expect me to, not quite look for SAR’s but make sure people are alright.

Austin: A quick interruption, a SAR or search and rescue is lingo used by park service employees to refer to visitors who might need help or even a rescue down trail. Back to blue.

Blue

Because I will find myself in parts of the canyon where even the rangers won’t be in during those times. We work from 6am to 4:30, and if I’m going down to tipoff/phantom down the Kaibab I’m going to be running into people around 12am to 3pm so that’s something I didn’t quite expect.

Blue

There’s like a weird thing I didn't expect like working on this job. I know where in the middle of nowhere there's a lot of wildlife, but I didn't think I was going to feel like I work on wildlife at times. I had three occasions where I'm cleaning bathrooms and I opened the door and I'm like “oh that's a snake I'm gonna have to deal with the snake now” cause it's not like I got to leave now cause I don't wanna deal with it. So, I've had times where I've ran up from the IG day use bathroom all the way to like where wildlife was working “so what's uh white spots black body” “oh its fine” but then I go back the snakes gone. Yeah that's one thing I always found kind of funny that I’ll have to deal with a lot of different animals, black widows, scorpion, other fun critters that want to hang out.

Jake

I think uh if I were to shorten my job description to the easiest shortest thing it would be backcountry dry stone Mason. if I were to describe what actually happens on a day-to-day basis sometimes, I'm helping you out, Blue, with compost duties doing things like cleaning bathrooms, shoveling poop into barrels, and hooking them up to helicopters things like that. But also, the trail crew often finds themselves very frequently doing medical evacuations on the trail. Because we're the only people down there and sometimes when people get in a tight spot we are the only people around that can help out and sometimes your miles in to where nobody else can get in in a timely manner so you have to rise to the occasion

And I think that is the coolest thing about Grand Canyon is that it gives you a chance to participate in a legacy of extraordinary people. I think this place really calls people to rise to the occasion and it really has the capacity to bring out the best in people. But it also has me doing things that I never thought I'd be doing in a million years!

Blue

Ya, totally I mean like when I started my first season here I was like working as a laborer, like you, I was doing West stone masonry and I thought I was gonna be doing that the whole time around and I ended up working on the South Kaibab when I got put in like structures like a retaining wall that people could sit on and by the end of it like after we did the wall like by Verkramp’s. I came by like a couple weeks later and it was lowered it was like 6 inches at 1st and then we brought it up to 18 inches, so when I went back like I could just see family sitting there taking pictures and I'm like “man this is going to be there like for decades, you know it, could be here for like another century”. People were just getting there like to enjoy it. I just feel, you know, really thankful that like this job as a laborer really afford this the chance to do so many different things you know.

Jake

Another really exceptional Department here in the park is the water utilities division. They are another division that operates a very understaffed rate and they often have to do things like repairing the water pipeline throughout the Canyon that supplies South rim from the North rim. Their expertise is in doing things like welding ,in that super niche stuff and sometimes they'll need our help to come in and dig a hole in dig holes cause that's our expertise, we are really good at digging holes.

Blue But I think that's about all the time we have for today thanks for listening in

[Electric guitar rift plays]

Austin

After listening to the hats and experiences from jake and blue, I’d like you all to think of a time you have had to rise to the occasion and wear a different hat or take on a different role than you’re used to?

Thank you so much to Ceili for making this interview happen, and to Jake-Lee and Tristan blue for their time and their words. Music from this episode courtesy of freemusicarchives.org. Finally, we gratefully acknowledge the native peoples on whose ancestral homelands we gather. As well as the diverse and vibrant native communities who make their home here today. This has been the many hats of a park ranger.

Jake

Join us on our next episode are bellybuttons canyons?

Produced by Austin Kelley

Longing and Belonging at Grand Canyon: Who feels welcome at National Parks? Nov 20, 2020

Who feels that they belong at Grand Canyon -- and that the Canyon in turn belongs to them? An investigation into the patterns of privilege present in green spaces and public lands across the United States, with specific attention to the NPS. Our guests explore what it means to feel truly welcome in the natural world and give recommendations for how Grand Canyon National Park can help more people discover and own their sense of belonging at Grand Canyon.

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TRANSCRIPT:

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I. GUEST INTRO SNIPPETS

AUDREY And so, then I said, “Well, what the heck is a National Park?” Because I never knew before.

STEVE The demographics of the National Parks versus the demographics of the nation – they don’t match.

NAIRUTI And I think at the Grand Canyon when it comes to, you know, who feels welcome and who’s belonging, historically, there’s been a really narrow vision of who that person is.

AILEMA And if it’s calling you, you will get there.

MUSIC TRANSITION

II. HOST INTRO

DOUG So, let me turn it up a little bit, test test test.

LESLIE Turn it up, Doug!

-Beep-

BECCA How would you describe yourself? Have you ever- blah di blah di blah… blah. -Laughs-

LESLIE Cut.

-Laughs-

BECCA Okay! We’re trying again.

-Beep-

LESLIE Hi, I’m Leslie.

DOUG I’m Doug.

BECCA And I’m Becca. We are Park Rangers on the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park.

LESLIE You’re listening to a Behind the Scenery podcast. Today, we’re exploring the themes of Longing and Belonging at Grand Canyon and discussing the question: “Who feels welcome in National Parks?”

DOUG That’s right. Now let’s start with the question: “Who feels welcome?”

BECCA Yes! Let’s start with that question. So, maybe it would be helpful to give our listeners context first. Why we’re creating a podcast, why we’re asking who feels welcome at National Parks, so… Gosh, we showed up here as Park Rangers on the North Rim of Grand Canyon and – laughs – what happened?

DOUG Well, it was kind of touch-and-go whether or not we would even open the Visitor Center this year. And then we got word late spring that Grand Canyon was canceling all Ranger programs.

LESLIE And regardless, there was a huge fire that kind of blew through the area pretty soon after the season went under way.

BECCA Yeah, we were closed because of COVID-19 to the public and simultaneous to COVID-19, we were closed because – as I told my mom semi-emotionally on the phone – we were surrounded by fire on our isolated peninsula.

DOUG What are we gonna do as interpretive rangers on the North Rim if we’re not gonna answer questions in the Visitor Center, we’re not gonna be doing nature walks, evening programs? So, somebody came up with the idea that maybe the rangers can still be productive and work on a podcast for the Park.

LESLIE It’s very 2020.

BECCA Yeah, I think so. And, honestly, I think the idea of doing podcasts was appropriate not only for our special, but unifying circumstances with the entire globe, but also, it kinda ties into the theme of what we’re exploring here: who feels welcome at National Parks? Who has access to National Parks? Because creating a podcast can hopefully manifest an experience that doesn’t require being at Grand Canyon or being at the North Rim in order to be in community with us. Why do you feel like asking “Who feels welcome at National Parks?” matters to you?

DOUG Well, because I’m a National Park nerd! I love my National Parks. I’m so proud to work for the National Park Service that tells, tries to tell, all of the stories: the good and bad, ugly, and everything in between. From my perspective being in the Park profession for my whole adult life, I can’t imagine somebody not feeling welcome in a National Park. So that’s something that needs to be corrected… that there is a segment of people that don’t feel welcome in the National Parks – that’s shameful. That should never be. And we all need to feel welcome in the National Parks to get that “good vibe” that is available to all of us, to recharge our emotional and our spiritual batteries.

LESLIE We have young folks across the country who either do not know about the Park Service and what it has to offer them, or who have ventured out into green spaces and have been made to feel that – either directly or indirectly – that they do not belong there. And at the same time, this same group of young people is almost expected to solve the nation’s problems in terms of the environment and the climate crisis. There’s this huge disconnect between the expectations of these spaces and the realities of these spaces.

BECCA Mmm.

LESLIE How are we going to create a better world for those who come after us if we are not being inclusive and welcoming of the current generation?

BECCA (Breath) I think it’s important that we interrogate this question, “Who feels welcome in National Parks?”, not because we don’t know elements of the answer. To me, if feels very clear that not everyone feels welcome at Grand Canyon, not everyone feels welcome on the North Rim, and beyond. And so, asking the question, “Who feels welcome?” serves as a window to do better and identify that systems of inequity and power that exist in our larger societies, perpetuate themselves in our little community here on the North Rim and also in the Park Service, I think. I see this podcast as one tiny, little opening for progress.

When people listen to this podcast, I’d like them to… No. No, no, no. I don’t want to tell them what to do. But I do want to communicate: “Hey, these individuals that we interviewed, these amazing people, speak for themselves. They don’t speak for entire communities or entire demographics of people.”

DOUG When you listen to the guests, keep in mind they are speaking for themselves.

LESLIE And just as I don’t speak for every American or every woman out there, our guests do not speak for the entire communities that they hail from. Everyone has their own individual voice that’s based on their own personal experiences.

DOUG And boy, did we get some great interviewees, some guests, to lend their voices to this podcast.

BECCA Incredible human beings! We lucked out!

DOUG Yeah, definitely.

LESLIE No kidding!

Our four guests are as follows: - Audrey Peterman (in her own voice) - Ailema Benally (in her own voice) - Stephen Arnold (in his own voice) - Nairuti Shastry (in her own voice)

BECCA Our guests’ individual stories shed some light on the questions we were exploring.

DOUG I think that’s the best part of the whole podcast, is not the ranger voices, but the four guests that brought all these different perspectives to the table. So, I think the listener’s really gonna be wowed when they get introduced to our four guests and hear to the profound things that they had to share.

MUSIC TRANSITION

III. ALL GUESTS THEME 1

LESLIE So, in chatting with these folks, we discovered what it means for these four individuals to feel at home in the natural world. For you personally, when was a moment when you felt connected with the world? Here’s what our guests said, referencing poignant experiences at Grand Canyon.

AUDREY Here we were looking forward to seeing the Grand Canyon, which I describe as the Grande Dame, the Crown Jewel, of all the crown jewels. You know? We were… we were not disappointed. In fact, we could not, in our wildest dreams, have imagined anything so wonderful and beautiful.

You know, we felt like, we felt a very strong energy and it was just very soothing and at the same time, very inspiring. And the view of the Canyon, spreading out across all of those acres – with the spires and the temples and the chasms and the colors. Ah! Wow. It’s mind-boggling, breathtaking, awesome, astonishing, no word can describe the Grand Canyon. Every word pales in comparison.

AILEMA And it’s good to see it in all its different moods, you know, if that’s the word for it. By moonlight, by sunrise, sunset, in the wind, in the rain, in snow, fogged in, hot days, cold nights. There's a lot to experience there.

And then you begin to see how big this this entity is. In our world. And it is. It’s a – it has a grand presence. And we just can’t see all of it to know how big it is. We can’t see or know its power because it’s so incredibly silent.

STEVE I felt very small. Well, practically, you’re just this little speck on the edge of this vast abyss.

And that’s the interesting thing about Grand Canyon you’re on the edge looking down in. And so, for an individual like myself in a wheelchair, I feel like I’m getting the experience that 90% of the visitors are getting: I’m on the edge looking down in.

It’s just one of those places, it’s so special. Not just in our nation, but in the world, greeting people from all over the world coming to see it, that love for the Park grows over time.

NAIRUTI I remember feeling very, very – there was a deep feeling of anticipation. I was feeling unprepared and feeling like, you know, is this a place that I can really engage with in a safe and healthy way? You know, what kinds of materials do I need in order to do this in a safe way? Kind of, what are sort of the norms and cultural norms and social norms and expectations of this space? So I think I was overthinking it a bit. And all of those thoughts and worries and anxieties sort of melted away the first time I saw the Canyon.

MUSIC TRANSITION

IV. AUDREY PETERMAN BIO + THEMES 2/3

BECCA How would you describe yourself? Have you ever felt like an outsider, or uncomfortable in a space, or othered? Where do you feel at home, and does this intersect with your experience of the natural world? It’s time to meet our four guests in full, and hear what they have to say.

LESLIE Our first guest is Audrey Peterman, conservationist and author. She and her husband Frank are celebrated for their work in encouraging Americans of Color to discover and love their National Parks.

AUDREY My name is Audrey Peterman.

I am a very happy Jamaican-born woman who became a citizen of the United States in the 1980s after experiencing America’s wondrous National Parks. I had actually been in America for fifteen years and had not really thought to become a citizen. But when I went out and saw places like the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and Yosemite, I was eager to become a part of such a great country. And I’ve made it my life’s mission and work over the last 25 years, I’d say, to convey that great love to as many of the American and world public as possible.

It makes my life so worthwhile. You know, I’ve heard people say that they’re looking to find their purpose – my purpose found me. And it’s just been more and more wonderful. And because my background is in journalism and my husband Frank’s background is in business, we set up a consulting company called Earthwise Productions. We got our information into the Black Press, into the New York Times, into NPC Magazine… So, we did a lot of writing and publishing.

When I found out that there was such a thing as National Parks and saw these beautiful places, and then saw that they were devoid of Black and Brown people, who in my estimation, needed the freedom and the respite and the inspiration and the joy and the glory more than any other, you know, segment of society… I got really offended.

I called my best friend since high school and I was telling her about all these amazing places that we had seen and how beautiful and she was like, “What are you talking about? What are you? What are you talking about?” Nobody knew! Our… our friends who were… college president, our friends who were in network anchors, our friends who were newspaper publishers – none of them knew that there was such a thing as a National Park system and that it belonged to all Americans.

And then as we got involved with the conservation movement and we were invited to serve on several boards, I realized that the people who were operating those non-governmental organizations needed as much of an education as the Black and Brown people who did not know that there was such a thing as National Parks.

So, we’d be sitting at board tables, and we’d be talking about the subject of more inclusion and people would be saying, “Well, we all know and love and support the Parks.” And I’m like, “Excuse me! No, we don’t all know and love and support the Parks. Half of the population doesn’t know that there’s such a thing as a National Park, or National Park system. I didn’t know until I actually stumbled upon it myself.” You know? So, that was part of the frustrating part. Because people stuck to what they knew. They presumed; they extrapolated that experience to all Americans. And, you know, I’m being kind when I say that because they must have noticed that there weren’t any Black or Brown people out there. So, clearly, you know, the experience could not be true for everyone!

And I would talk and I would pour my little heart out and then, many times, people would listen to me very, very patiently – and then, when I stopped speaking, the conversation would just pick up right where it had left off before I started speaking. And, you know, a lot of Americans of Color report that that is their experience in many situations, where they’re the only one at the table, where there’s not an equal diversity of voices or representation, you know.

Based upon race, people in America have completely different experiences with almost everything. It’s like parallel worlds. And so, when I came to America in 1978, immediately I started looking around for: well, where are the natural places that I can go, to be, you know, happy and comfortable?

Once you’re in Grand Canyon, it’s like your face, your visage, your countenance changes. There’s a light that comes up on you. There’s a freedom and a radiance – radiance! That’s the word! – it gives you a radiance.

Every human being, every living creature, everything that has breath, should feel at home in the Grand Canyon.

Now personally, as a Black woman, I know that there are times when, you know, people like myself don’t necessarily feel comfortable or safe in some places that are way off the beaten track. But I reserve the right to be at home anywhere in the world. I belong in the world. So, I belong at the Grand Canyon just as much as I belong at Denali or in the Everglades or any place else.

MUSIC TRANSITION

V. STEVE ARNOLD BIO + THEMES 2/3

DOUG Our second guest is Steve Arnold. Dr. Arnold works in education year-round: he a university professor and a summertime interpretive ranger.

In the context of this podcast, interpretation does not mean language interpretation. Rather, National Park Service interpretive rangers support Park visitors in creating their own meaning and personal connections to cultural and natural resources.

STEVE My name is Stephen Arnold. I’m a Park Ranger sometimes and a professor other times.

I am an Associate Professor at a university, in instructional technology, and that’s my primary job. And then in the summertime, I work in interpretation in the National Parks.

I grew up in northern Idaho, a very rural community. For part of the time, going to a school, an elementary school, that as two rooms, kindergarten through 8th grade. So, that might give you some sense of how small of a community it was – two classrooms.

I was one of six, with a single mom. We didn’t really get out and go to a Park, even though I grew up four and a half hours’ driving to Glacier, about seven hours to Yellowstone. Cost is a big inhibitor to visiting Parks. You know, traveling and that sort of thing at that point wasn’t really on the table, but we were in the mountains and it was a nice place to live and grow up.

Fast forward, I went into the military at 17 years old after I graduated. Got hurt. Sustained an injury there. And then I spent a few years adjusting. I don’t know, I’m a pretty resilient person.

Being a wheelchair user, when I go to a National Park, including Grand Canyon, you know, I notice if there are others like me or if there are not. But it often strikes me when I am going into Parks, whether I’m going there as a visitor or working, that I don’t really encounter as many individuals with disabilities as I’d expect or possibly hope to see.

And I think the longer I’ve been in a wheelchair, the more that I notice this… There are individuals that just won’t make eye contact or acknowledge my, “Hello.” And I’ve had that happen. I’ve been out, roving with colleagues before, and I have visitors who will totally look over me to talk to the other individual who is not in a wheelchair. And so, it certainly makes me do a lot of thinking about that, that there’s no way I can really separate that out. You know, I try to analyze: well, maybe it isn’t because I’m in a wheelchair, maybe… you know, there’s some other reason.

And I think about the National Park Service mission, to preserve unimpaired the natural and cultural resources and values of the National Park System for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations. It’s kind of a lot to wrap the brain around, and I like how – if you’ve ever gone into Yellowstone, the Roosevelt Arch – Teddy Roosevelt pared it down to “for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.” And what I go to is, it doesn’t say “some of the people.” It says the people. And, if you’re a wheelchair user, or if you’re able-bodied, whichever it may be, you’re all the people.

MUSIC TRANSITION

VI. NAIRUTI SHASTRY BIO + THEMES 2/3

BECCA Up next is Nairuti Shastry, who describes herself as an “avid outdoorswoman,” “educator,” “strategist,” and “engaged scholar.”

NAIRUTI My name is Nairuti Shastry. I’m calling in right now from Virginia where I grew up, so, I am an immigrant of the one point five generation. I was born in India in a city called Ahmedabad and moved to the states when I was about six years old. I have two younger sisters. I identify as a woman of color; I use she/her/hers pronouns, and in my kind of working life, professional life, I serve as an educator and as a sociologist. I’ve worked at a few different institutions of higher education over the years in sort of the first iteration of this thing we call “career,” and have really worked to advance place-based community engagement and racial justice and restorative justice. In general I’m really passionate about transracial solidarity movements, anticolonial resistance, all of that good stuff.

When I was little, my parents took me to Shenandoah, um a national park in the state of Virginia, and once we got there, even from something as small as the looks that you get when you’re on a trail, to feeling like you’re constantly being watched and almost policed when you’re interacting with spaces, it just – I think that was the moment that I began to feel really uncomfortable um in green spaces and natural spaces.

And one of the things that I think has been contested and complicated for centuries, or at least since the United States was quote-unquote “founded,” is – is belonging in natural spaces. I think it’s been really a battleground um for a lot of folks of color. We see a lot of um policing and criminalization and just a sense that you know there’s one “right” quote-unquote way to employ, be with, be alongside, use, nature and natural spaces.

To me the perspective shift about the Grand Canyon didn’t really happen until we had the opportunity to visit the park’s museum collection. The woman who was speaking with us brought out this bowl – hundreds of years ago these bowls were made in fire. And she kind of turned the bowl inwards, and we looked right into it, and you actually see the fingerprints of this woman who had made this bowl. And that just felt like such a poignant moment, and I think really linked in to when I began to feel belonging in a space as vast as the Grand Canyon and feeling like natural and human history are these inextricably connected entities.

You know, for a lot of folks of color and especially for me, nature provides this space of healing and restoration. Nature is really, really helpful for me to be in green spaces outdoors, and feel like connected to something that is much larger than myself. Um and I really – I’m so grateful to all these folks who have encouraged me to um – to just re- participate, and re-introduce myself um to something that was once lost, and is now found.

And it wasn’t until I took the time to reflect and think about these you know micro-experiences or moments in my lifetime that I really understood, like, “Wow, so much of that sense of belongingness really came from more positive experiences of my racial identity in natural spaces.” You know, when you see people who look like you who are doing things you didn’t think were possible for you to do, it’s a transformative experience.

MUSIC TRANSITION

VII. AILEMA BENALLY BIO + THEMES 2/3

LESLIE Our fourth and final guest is Ailema Benally. She is a retired park ranger who’s worked at both Hubbell Trading Post and Canyon de Chelly, two National Park units located on the Navajo reservation in Arizona.

Ailema is a founding member of the Council for American Indian Interpretation, a subgroup of the NAI, or the National Association for Interpretation.

AILEMA My name is Ailema Benally.

I've lived on the reservation most of my life -- on the Navajo reservation. I am Navajo, full blood. I have two children: a daughter and a son. I am currently a caregiver to my mom and her sister, my aunt. We have a great time. [Laughs] That's what I've been doing since I retired; I’ve been caring for both of them. And, um, we have we have a very good time being together here.

In the summer of 1973, I was 16 years old. And we had just gotten out of school for the summer. And a neighbor came by – she lived behind us across the alley – and came by one evening and she said there was a job opening for students. And, um, she said come to Hubbell tomorrow and just let them interview you; you'll fill out your application while you're there. So, I thought, “Okay.” So, I went there, applied, and I was immediately hired. And by the end of summer I was doing a tour every hour. [Laughs]

I became a permanent employee in 1986 and just stayed in interpretation all the way to retirement. Yeah, and I spent most half my life maybe um working with the National Park Service and the other half of was being a kid. [Laughs]

… We were, we were not in uniform. We were wearing traditional Navajo dress -- and I didn't like that because people, they would try to speak loud to us. They’d speak slowly. And so, I didn't like being in traditional Navajo dress. I wanted so bad to be in park uniform so I can be treated differently. And, uh, I was so happy when I went into uniform. It was a very, very different kind of attitude and respect when - when I went into uniform.

From then on, I spent a lot of personal time paying attention to how people would speak: How they wanted to be spoken to, how - how they reacted to speakers, and how they responded to certain words. I was very attentive to that. And I realized that and as I would speak about Hubbell and Navajo people there seemed to be a gold ticket to ask any kind of question of me about American Indian cultures: tradition, history, like anything, anything they wanted to know.

And when I answered, I was answering from my own little experience with my family and they took it as an all-out answer for all Indian cultures in the United States. And it was an incredible, incredible “whoops” kind of responsibility. It’s, like, “No, no, I didn't mean that.” Didn't know how to take it back, because I didn't have the right words to say, “This is my own experiences.” And so, as I go on, the questions become more challenging, and and deeper, and sometimes very personal.

And there's a friend a very close friend now who was down the road I was at Hubbell… Wilson Hunter was at Canyon de Chelly, and we had both heard about each other through park visitors. But it would be years later before we would meet. And when we did, it was kind of funny, because we both said, “So, you're Wilson Hunter;” “So, you're Ailema Benally.” And, um, from there, we we began to talk about the questions we were getting from visitors and oh my gosh it was so incredible we couldn't stop talking about the challenges it brought to have people ask us of cultures of other people.

And so, we started talking together, and we reached out to other parks that we knew that had uh American Indian interpreters. And they were going “Yes! What you said! It’s true! Help! What do we do?” So, we started to meet. We had a visitor from the NAI Southwest regional representative and he goes, “You know what, you guys should go big. You're not the only one with this this discussion. This needs to go nationwide.” We named ourselves the council for American Indian interpretation.

We were… we were just so happy to share what we have and and realize we were not the only ones with that challenge, that we were able to call on each other, and and share the experiences we were having. So, we really had a great support of people around us and we were better cultural interpreters because of our support.

MUSIC TRANSITION

VIII. ALL GUESTS THEME 4

BECCA What is next? Where do we go from here? How do we move beyond explicitly naming challenges, to collaboratively addressing them? All four voices - Steve, Nairuti, Audrey, and Ailema, in their own words, bring us home.

DOUG Once again, this is Steve Arnold:

STEVE Figure out a way to let the Parks represent Americans.

If you look at anything from ability or disability to cultural diversity, there’s so many different subgroups of people that the Parks are lagging. And they’ve kind of lagged, I think, initially when the Parks were created, the visitor was… tended to be more of a middle-class – or higher, financially speaking – predominantly white visitor, most likely not too many individuals with disabilities. And we’ve made some headway but not as far as we need to, especially if you look at the demographics of the nation, they are substantially different.

I think from a Park Service standpoint, they need to gather data, and not… There’s this tendency for us to try to do what we think somebody else needs. And with my personal experience with that, that’s not the right way to do it. Somebody else can’t begin to understand what somebody in a wheelchair needs if they’re not in a wheelchair. They can start, they can get some good ideas, but oftentimes they miss the mark. You know, I’m talking with you - I use a wheelchair - but I can’t begin to understand the needs of everybody else.

And so, I think, to get enough data gathering from folks that have needs: get them involved in the decision-making, and then a renewed investment in making these adaptations.

You know, if you’re looking at the accessibility side of things, once you’ve done research – and whether you have somebody to go with or not – just the bottom line is to go, to experience it and see these natural wonders.

PAUSE

BECCA Once again, here is Nairuti Shastry:

NAIRUTI There’s a movement to feel like belonging is more expansive and imaginative than it has been. And you know even with this podcast right like there’s still work to be done, and I think so much about feeling welcome is beyond diversity. I think we really have to start with the conversation around inclusion, right. Folks can’t feel like they belong in a space, if that space isn’t constructed to be inclusive in the first place.

I think that exposure really needs to begin from a young age. I think if young people don’t feel like they can access the national parks, we’ve already lost the battle. I can imagine, you know, for someone who is my parents’ age, if they’ve had time and time again these micro-aggressive or just straight up plain aggressive interactions with natural spaces, it’s going to make them much less likely to: one, participate in land and natural spaces themselves, and two, advocate for others to be able to have access to that space as well. So, I think we have to acknowledge this like ripple effect that doing diversity and inclusion work has, and equity work has, on entire communities of people.

If I were superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park, I think one of the centerpieces I would hope I could work on as well as, you know, as other staff and really encourage folks to center, is this idea of reckoning with history. To me, that reckoning isn’t just – it needs to go beyond, you know, simple land acknowledgements. It actually looks like moving land and resources and redistributing that ownership in a way that is equitable. And the land goes back to folks that rightfully own it.

PAUSE

LESLIE Once again, this is Audrey Peterman:

AUDREY Everybody’s gonna have to be a little bit uncomfortable if we’re gonna move forward together, you know? Because right now, it’s a painful place we’re in. We can no longer have this separation of who is considered to be worthwhile to be in the Parks, or who is considered, you know, to have the “sensibility,” the “sensitivity” towards Parks. You know, and that always excludes non-white people. We can’t have that anymore!

I would say, “Look here. Freedom cannot be given – it must be taken, okay?” I am not going to wait around on somebody to make me feel comfortable somewhere that I want to go. And I say, it is the responsibility of the National Park Service, and a lot of these organizations that get a good deal of money, to send out the message to non-white Americans that they are invited and welcome.

But, since that is not happening to the extent it should be, thankfully there are thousands of grassroots organizations of Color around the country that are doing this work in our communities and bringing the message of what we actually have in the National Parks and the public lands system to our peers in communities of Color. And so, I heartily encourage people to find one of these affinity groups. I find that one of the key desires or requirements that people have is that they should see themselves reflected in the visitor group.

In summation… you know what I would do? I would invite a group of these people to invite their friends to come to the Grand Canyon. I would work on the media to get some PSAs done, showing these people at the Grand Canyon and the wonderful time that they were having. I would invite them to do their social media campaigns. We would light up the world with images of People of Color at Grand Canyon having a wonderful time. That’s all that needs to happen, that people need to see that it’s accessible and welcoming to others like ourselves.

But I’d just stay to people: “Take your freedom in America, okay? Take your freedom because, you know, nobody is waiting around to give it to you.

PAUSE

DOUG And our final guest – Ailema Benally:

AILEMA Change how the National Park Service communicates the Canyon experience. Prime the visitors so they know what is here, and how to be a guest in this place that welcomes every living thing. The natural world is for every living thing to find own niche -- to survive and thrive. There are some places in every culture, there are places there, that have different levels of significance for accommodation, for medicine, for, well – life-sustaining, life, life life- giving resources. And so, people regard these in different ways and they use them for their own survival.

These places are accepted as a gift of life and greatly appreciated. These places have their own song, because they have their own special kind of life force. So they must be approached with reverence and humility. So you approach, just like when you're trying to introduce yourself to a dog, to a horse: you reach out gently and you let them know you mean no harm.

So when you come to these places you come with offerings, with blessings, with Thanksgiving. People will have a song, a prayer, they may have done some fasting before they arrived. And then that trade is made. You make your offering, whatever it is, and then you take what you need. And then there is that mutual exchange. There is respect, protection, there's life, there's food, there's medicine… that is given and taken. And so, there's like a mutual protection that is given from the canyon, the river, the mountain, for, for the people, for the family, for the individual.

Once you're there you've already - you've already been invited. What drew you there, what brought you there, are different circumstances, different people, different times. But in the natural world, in the spirit world, you are called to be there. There is a reason for you to be there.

Every now and then, I long to go back. And there was the medicine man that told us one time, “If you have a longing, you don't know why, maybe you've been there once or maybe haven't even been here before, but you have a longing to go to the mountain, to go to the river, to go to maybe a certain particular place, you have a longing.” He says, “Because before we were human, before we were flesh and bone, we were spirit people, and these were the places that we belonged to at one time. And we long to go back. It's our spirit that draws us back that way.” And so I think these places call us back, because we are a child of the earth, of a certain time we don't know of, as the spirit. And so, we go back to these places to renew our spirit, to renew ourselves, for however long that needs to be.

So I go back to the Grand Canyon every now and then. And stand at the edge, and just let my presence be known: I'm here to be acknowledged as a child of the earth. And that I'm here to recognize the majesty of the ocean, the mountain, the canyon, the rivers, the desert, whatever those places may be.

MUSIC TRANSITION lasting longer than the others to signify the end

IX. HOST OUTRO

LESLIE We want to extend a full-hearted thank you to all of our guests. We are so grateful for all that you shared, the grace you showed us, and your openness.

BECCA Here at Grand Canyon, we also gratefully acknowledge the Native Peoples on whose ancestral homeland we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant Native communities who make their home here today.

DOUG Let’s keep this conversation going. Who feels welcome in your own community? And what’s next in your own scope of influence?

LESLIE For more information on accessibility in parks, affinity groups and natural spaces, and much more, please reference the show notes attached to this podcast.

BECCA And one more thank you to all who added their voice to this project. We are blown away.

DOUG I don’t know how we did it as a team, but man, we got some really, really great voices to agree to participate in this podcast.

BECCA Ailema synthesizes it best:

AILEMA Oh my gosh, wow. Wow! [Laughs]

Canyon Cut: Coming Together in Hard Times Oct 29, 2020

Throughout our history, Americans have overcome difficulty through unity and shared experience. Join Ranger Jeff on the trails of Rocky Mountain National Park and Grand Canyon as he tells a story about wilderness, family, the Great Depression, and coming together as nation during hard times.

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TRANSCRIPT:

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[Music quietly fades up and footsteps on crunching gravel]

This is Jeff, I’m a ranger at Grand Canyon National Park, y you’re listening to Behind the Scenery, Canyon Cuts

Working as a Wilderness Ranger at Rocky Mountain National Park for the past several seasons, I’ve had time to think…more time than I wanted some days. Whole summers spent walking, staring at my feet, winning imaginary arguments, and pondering…all between cutting trees from the trail, talking to hikers, search and rescue, the actual work of my old job. What did all that thinking produce? Tangibly, not much, but with all those quiet miles, I had the chance to wander on trails, mentally, that I wouldn’t normally wander on. National parks and the United States were created with pens, paper, and ideas. Our founding parents thought, argued, wrote, and came up with a government. National parks weren’t born from anything like the Continental Congress, but they’ve become one of the greatest expressions of our civic culture. Credit for these big parks and big ideas usually go to Presidents like Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and national park pioneers like John Muir, Stephen Mather, Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, Virginia McClurg, and countless others. Same with our founding parents. These people are long dead, but their ideas and actions still inspire us and affect us…we still walk in the national parks they helped protect and we live in the country they helped create. Neither of these creations are perfect, we’re still working on both.

I hiked a few hundred national park miles each summer and I got idealistic. So, let’s come back to the present where those founding ideals are struggling through a smoldering, battered civic landscape, near antebellum polarization, COVID-19, tens of millions unemployed, and the re-exposure of old, simmering racism. It’s not a great view, it’s exhausting and disheartening. Between my lofty thoughts and the trail under my feet is a story, it’s a story written in my head as I walked…a story about all of us…actually, it’s the trail that’s the story, and the boys who built the trail. Eighty-seven years ago, President Franklin Roosevelt established the Civilian Conservation Corps and sent millions of unemployed young men into the national forests, parks, farm fields, and cities to repair damaged national resources and create even more. But we shouldn’t look only at the natural resources and tangible products of the CCC. President Roosevelt had more in mind:

Audio recording of Franklin D. Roosevelt It involved not only a further loss of homes, farms, savings and wages but also a loss of spiritual values -- the loss of that sense of security for the present and the future that is so necessary to the peace and contentment of the individual and of his family. When you destroy those things you will find it difficult to establish confidence of any sort in the future.[…..]First, we are giving opportunity of employment to a quarter of a million of the unemployed, especially the young men who have dependents, to let them go into the forestry and flood prevention work . […] and in creating this civilian conservation corps, we are killing -two birds with one stone. We are clearly enhancing the value of our natural resources and, at the same time, we are relieving an appreciable amount of actual distress.

The CCC is simple history, pick up a high school textbook and you’ll see some paragraphs about the billions of trees they planted, the thousands of miles of roads and trails they blazed and built. But President Roosevelt created the CCC not only to address the economics of the Great Depression, but to heal a suffering nation and its citizens.

[Aspen leaves quietly fluttering in the breeze]

One of the young men in the CCC was born in 1918 on the plains of central Kansas. His father was a stonemason and his mother a homemaker. Roman grew up in a small town with three brothers and five sisters, went to St. Joseph’s Grade School during the week, and to church on Sundays. After finishing 8th grade he went to work at his uncle’s small-town service station. Roman’s young life sounds like a Norman Rockwell painting, but I doubt it was Saturday Evening Post perfect. Most of our lives aren’t. But life changed for Roman when the Depression came to Kansas.

Roman lost his job at the service station, his dad wasn’t working, and there were seven people at home. In October of 1937, Roman joined the Civilian Conservation Corp and left for a job that paid him $5 and sent $25 to his family each month, it fed him, and gave him a place to sleep. Superficially, Roman’s work in the CCC was far more profitable for his family and the government. Roman’s family got $25 each month of his pay, his parents didn’t have to feed him, and the government found a motivated and inexpensive employee until 1940. After a few years in the Army during World War II, Roman came home from Japan and married Cecilia in 1949. They had three kids and bought a house and Roman worked on cement trucks until he retired in the 1980s. An 84-year life reduced to its most basic milestones.

For a naïve, idealistic wilderness ranger wandering the high country, milestones are handy. They punctuate a day, but they don’t say much about the trail between them. Smashing our country and economy and our health into social media sized milestones neglects our humanity and our citizenship. Sharing Roman’s story with only the high points may simplify his life’s story. But, what did the CCC do for Roman and for our country?

The Civilian Conservation Corp and the New Deal fed and employed a generation of young men, created hope in the midst of the Great Depression and brought some much-needed certainty to uncertain times and they helped set Roman on a path towards a 54-year marriage, children, and eight grandchildren. I’m one of his youngest grandchildren and probably his favorite. It’s impossible to know what Grandpa’s life would have been like without the New Deal’s CCC and it’s impossible know if the United States would have survived the Great Depression, but because of President Roosevelt’s decisions and the CCC’s work, I’ve been able spend part of my working life on trails built and improved by my Grandpa and all the others who enrolled in the Civilian Conservation Corps. Today, we can all enjoy the civic and material benefits of the CCC and the trails created by the Civilian Conservation Corps still welcome everyone who wants to enjoy them.

Writing this short episode has been a struggle mostly because I’m a better ranger than I am a writer. But it’s also difficult, probably impossible, to articulate a story that speaks to the diversity of challenges we face right now and to write a story that can speak to our country’s diverse peoples. It’s no more possible for me to write a story that speaks to every problem or every person in the United States than to invest any single person with the responsibility to fix our national problems. Grandpa didn’t lift us out of the Great Depression and President Roosevelt didn’t wipe away the nation’s suffering with his signature during the first 100 days in office. It took the efforts of millions of Americans. And today, 90 years later, we still need a diverse population of millions working to help solve our nation’s problems.

[Footsteps on crunching gravel]

All those miles of staring at my feet and pondering, I was thinking about our National Parks and our country. Along with our nation’s capitols and monuments, our national parks are civic places. Our national parks belong to you and to me and to all of us and we all share the responsibility to care for them. They’re places where we can be citizen, visitor, spectator, volunteer, or tired hiker. We can all look up at the same mountains, lean against the same railings and together look into the Grand Canyon’s depths. If we yearn for equality and we can find some in the parks hiking up the same trail, being soaked by the same rain, sometimes waiting in the same long lines at entrance gates. Our national parks can’t cure all the problems we face, but they are spaces for us to gather, to share our stories, and wonder at the beauty of these United States.

[Music quietly fades up] Thank you to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum for allowing me use recordings from their collection and thank you to Passenger for letting me include his music in the podcast and finally thank you to my family for your help and good humor…grandpa made us all feel like we were his favorite. [Music quietly fades down]

Moonwalkers Oct 19, 2020

Before the astronauts went to the moon, they came to Grand Canyon. Fifty years later, Lowell Observatory Historian Kevin Schindler traced their story down the canyon trails.

The tracks the moonwalkers left behind hold the human values they carried into the universe. In this episode, we hear from the youngest man to walk the moon and an astronaut-in-training for the Mars Generation!

Let’s track how our values shape our galactic footprint moving forward!

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Kate: Hidden forces shape our ideas, beliefs, and experiences of Grand Canyon.

Melissa: Join us as we uncover the stories between the canyon’s colorful walls.

Kate: Probe the depths and add your voice for what happens next at Grand Canyon!

Melisa: I’m Ranger Melissa.

Kate: I’m Ranger Kate.

Kate and Melissa: This is Behind the Scenery.

Kate: In the entire history of our planet 107 billion people have set foot on it. Of them, in just one year, 6 million come to Grand Canyon. But only twelve people, twelve have ever set foot on another world. So all of you listening, I don't know if you realize but before astronauts left those big tracks up on the moon those same feet walked to the bottom of Grand Canyon. That's like a nine mile walk or 14 or 7; it just depends on the trail.

Melissa: In this episode we're going to retrace some of these footsteps with a couple of people we've met along our own journey and exploring the Apollo astronauts in their time together Grand Canyon. We're going to hear from historians, some of our own people that we met at the bottom of the Grand Canyon on their own hikes, and were might even just hear from a future astronaut that might land on another planet in their lifetime, and most importantly, you'll hear from a moonwalker themselves, one of twelve to walk on the moon.

Kevin: So ok, this is right like Neil Armstrong stood and what was he thinking? You know, he didn't know he was going to be the first person on the moon and this was years before its first flight and yet this is where his preparation was happening. Now what was he thinking as he was gazing across the Canyon and perhaps up into the heavens? Maybe the same thing that so many of us think about the grandeur of it all.

Kate: This is Kevin Schindler. He is a historian at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, the same observatory where they discovered Pluto. Kevin is describing Neil, not looking over the craters of the moon, but looking into the bottoms of Grand Canyon. Neil Armstrong sits on the edge of the Canyon wearing his classic red baseball cap. His field notebook lies forgotten to the side as his gaze is lost in the bottom of the canyon.

Kevin: I’ve been able to not just hike into the Canyon but actually retrace where a lot of astronauts went by helping me find the locations of several pictures. We have a few dozen pictures of the astronauts during those hikes, and I wanted to write a try to recreate where those pictures were taken.

Kate: I first met Kevin, and I remember it was the Centennial year at Grand Canyon and here in the park we were getting ready to celebrate the big 100th birthday. In my email inbox, I get this letter saying,” Hey! did you realize it's also the 50th anniversary of the Apollo missions? And why don't we celebrate how much Grand Canyon was a part of humans going up to the moon?”

Kevin: The astronauts were on a mission. When we look back at going back on the moon, we can remember the inspiration it gave us and the science we learned and such but the reason we were going initially was to beat the Russians. It was all part of the Cold War and that president Kennedy in the middle 1960s declared that we were going to go to the moon…. President John F. Kennedy: We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”

Kevin: And so these astronauts were brought on to do this very patriotic very in a lot of ways military mined activity. We gotta beat the Russians, we gotta beat the Russians there! And so as we were developing the missions, a lot of scientists said if we’re gonna go the moon and plant the flag and thumb our noes at the Russians and that is all we do then that is a wasted opportunity. We should do science. We should take advantage of that opportunity and explore that world.

Kate: Going to the moon is not so different from going on a trip to Grand Canyon or your next exploration and it makes me think, “ Why are we exploring? How can we bring something useful back to the people at home?”

Kevin: Yeah, the thing about the astronauts is they were hired to beat the Russians, they had to get to the moon first. What does picking up rocks have to do with beating the Russians? The geologist realized this, realized we need to inspire the astronauts to learn about geology.

Kate: Melissa, you and I have taught a lot of kids coming to take field trips at Grand Canyon. Who do you think would be more excited to learn about rocks - your third graders or a fighter pilot with a crew cut and military background? Melissa: Definitely the third graders.

Kate: The astronauts were survival specialist, just focused on getting to the moon and back alive. Well now, NASA has big ask for them: to train their brains in a new way, to learn to be scientists.

Melissa: Just like our third graders!

Kevin: These guys didn’t have much geology. In most cases they didn’t have any geology training. And so their early training in geology was fundamental. It was basic. It wasn’t trying to find a place that had similar rocks to what they would be seeing on the moon. It was more just learning to think like a geologist, learning how to look at rocks and interpret the stories that they tell. And so they needed a geology classroom to learn how to identify different types of rocks and how they are formed, and how to know this type of rocks is a lot different than that one. When they go to the moon they want to be able to collect as many different types of rocks as possible......so they have to be able to it to know the difference. As I learned more I found that they came to Northern Arizona initially to just learn basic geology, going to Meteor Crater and Sunset Crater and then I got really interested and learned that all the Apollo astronauts trained in Northern Arizona in preparation for the Moon missions and they were learning basic geology. Almost a quintessential interest came about when I found out they had trained at the Grand Canyon. The astronauts trained at the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon is one of my favorite places in the world.

Kate: Kevin's research led him to NASA and at NASA he found historic photographs of people like Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on field trips at the bottom of Grand Canyon. Kevin wrote a book, an Images of America series about their Northern Arizona space training, and then he decided it was time to pack his own backpack and followed the astronauts footsteps into Grand Canyon.

Kevin: The people who did that work and retrace their steps it’s a lot more fun. You can really feel it more. It’s neat to read about it in the living room with a lamp at night reading a book. It’s a different experience hiking down and making the same stops and having the same, you know, breathing problems coming out. And you know, really envisioning what they are seeing.

Kate: Kevin met Melissa and I on the trails and he had the historic photographs from NASA in his hands. He would hold them up and try to match them to the brilliant colorful landscapes that hikers see in Grand Canyon. When it matched up, it was this amazing moment where we realized we were probably standing at the same place where Neil Armstrong was standing at.

Kevin: And then a later group of astronauts after that visited the canyon in 1966. They all kinda followed the same pattern and were there essentially two days. So the geologist would meet them at Yavapai museum and do an overview of the Canyon. And then they would go to the South Kaibab trail and the trailhead. So you would have two to three astronauts with one geologist and every few minutes one of the groups would start hiking down the trail. And as they hiked down the trail, the geologists would describe what they are seeing, the types of rocks, interpret what the rock layers meant. You know, tell the story of the rocks.

Kate: One of my favorite pictures shows the astronauts eating lunch at the Fossil Fern exhibit on the South Kaibab trail, and this exhibit shows fern fossils from millions of years ago, and it might be why the astronauts joked when they were landing that they had found fossils on the moon. But on that field trip the astronauts were learning important skills like how to take rock samples, how to use overhead maps to navigate an unknown landscape. The spot where they are having their picnic is where a lot of hikers are also looking at maps, learning to navigate the landscapes of Grand Canyon.

Kevin: If you look at some of these pictures they are carrying field notebooks to describe their observations, they have maps so that they can learn geology mapping. They can look at layers of rocks and describe what they’re seeing and map it out to where it will be useful to other people. They have geology hammers which normally you would not do and Grand Canyon but they had special permission to collect some rocks like they would be doing on the moon. They had hand lenses to look at minerals up close which they wouldn’t do so much on the moon because it is kind of hard to hold a hand lense next to your space helmet and focus in. .....One of the first things they would do in landing on the moon is to survey what they are looking.

Duke and Young on the Moon: It sure is flat John!

Kevin: To look at the rocks and the layers, maybe mountains or valleys

Duke and Young on the Moon: Wow, there's that ridge to the North!

Kevin: or whatever and describe what they are seeing.

Duke and Young on the Moon: All we gotta' do is open the hath and we've got plenty of rocks.

Houston: It looks beautiful John. Wish I were there.

Melissa: The voices you just heard are of John young and charge you Apollo 16 astronauts as they gazed out to the moon for the first time.

Kate:

Melissa and I had the pleasure of meeting Charlie Duke at the Flagstaff Festival of Science. As the lunar module pilot of Apollo16 in 1972, he became the youngest person at 36 years old to walk on the moon.

Melissa:

We asked Charlie Duke almost 50 years later if there were any similarities between the moon and Grand Canyon.

Charlie Duke: Ah, there was about zero. The moon was mostly volcanic and the Grand Canyon is mostly sedimentary rocks, and as far as I know there has been no water on the moon in mass quantities and so there's no sedimentary rocks. But the moon does have Layering in it because it's been volcanic and has been erupting up there so you see different layers and different stratus with different volcanic eruptions. You could see that in the side of the big craters. The biggest one that we visited was 500 meters across. You can stand on the southeast side, southwest side and look across the crater and you could see inside the crater different flows and so seeing throws flows was similar to learning identifying the different stratus in the Grand Canyon. But I got excited about Flagstaff and I loved it. I loved the instructors. Astro Geology I think they called it or something anyway. And I met the people out there and they were so enthusiastic, and they got me so excited about geology, and I loved it. For six years we had trip every month somewhere for three or four days in the field and a lot of it was in Arizona with the Meteor Crater down south across the border and Grand Canyon.

Kate: The Grand Canyon and the moon may have different rocks, but it sounds like Charlie really did learn to see like a geologist and I saw this in videos of him trying to collect moon samples but in zero G that often meant a back flip. The science he and the other astronauts learned allowed them to expand our knowledge of the universe . You know the rocks that they were visiting at the bottom of the Canyon are about 1.8 billion years old but the Trinity rock the moon rocks they collected on the moon are 4.5 billion, just a little bit younger than our planet, and with those rocks we realized that maybe another planetoid hit planet earth and the moon is actually a part of our crust. That knowledge allowed them to bring something useful back home, expanding our knowledge of the solar system. It was a real honor to meet Charlie Duke and hear more about what it was like for them going down into the bottom of the Canyon. Well, Kevin has met a lot of astronauts and a big part of his hikes into the Canyon were about these shared experiences that he found with them.

Kevin: I have been to the bottom of the canyon a couple dozen times or so and it is interesting how some of your experiences overlap a little bit. For me it was I guess one of the most obvious and dramatic ones was also kind of comical in that my first trip to the bottom of Grand Canyon when I was in college - more than a few months ago- I woke up in the middle of the night while camping at Phantom Ranch and a skunk was sniffing me. As I was doing research about the astronauts going to the bottom of Grand Canyon, I ended up interviewing Charlie Duke and learned about his experience of skunks fighting over his sleeping bag.

Melissa: Did you finally get to meet the skunk that bothered him? Charlie Duke and Wife Dorothy: I didn't get to the bottom. We went to the North side from the North side. We did get to the bottom but we rode out. I said, “I’m riding back out of here.”

Kate: When you look up at all the challenges to get out of the Canyon, the vertical mile of climb ahead, it's a crucible for even the most fit of hikers and runners. Astronauts in peak physical condition may want an easy way out too.

Kevin: A few of them, especially the really quintessential type A personalities like Allan Shepherd, who was the first American to go into space years before these trips. He would not ride a mule. He was going to hike out of the canyon and he was going to be the first one out....Others like Neil Armstrong were fine to ride a mule and Neil Armstrong later said in his life something to the effect “I only have so many heartbeats, I don’t want to waste them on exercise.”

Melissa: Going into space was a big investment, more than just an astronaut heartbeat. I was curious about who benefited from all the work that went into getting them up there.

Kevin: You know, well you may or may not agree with the reason we went. You can look back and say you know we humans when we get a common goal and work together we can achieve amazing things. I think about only 12 people walked on the moon. If they are the only ones to benefit, we sure spent a lot of money on 12 people! To me the benefit. It was life altering. The reason we went to the moon was political. There is no way Congress would have approved that money if there was not a perceived threat at the time. We were in the middle of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. It was a perceived threat. We had to get out there and show our superiority. If the challenge were let’s go out there to explore and do science it never would have happened. Not how it did because this was against so much happening on Earth. That money could be used for a lot of good things on Earth. People Starving. Homeless people. But because it was a perceived threat, while these issues on Earth were important, We must go out there.

Kate: Going to Mars and as we think about expanding as galactic humans each and every one of us can ask, “ Well what makes it worth it? What are the costs? What are the benefits?”

Kevin: One is the amount of money we spend, is that better used for things on Earth? And that is something that goes back to Apollo. You know, the country is crumbling. There is civil unrest. There are riots. There are race riots. The Vietnam War is going on and we’re spending a gazillion dollars to try to get people to walk on another world. How is that helping us? How is that saving lives? How is that feeding people who are starving? And so that is always a question. I have answers for that, my own personal answers. But I think that’s always something. You know, if you spend money on anything. What are you getting out of it and why are you doing it? How do you qualify it as a success.

Historic Radio: Today, President Kennedy signed an authorization from Congress to spend 1 billion 700 million dollars on our space program for the next fiscal year that's $10 for every man woman and child in the nation but fair enough for what is by far the greatest show on earth, the dramatic race to the moon.

Kate: How did the American public feel in the 1960s before the Apollo missions were successful? It surprised me to learn that according to Roger Launius, who was the former chief historian for NASA, that a majority of Americans in the 1960s did not believe Apollo was worth the cost. Many raised their voice in protest and spoke out for social justice the night before Apollo 11's launch into space with Neil, Buzz, and Collins getting ready to go to the moon. Hundreds of people came to protest at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. They were people who had also marched with Martin Luther King Junior in Washington. Their priority was addressing widespread suffering caused by poverty and they called themselves the Poor People's Campaign.

Melissa: So in this picture I see a couple of mules there are being lined up by a few men in front of a large rocket and a bunch of palm trees. In this photo they're using mules as a symbol of systemic poverty in the United States. it's crazy to compare that to here at Grand Canyon. Today, mules are a sign of luxury. You get to pay to take a mule right down to the bottom instead of using your own two legs.

Kate: Other protesters are standing in front of a lunar module and holding up high a sign that says, “ It takes $12.00 a day to feed an astronaut. We could feed a starving child with $8.00” The leader of the March Ralph Abernathy gave a moving speech in which he said, “We may go on from this day to Mars and to Jupiter and even to the heavens beyond, but as long as racism, poverty, hunger, and war prevail upon the earth, we as a civilized nation have failed.” Listening to what Americans felt back in the 1960s, I wanted to hear what people feel today. Right here and right now. So we interviewed hikers and backpackers in Grand Canyon. We asked them: that considering the problems we have on earth today, should we be thinking about going back to outer space?

Jess: Hi! My name is Jess. I believe that space exploration and sending humans out into space is really important. I believe that it will bring a whole new world like literally to our environment, to our perspective. I personally would love to become an astronaut and just the thought of going out to space, possibly landing on a different planet in different solar systems. Even like if that could be made possible that's something that furthering space exploration can be made possible. If you go further you can know your boundaries and then surpass that even more. There's so much to the universe now and we only know so much of it and so space exploration will just further that knowledge.

Doug: My name is Doug and I think that once our constitution is secure and we have our tax situation under control that we should be able to spend some of that on space exploration because we have other technologies that comes out of space exploration that benefits us here on earth.

Celia: Hi! My name is Celia. I think that space there's so much about space that we don't know and that's so intriguing to like break beyond our boundaries and explore new environments, new species, new areas and there's so much out there that we don't know about. But even more so I think that exploring the seas and the oceans on this earth. We've only explored like 90% of them, and so as much as there is about space that we don't know, there's even more so about the oceans. We only know like 90% of them. So yes, I think that exploring the depths of everything that we don't know, whether that’s space or the oceans, breaking new boundaries, putting footprints on places where there haven't been footprints or maybe Finn marks if we're going down into the ocean. But yes, going into space going down to the ocean exploring new areas. 100% let's do it!

Kate: The voice of every living being matters, and we have the opportunity to speak out for the values we care about at home, whether that's planet earth or where we go from here. It is time to talk to someone who since three years old has committed her life to going to Mars as a spokesperson for the Mars generation. Alyssa Carson has a long list of accomplishments. Alyssa is the youngest person to graduate from the Advanced Space Academy. She has her pilots license and got her rocket license before her drivers permit. She is now the youngest person on the planet to be certified to go into sub-orbital space. In the interview, we dive deep into what the future of space exploration could look like, but I wanted to hear from Alyssa - Is space exploration worth the cost?

Alyssa: Yeah, you know first of all I would say that I feel like a lot of people when they think about how much money goes into the space program and goes into building rockets and sending astronauts to space there's a lot of other things that kind of go into that as well. So during the Apollo days having that space program and having the Apollo missions that employed 400 thousand Americans which are jobs that weren't necessarily fills in any other way. You know we had 400,000 people because we're going to space NASA is one of the only government and entities that you put $1 into it brings $8.00 back into the economy. So NASA has been able through, you know all the technologies, developed and now marketed to supply so many other things here on earth. You know, most of the technology in the everyday. So a lot of other just simple things, you know Velcro or you know, just little things that no one thinks about was either developed for the space program or by the space program. And so a lot of things that we have, we wouldn't even have if we weren't putting in the investment and pushing ourselves, wanting to go into space and with the idea of traveling to Mars. You know, Mars is that first step in learning to colonize a new planet because in the long run, you know, we know that the sun will burnout. That's how all suns run through their course of life. You know, we have never seen, you know, a sun just kind of burn forever so we know eventually one day the earth will not be livable anymore. And so in order for humans to want to continue to survive and continue to face new things we're going to have to travel to new places and it's going to have to be something that we address at some point. Obviously, Mars is not going to be ultimate savior or anything. You know, Mars revolves around the same sun, but Mars is just the first step in developing that technology and developing our space technology so someday we are able to do that and someday we are able to continue ourselves. And as we continue pushing ourselves for gaining so much new technology, as well as income into our economy to benefit from - that I think, that's a grand dream for like on a human perspective.

Kate: So I am curious. In my research I found that it could be more cost effective to send robots up to other planets, so what do you think are the justifications for having humans out in the field on places like Mars?

Alyssa: Yeah, so there obviously are many rovers and satellites and all kinds of things that we have sent to Mars so far to start doing research, and the biggest issue with only having these robots on Mars is just the time efficiency of it. So, for example, because of the distance on Mars, the time delay between earth and Mars ranges between, you know, 15 to 30 minutes sometimes. And so, if you tell a rover to move to move forward, 30 minutes later it's gonna move two feet and then it's gonna move two feet and 30 minutes later you'll get the command back that it has successfully moved two feet. So, in one hour we've done such a small movement and so having to constantly do that pass over and over and over again makes such small movements each time. And so, all of the research that we are gaining from Mars, although it's useful, it is coming in quite slowly. Whereas with humans on Mars and having a crew there, you know, a human is able to go out on the planet and say “Hey! this rock looks interesting. Hey! let's bring if you would, rock samples back. Let's run around and see what we can collect. Let's bring it back and start doing some experiments with it. So, humans are able to do, I think it's like a years’ worth of work over in just one hour on Mars. And so, having people there is really going to just expedite all of the research and science so we went to accomplish there.

Kate: As we go into space and I think about “Who owns the Moon anyway?” Especially when we see multiple nations and now private interest actively gearing up in in some ways competing to go into outer space and it makes me think of the international space treaty which made guidelines for peaceful collaboration as we expand into space. What would you like to see included as we figure out how to best govern space exploration?

Alyssa: Yeah, I think that as space exploration continues, it's basically just going to have to become a joint effort. I think if we want to keep, you know, especially peace in space, you know, obviously the International Space Station has worked well for so many years with so many different countries represented and so many different astronauts from all these countries have visited and contributed in some way. And I think that that same idea that has worked for us will have to continue once we start looking at going back to the moon and to Mars. And along with that, you know we're actually starting to see so many more companies building up and so many more countries building up their space programs, and you know their thoughts of going to the moon, going to Mars and that kind of thing. So I think that as all these countries start getting to that point of wanting to start going to the moon, I think the collaboration will then start to play in even more because we'll have obviously more people wanting to go to space and going further into space, so I definitely think it will have to rely on strong collaboration between the countries.

Kate: When I give programs at the bottom of the canyon, I like to joke that I am going to be the first park ranger on Mars at that bigger canyon. But it’s really cool that you may be one of the first people to go out there and to explore these wilderness areas. Do you have a place that you care about in space that you think would be a good candidate for an international space park?

Alyssa: Yeah, I think as we look for you know missions to Mars and also if we continue to go deeper into space, I think that there are going to be places in our solar system that we are going to want to preserve. You know, I think especially even looking back at our own planet. You know, earth now has a lot of space junk around it just from all the satellites and all the stuff and rockets so we sent up over the years, and so I think that is kind of you know a problem that was kind of learned through the space program and something that we’ll try to avoid. I think as we continue traveling in space to not create such a dense pollution of space junk. So, I think you know if we look to go to Mars, you know, that's a big thing that I think we would love to see is just having quite a good amount of less pollution around the atmosphere of some of these planets. And then also even on some of the planets, you know, like the Canyon on Mars would be obviously a really awesome thing to preserve um even you know different points in space you know that we have certain kind of measured out points in space that we think would be great to have like stationary like space stations. So always like keeping those in mind for feature ideas in future projects of what can actually come about in the space program.

Kate: So, you have been through anti-gravity training, what does it feel like to float through outer space?

Alyssa: Yeah, I would probably tell them to just kind of think about roller coaster rides 'cause that's probably the most similar thing that we can related it to. To be honest, it definitely is just that rollercoaster feeling of like your butt coming out the seat just a little bit but it's just that feeling extended. And it feels very weird that it is extended because you're so used to that rollercoaster feeling of, you know, you come up for just a quick second and then you go back down. But in this case, you like come up a little bit and then kind of stay up for 20 seconds and your body just like, “ Why aren’t we going down?” It's just all sort of disorienting. So, I definitely said that's the closest thing I can kind of pinpointed it too, but it is a pretty unique feeling. I would definitely say, you know, for it's an insane amount of microgravity. A lot of time in the space program, we use, you know, under water or water in general to simulate microgravity because you know like your friends weigh less in the water and that kind of thing, but it's definitely just not quite the same feeling. Because, I feel like when you're actually like on a microgravity flight you kind of have this feeling in your stomach of you actually you know everything being lifted rather than in water everything just a little bit lighter.

Kate: Part of the International Space Treaty says that astronauts shall be “envoys for all mankind,” and that’s a big responsibility. And, it may be yours in a couple of years. People would know your name if you are one of the first people on Mars. How would you like to be an example for the kids looking up to you?

Alyssa: Yeah, I definitely think that space, you know, it has a lot and a huge impact on everyone who's gone there. You know, astronauts are able to look back at the earth and you don't see borders, you don't see state lines, you don't see any lines, and you just see how fragile the earth really is, and I definitely think that, you know, the more people that we get to space, the more people that see that we're going to have you know a big impact on how we see each other here on earth. And so hopefully you know as future astronauts, you know, we strive to want to continue to inspire the next generation of kids we want them to continue to get interested in space and go on to pursue those space dreams. So hopefully, we inspire them, encourage them and just set great examples of wanting to encourage that collaboration of you know humans together. And then also just, you know, hopefully teaching them to go after their dreams from a young age and never giving up on them.

Kate: How would you like to see the science involved with the journey to Mars benefit our home planet?

Alyssa: Yeah, I think that a lot of the tasks and things that we are going to be doing on Mars is going to come back and benefit so many things here on earth. You know, a lot of the research that we're going to be doing that for us is mainly just going to be learning more about Mars, you know, the makeup of the planet, it soil, the rock, the water on Mars, signs of bacterial life, its atmosphere. So, if we look in a full, comprehensive overview of Mars and really the possibilities with that. You know when looking at Mars, we could find resources that could be useful here on earth, possibly even new resources that, you know, could help in new ways and once we find out what the potential is with Mars there's the idea of Mars machine like a second home for us to have so looking down the road's population were to continue to grow, you know, it's possible that we could have Mars as a second planet to live on which would definitely help with you know kind of managing the population and resources. And then, just kind of in the long run, Mars is going to kind of be that first step in us learning how we can go to a new planet to colonize it. Once we’ve lived there for a period of time, come back to earth or possibly even live there for a longer period of time and that's gonna come in handy once we start even further space exploration.

Kate: As more and more astronauts share new visions from outer space, how is space changing our priorities back at home. The Pew Center of Research conducted a survey, asking them what do they want NASA to do in space today. The third thing the public wanted was to conduct basic scientific research and expand our knowledge of the universe. The second “ask” of NASA was to monitor asteroids or other objects that could potentially hit the earth. But the public has spoken, the number one thing that they want NASA to do in space is to up and monitor the earth’s climate system. It shows that the public is really concerned about climate change and how we're taking care of our planet back at home.

President John F. Kennedy: There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again.

Kevin: But I think the scientist coming along and saying - we want to not just go there but we want to learn and make the most of that experience. To me, it gets to the core of us as humans. We are explorers. We want to learn as much as we can about places. There is the human drama of exploring. 12 people walked on the moon and 400,00 people helped them get there. Much of the rest of the world stood by dumbfounded watching, just exhilarated to see a fellow member of our species walking on another world. And so I think that spirit of human exploration that was so important to the moon missions is something we get at the Grand Canyon. They’re similar in that way. I look at the Grand Canyon and there are rocks and then you get on the rim. It still conjures up that idea of exploration. Everyone who hikes down into the Grand Canyon, especially for the first time it’s like the astronauts going to the moon, discovering a new world and trying to put their place in that world. You know, I don’t know, the first time you hike to P Pt. or hike to the rim and back. And get back on top. You look around and think about how it all happened and what it all means and what’s your place in this? And it’s a similar thing to the astronauts going to the moon.

Melissa: Well its time for us to blast off. Hopefully, you have enjoyed listening to us here at Grand Canyon National Park. This is Ranger Melissa.

Kate: And this is Ranger Kate.

Kate and Melissa: This is Behind the Scenery

This episode was produced by Melissa Panter and Kate Pitts for the National Park Service. Music and Audio Engineering by Wayne Hartlerode. Special thanks to Lowell Observatory and Historian Kevin Schindler for leading the project to retrace the Apollo Astronaut photographs in Grand Canyon.

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