Grand Canyon: Then and Now

I observed a group of middle school students boisterously approach Mather Point, jabbering away as only young adolescents can. One boy was particularly loud, laughing, cracking jokes, completely unaware of his surroundings. When they reached the top of the stairs and caught their first glimpse of the vastness before them, the group stopped and quieted as one. “Whoa,” the boy mumbled.

Try to describe the Grand Canyon. Verbal language is simply inadequate to the task. U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt was unable to do it. “I could not choose words that would convey or that could convey to any outside what that canyon is.” Geologist Clarence Dutton wrote of the scale of the place, “Dimension means nothing to the senses, and all we are left with is a troubled sense of immensity.” Joshua Rose, former editor of American Art Collector Magazine, suggests that perhaps the task is best left to the artists “to respond emotionally in ways that only the visual arts can.”

The immensity of the Grand Canyon lies not just in its physical dimensions but also in its spiritual, historical, and temporal magnitude. The exposed Vishnu Schist rocks visible along the Colorado River at the bottom of the Canyon are 1.7 billion years old – a number that is beyond my imagination; humans have occupied the Grand Canyon region for as much as 25,000 years; and each of the 11 Associated Tribes of the Grand Canyon hold the space as sacred, including three for whom their origin stories are in the Canyon.

With Grand Canyon: Then & Now, we attempt to capture only a tiny slice of the magnitude described above. Even though a photograph may be worth a thousand words, ours is simply a glimpse into time and light. Through comparative photographs in the following sections, one takes a peek into the history of human experience at the Canyon, perhaps moving the viewer a step closer to fathoming the sublime.

Ted Barone – Volunteer-in-Parks Photographer and Curator

 

To navigate through this exhibit, please click on the photograph next to each section description and then move the sliders to compare the historic and modern photographs.

 

Sacred Canyon

As a white person, I have grappled with the idea of the Grand Canyon as a sacred place. I feel the Canyon’s power, especially as I descend into its interior and experience the changing light, texture of the rocks and soils, and weather. But my experience is only temporary. For the indigenous people of the Canyon region, the rocks, trees, floods, and animals are all sacred and integral to who they are. As indigenous scholars Danelle Cooper, Treena Delormier, and Maile Taualii wrote in the International Journal of Human Rights Education in 2019, “Our environments are our cultural identities, origins, religions, and worldviews.” For me, my family, my ancestors, and my environments are my sacred spaces. They define who I am, how I think, and how I live my life in the world. In the same vein, as Cooper et al note, “In plain speak, to have a relationship with a place and to know this place for Indigenous/Aboriginal People is similar to knowing and relating to one’s family.”
Researchers from the University of California have determined the presence of the Pai people in the Grand Canyon region dates back 20,000 to 25,000 years. For the Havasupai, Hualapai, and Yavapai-Apache Nation, along with the rest of the 11 Associated Tribes of the Grand Canyon, the Grand Canyon is a sacred place. “The whole canyon and everything in it is sacred to us, all around, up and down.” (Rex Tilousi, Havasupai). For the Hualapai, Hopi, and Zuni, it is the location of their origin stories. For all, the ancestors play an integral role in their contemporary ceremonies.
As any student of American history knows, the post-contact history is one of betrayal, broken treaties and forced relocations of indigenous peoples by the European-Americans, and the commercialization of the western idea of Indians. As a European-American, I have long been sickened by that history. However, the more modern history is one of re-empowerment of tribal organizations and reclaiming of ancestral land. At the Grand Canyon, this process has begun, most notably with the Desert View Tribal Heritage Project, and I am hopeful for the future.

 

The Explorers: Surveyors and River Rats

In 1857, the War Department assigned Lt. Joseph Christmas Ives to explore whether the Colorado River would be useful to transport troops and supplies to Utah to fight the Mormon War. Ives determined the river to be unnavigable for military purposes and the region to be “altogether valueless … (It) shall be forever unvisited and undisturbed.” It was an almost laughable historical miscalculation. Over the next 80 years the forces of Manifest Destiny, the search for rail routes, and extraction of resources belied Ives’ claim, overwhelming the Grand Canyon region’s indigenous populations and ecosystems.T
ruth be told, those explorers were not the first to tread upon the Canyon landscape. The indigenous people of this sometimes harsh and unforgiving region had established trails, farms, trade routes, and villages thousands of years before Ives came along and declared it “unvisited.”
Notwithstanding Ives’ mistaken assessment, I remain in awe of the bravery and fortitude of both the indigenous people and the early European-American explorers. As I search for the exact locations to replicate archival photographs, I have at my fingertips maps produced with global satellite technology, up-to-date weather reports, and the guidance of Grand Canyon veterans. Ives and other exploreres such as Powell, Matthes, and Stanton had few such resources. They were, in fact, the ones who established the baseline for most of those tools we use today.

 

The Rocks - Miners and Moonshots

The typical visitors to the Grand Canyon approach the rim and are overwhelmed by the dimensions of the panorama that opens before them. It’s too much for the brain to hold and comprehend. To my mind, the only way to even begin to comprehend what this “ditch” is all about is to get down into it, to touch the rocks which are a timeline of geologic history, feel the thermoclines and the heat rise as one descends, step across the dry streams and imagine boulders scouring the land, swept along by the floods that occasionally rush down the canyons.
The debate among geologists about how the Canyon was formed has, in recent years, settled around the theory that four million years ago, a dome on the earth’s crust called the Kaibab Upwarp lifted higher than the surrounding terrain. As the theory goes, the Colorado River cut down through the rising landscape, exposing layers of rock ranging from around 1.7 billion years old at the river near Phantom Ranch to “only” 270 million years old in the Kaibab Formation near the South Rim Visitor Center. But again, it’s only a theory.
Early European-American explorers who descended into the canyon either on ancient trails or on boats, found evidence of mineral wealth or scientific mystery too promising to ignore. Their quest for riches or understanding led men and women to take extraordinary risks in an unforgiving land. And the rich geology of the Canyon placed it smack in the center of the Cold War while bringing inspiration and technical training to those who would walk on the moon.

 

Building the National Park

Several times in the past few years, I have had the privilege to visit a number of new national parks in Chilean Patagonia. They are extraordinarily beautiful but nearly devoid of infrastructure. They haven’t had the time or resources to build the facilities and services that visitors to U.S. national parks, like the Grand Canyon, have come to expect. We expect hotels with plumbing and running water, well-maintained trails that provide access to most areas within the park, and to be safe and secure.
When Grand Canyon National Park was established on February 26, 1919, nearly a half-century had passed since it had been “discovered” by the first European-Americans. There hadn’t been much in the way of regulation. As a result, forests were cut down, mining despoiled ecosystems, and indigenous inhabitants were killed or removed.
Fortunately, the writings of John Wesley Powell and the paintings of such artists as Thomas Moran and Gunnar Widforss brought national attention to the sublimity of the Canyon, a railroad to the South Rim was built as were fine hotels, and the first automobiles traversed the plateau to the canyon edge.
As annual visitation has increased (38,000 in 1919 to 108,000 in 1924 to 4.7 million in 2022), park administrators, most notably Superintendent Miner Tillotson (1922-1938), have had to remain nimble as they built infrastructure, negotiated with concessionaires, and responded to the changing national political climate. Today, visitors have access to a broad range of experiences from luxury (well, national park style) to the most rugged, dangerous wilderness.

 

Tourism for the Rugged

One of the most enjoyable aspects of creating this Then & Now exhibit is to stand in the exact location a historic photographer stood and try to imagine what they saw and heard, what they were thinking, and how they felt. The modern visitor can come and go with relative ease and comfort, but not so with those who arrived around the turn of the 20^th Century. Their journeys were long and arduous.
When the late 18^th Century miners realized it was not worth the time and effort to ply their trade in the Grand Canyon, they shifted their focus to take advantage of the Canyon’s growing reputation as a tourist destination. Indigenous and mining trails were improved to accommodate intrepid travelers, wagon roads from Flagstaff were constructed, and a variety of lodging options popped up to house the growing number of visitors. In September, 1901, the Santa Fe and Grand Canyon Railway completed its line from Williams to the South Rim.
The Kolb Brothers and the Underwood Photography Company captured the visitor’s experience and tourists brought those images back to their hometowns. Their photos inspired the public’s imagination as words could not.

 

Rails and Roads

As a tourist, getting around the South Rim of the Grand Canyon these days is pretty darn easy. You have excellent roads to get to fantastic views and hikes. In the village, you don’t need a car because you can walk or take a frequent bus to more amazing places.Such was definitely not the case in the early 1900s - no Interstate highway system back then. For the (mostly) white Americans and Europeans who chose to make the journey, jarring, hardscrabble roads and trails were their manifest destiny.
The rugged travel modes of stagecoach and horseback was replaced around the turn of the 20^th century by the smooth luxury of railroad adventures. Shortly thereafter, the advent of the automobile increased the need for more facilities, roads and trails. But trains and automobiles could only bring the tourist to the edge of the canyon. To experience the totality of what the Grand Canyon has to offer, visitors still had to hike down (and back up) steep rocky trails or jump on a boat and navigate the rapids of the great Colorado River.

 

Tourism: Designs for the Leisure Class

When Grand Canyon National Park was established in 1919, there were 6,679,133 automobiles registered in the United States. By 1930, that number had more than tripled to over 23 million. It was the age of the automobile! And what a change the automobile brought to the Canyon. Visitation increased 450% in that same 11-year period as the car overtook the train as the most popular way to travel into the park. It became much easier for families to escape from their busy lives and take vacations to such distant places as the Grand Canyon.
Visitors expected more of their park. They wanted better hotels, more roads, and more of the comforts of home. They came not only to stand in awe but also to have fun, to escape, and be with family and friends.

 

Artistic Interpretation

As stated in the introduction to this exhibit, there just aren’t the words to describe the magnitude of time and light that is the Grand Canyon. It’s an ever changing landscape. Shadow angles adjust to the sun as it moves across the sky, storm clouds multiply dimensions, dust and smoke cast a haze that softens the jagged edges of the temples and thrones in the distance. In that context, it is the artist’s task to interpret and capture the mood, the scale, and the texture of the Canyon – an enviable task!