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Hidden forces shape our ideas, beliefs, and experiences of Grand Canyon. 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!

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November 28, 2024

Behind the Camera with Deidra Peaches

Transcript

Transcript

Alli: Hello, this is Alli. For this episode of the Behind the Scenery Podcast, I had the opportunity to speak with Deidre Peaches, a Diné filmmaker. If you'd like to just introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Deidra: Yeah. (Introduction in Diné) And that's me introducing myself as a Diné asdzáá from Flagstaff, Arizona. And a little bit about myself, I am a full-time filmmaker. I own my own production company called DLP Productions that's owned and operated in Flagstaff, AZ. And a little bit about my filmmaking history is that I've been doing this line of work for a long time now. I started in high school creating short films with colleagues and friends, and that propelled and curiosity of creating films propelled to, like, different opportunities, creating narrative films, creating documentaries and, at the time, it was more or less, filmmaking was an outlet for me to keep myself occupied. Prior to that, I was really into sports. I was into basketball and everything, and I had dislocated my patella and so filmmaking was a way to like, not uh have too much stress on my body, but to do something that was creatively, just something I wanted to venture into. So that's something that I've been doing for well over 18 years now and I certainly enjoy doing that.

Alli: OK, great. So, you kind of answered my second question. But how exactly did you get into filmmaking? And was it something that you always were interested in, always wanted to do?

Deidra: Yeah, it's been something I've always in one aspect or another, it's something that I have found myself very curious about. I remember being younger and creating kind of like stop motion animation with like different sort of stick figures and creating a storyboard so inherently it was something that I found interesting. And it just grew into more things and then to this day, I'm still learning and I'm still wanting to to create more narratives and documentary film work.

Alli: Now, you’ve obviously done a lot of different films. In 2022, you directed the film Voices of the Grand Canyon. What is your personal connection to the Grand Canyon and how has working on documentaries about the Grand Canyon shaped that connection? Deidra: Yeah. So, I'll, I'll start from my first memory of like really going to the Grand Canyon was a school field trip from Flagstaff. And going with a bunch of kids on the bus and going to the South Rim of the Canyon to the visitor center and just walking around like out there and just being immersed in just the vastness of the Canyon and the colors of the landscape. And it was something you don't really see every day. So being from a very ponderosa filled environment and then going to a Canyon, that was definitely something that stuck with me visually. And the other aspect of my connection to the Grand Canyon is that my third clan is Áshįįhi, which is salt people and in Diné culture we have stories that talk about the salt mines that are in the Canyon, that there's trails there that lead us, that a lot of our people have gone to and so directly like having that lineage is something that I've grown to learn more about through having these conversations and creating films and listening to other elders. And so, I'm, I'm really fortunate to have that opportunity to have those conversations and to learn about myself through documentary filmmaking.

Alli: Yeah. If you just want to talk a little bit about, more about your film, Voices of the Grand Canyon, what it was like creating that film.

Deidra: Yeah. So, um in 2022, voices of the Grand Canyon came out. And on that film, I had the opportunity to venture to different places along the Colorado Plateau, home to different Indigenous tribes on the plateau. And so one of the particular tribes that I remember going to was out in Zuni and so going to Zuni and hearing stories from elders out there. Talking about their connection to the Canyon and the stories that they have connected to the Canyon. And I guess in a lot of ways too this journey of the film really started too in 2015 when I had the opportunity to travel down the Grand Canyon from Lee's Ferry all the way down to, down to Phantom Ranch. And that was about like a week plus um river trip and so being there on a river rafting trip and being surrounded too by other elders who have voiced like their own connection to the Canyon was very powerful for me and in a lot of ways, I carried on that experience to the eventual creation of Voices of the Grand Canyon. Because, you know, for a lot of people that are fortunate enough to go down the river trip, there's springs that are down there. There's different wildlife, there's vegetation, there's rock formation. And just being in that space where you're able to see time in the sense of sediment was very powerful. And seeing like the most oldest rock layer being, like, a very black sort of like layer in the sheath of, of rock and everything and even too in our Diné creation stories we talk about world that's black and so kind of seeing like those correlations. Seeing that connection on a scale of that sort was definitely eye-opening for me. And so, from that experience of 2015 and then being fortunate enough to go and visit elders in their native homeland and conduct interviews was really great. So, in Zuni, interviewed Jim Enote and then um for Carletta yeah Carletta it was out in Hualapai. It was in a place called Diamond Creek right off the road from where Peach Springs is, and so being in those areas that meant so much to each individual was very enlightening, and I appreciated that experience with them. And so, yeah, being in that area, seeing the, hearing the roaring of the Canyon, or the water of the Colorado. And then also too just traveling down through the Canyon was really great. And so yeah, so being there too and another person was Coleen Kaska. She wanted to be interviewed at the top of the Canyon on the South Rim area. And so talking with her there and her sharing what it what the Canyon means and translates in her language and how it simply means the Grand Canyon simply means “where the train stops” and so kind of just having that direct source of having people who from all different backgrounds talk about the Canyon is very powerful, cause a lot of times people think of Native Americans as like a pan sort of perspective. Like there's only just one type or just lumping us all together. And so, in a lot of ways, it's not like that. Us down here we don't have a connection to maybe say, like Long House culture to, to totem poles that they do in other regions of the Pacific Northwest. And so, I think by celebrating and talking with elders who are still around and who have this very direct connection and lineage is really important. And so with Voices of the Grand Canyon, knowing that there's eons of connection and culture that's tied into the rocks, the fish and everything that's in the Canyon is important.

Alli: Now you've had your films and documentaries shown at film festivals around the world, including a short film at the Sundance Film Festival. What have been some significant moments in your filmmaking career?

Deidra: Yeah. With the career that’s spanned, I guess since 2007. So, well over 14/15 plus years, I've been fortunate to visit a lot of places and to meet a lot of people. And at the time with the Sundance Film Festival I was around 21 or 22 years old, and I was fortunate to be there with my colleagues Jake Hoyungowa, and Donovan Seschillie. In that particular role, Donovan was the director, I'm the producer, and Jake was the cinematographer, so having a network of creatives being so young and going to these spaces and um seeing what it is that this landscape encompasses as far as like marketing, publicity, and stuff. It was, it was very eye opening to see that filmmaking, uh Film Festival kind of circuit. And so now being older going to a couple of different film festivals, one that was memorable was in France, it was in Paris, it was the Indigenous Peoples Film Festival. That's the American translation. But that was a really cool experience uh with this filmmaker out there named Sophia, and so that was a really cool experience to go out there and to be immersed in a different culture. And so yeah, I feel very fortunate to be a part of those travels and to visit and to, to be surrounded by people and culture.

Alli: OK. What are some messages that you want to convey through your filmmaking?

Deidra: One of the messages I want to convey through my art and message of filmmaking is that we as Diné people, as people who are Native and find our home all around this region, that our voices are still strong and prevalent. And by exercising our integrity, our ethics, our culture, um we're having our ancestors live through us in that way. And so, by respecting them too, and that's congruent to the land, the water, the air and so forth.

Alli: So, a lot of your focus recently has been more on documentary filmmaking. What drew you towards creating documentaries and what are some of the projects that you've worked on?

Deidra: So, documentary filmmaking has been a way for me to connect and learn more about my culture. When I started out making films, I was really interested in learning more about the socio-economic disparities felt among Navajo people, Diné people. And so, it turned into asking questions and wanting to learn more about the water, wanting to learn more about the coal fire power plants, the uranium. So, it turned into me wanting to learn more about my environment and having a camera was a tool to connect all of those ideas and questions that I had. And so, in the beginning years of my filmmaking, it started too with the cultural question of, like my own identity and who I am as Diné woman and a lot of that stems from not having a direct connection to my masaní, my maternal grandmother because of the language barrier. Like although we're sharing the same space, we're in the same room and everything there definitely does seem as a disconnect and so at my, in my younger years I created a film called Shimasaní: Grandma Documentary. And it was just me asking my grandma about what it is to be Diné and what it is, her perspective on life and and her connection to her history. And so the film itself is relatively short, but in the span of 3 or 4 minutes you’re, you're introduced to a woman who's gone through so much and has so much of her identity lying in the landscape. And at the time of this particular film and filming it to respect her boundaries, we didn't capture her on film and so the cinematographer I was working with, Jake Hoyungowa uh we made sure not to capture her image on film, but to have elements of her house be significant in her identity. And also, too outside her house with the corn stalks and the sheep and everything, and so documentary film has been a way for me to connect more culturally and to learn more about my culture and who I am. And in recent years I've been able to translate that skill to different sort of stories. One in particular is during the pandemic and having to document different things that were happening and not knowing the true kind of like vastness or not, knowing how much is, how much of the virus can be transmitted like is it transmitted like, not knowing, I guess like the details with something of of a fear in the beginning of like trying to document the pandemic. And so, in those early days I had a full-on Tyvek suit. I had like my N95s. I had like I made sure I made sure I was like protected in that way. Because I didn't know like, what the threshold of that virus could potentially be. And so being in those spaces and trying to protect myself too in that sort of PPE way. But then another thing that I've learned too, as a filmmaker, is like protecting myself in the spiritual way and that requires giving offerings. That requires smudging yourself and having that direct connection to the creator or whatever spiritual entity you communicate with. But in a lot of ways, I've learned that among the years, I've learned um to be aware of things and to, to listen. And so, I think those are all like vital characteristics and vital things that make a really good and effective documentarian is like having those skills and everything. And being Diné and a documentarian, and I feel like there's definitely a lot of ethics that go into consideration in that in that task that you're doing and not to be empty handed to like, make sure people have water. You're taking care of elders. You're you're coming at a story in a good way and not like feeling like you're extracting. So, I think recognizing that is really important and that's kind of what sets me apart and my ethics apart from like maybe other film makers that don't have that cultural upbringing.

Alli: OK. And on your website, you talk about “intending to combat toxic stereotypes and misconceptions while reflecting and celebrating the vastness of Native culture.” Are there any films or media that you feel do a good job at representing Native culture? And are there any that you feel missed mark?

Deidra: Yeah. Uh, so, to reflect on your question about the vastness of or in respects to a quote that I have mentioned “combat toxic stereotypes and misconceptions while reflecting and celebrating the vastness of native cultures.” This is important to me as an Indigenous woman to not perpetuate a lot of stereotypes that kind of either demonize Indigenous people or that creates content that doesn't really elevate our people and our voices and kind of stigmatizes a lot of things that, that are unfortunately disproportionately happening to Indigenous people on the whole spectrum of the United States and everything. And so, I guess one sort of uh example I would bring up is the access to healthy, affordable food on the reservation. Currently the Navajo Nation, the size of West Virginia only has access to about 13 grocery stores, and so a lot of the area, the region is seen as a food desert and so a lot of people rely on convenience store food and um access to food that's not good for public consumption, especially if they're not getting the nutrition that they're needomg for themselves to live a healthy, sustainable life. And so, in this sort of paradigm, it's unfortunate that we do have this uh not in our favor as far as access to clean and affordable food, but there could be something of ways and stories that talk about maybe um, ways of combating, like farming, different ventures, of people who are trying to create access to clean food. And, and I think in some ways in film and media now we're seeing a huge resurgence of Native film, which is great. Seeing films that are out there, um episodes, sitcoms, television series like having that out there is wonderful because it's propelling us to be in a place that for so long, us as Native people, we haven't had our voices shown. And one thing that I have seen in my line of work is just the dichotomy of, the difference between media here in the States, in America, as opposed to like public media that's available in Canada, where there's a plethora of different shows that are accommodating and that celebrate Indigenous voices. And that's something that I think that in the ways the media like we're so far behind. And I think that creating more opportunity for other Indigenous film makers, for other youth too that have, that their stories, that having a venue or a place to, to elevate themselves is important. And not to make content that's very in a sense, sensitized and um in some respects in a sort of white gaze um sort of perspective, where us as Indigenous people, we should be able to like freely talk about things that we want to and not be subjugated to, to some limits in some respects. And so, I think there's a lot of room for growth in Native cinema right now and I'm excited to see where, where that goes in the next couple years.

Alli: OK, great. Are there any uh Native cinema, Native films, or sitcoms that you particularly like?

Deidra: At the moment, like I like, there's a couple episodes of Reservation Dogs that I like. There's a couple of them that I do have my criticisms about, and so I think there's a lot of room for that series to grow. Um, in Dark Winds right now, there's um, it's interesting because some of it like the, the accent was kind of off and so in some places I think there can be growth in like having maybe a cultural like person on board. Um, I think in some of the sitcoms they overuse “skoden”. And like, that's something that kind of just like gets thrown out there um in a, in a lot of ways that that kind of doesn't seem like it fits in that particular like scene of sorts, but those are just like my own kind of small criticisms. But I think there's like room to grow. Another thing that's kind of been like uh something to process is like when films use the kind of like the narrative arc of, like, suicide. And using that to propel like their story and stuff and kind of not really being sensitive to people that have experienced that. So, I think in those aspects, there's room for growth and even too there's like one particular Reservation Dog episode where two girls were gonna be kidnapped by someone in a car and so um that was kind of just seemed as like something to like propel the story. But like it didn't really give a resolution. So, I think being more aware of that’s important.

Alli: So, in recent years, Grand Canyon National Park has been trying to boost Native voices. So, there's the Intertribal Working Group, so they try to have initiatives with import and support from the Intertribal Working Group. So, they have the cultural demonstration program in the park. The creation of a new park welcome film from Indigenous perspectives. How do you view efforts like these in helping support Native voices?

Deidra: I think these are all great opportunities to elevate Native voices and to have that displayed to a huge population of visitors that come through the Canyom. And just seeing how much people come through, uh the traffic and, and everything like that's opportunity for there to be more education on our Tribes and our stories as Native people. But in, in a lot of sense too, um you know, like the park was created over 100 plus years ago and with the Centennial just a couple years past, I think it's important to continue to have spaces for Native people. But, also, too it’s been too long of a wait in most cases for um there to be a lot of support. And so, I think continuing to elevate, continuing to include people, Indigenous peoples, always important and unfortunately there has been like some time that has passed. And so, I think like the more that we can like all work together to like, celebrate these voices and to give acknowledgement to Indigenous peoples really important.

Alli: So, what is next for you? Are there any dream projects that you would like to be working on?

Deidra: Yeah, um dream project is making a narrative film right now, so I'm currently in the process of making a short film called Holding Hands, which is co-directed by me and Cecil Patrick Tso. It's going to be a 22-minute-long film that we're hoping to get completed by summer of next year. And so um, we're going to be in the process of putting a crowdfunding site together and then also doing a casting, sorry, a casting call for the film. And so, um that's one of the big projects that I'm working on right now. And then just continuing to teach filmmaking at the Kinlani boarding town dormitory.

Alli: And you said you one day would like to work on a more narrative film.

Deidra: Yeah, like a feature film like, sorry, yeah. Eventually creating feature films, creating um series would be something too that would be a dream project of mine and so um yeah, just working towards that goal. That goal is something that I'm very passionate about and I'm wishing to continue on that road.

Alli: OK. So you mentioned you've also been doing some work teaching filmmaking. So what are some lessons that you want to impart on Native students through your work?

Deidra: Yes. So just for context, I am a film educator at Flagstaff Kinlani um dormitory school or boarding school. So essentially what it is, it's a dormitory located in Flagstaff where students who live on the reservation they stay in the dorm and they attend high school, at Flag High, um in Flagstaff. And so, a lot of students stay there overnight. They stay there throughout the week, and they get checked out um and go back on weekends to visit family. And so, um, my program that I'm a part of is the film portion of that program that they have for the students. It's an after-school program and so I along with my colleague Oakley Anderson Moore, we teach filmmaking once a week for a couple of hours from like 3:00 to 5:00 and right now we have a great group of kids. They're learning the basics of filmmaking and also too just to backtrack, sorry, to backtrack a part of this program is not only just a film component, but there's also a cultivate component that deals with growing food and then a cooking component that they grow, or they cook the food that's grown at the community garden um close to the region called Colton Garden. And so, from that small garden, um students are able to participate in different programs. And so continuing with the filmmaking program, it's very uh, I, I would say it's a very hands-on filmmaking program that both Oakley and I work on, and so a lot of it deals with students who may not feel comfortable with, with being in front of the camera or maybe even too, communicating. Some students are shy. Some students um don't really want to talk as much, or rather, just stick to being to themselves and so in a lot of ways um one thing that I want my students to have as far as like a skill that they can take home with them is learning to communicate with, communicate and cooperate with their colleagues. I think in a lot of sense it's in, in filmmaking you're working as a team to get something done and a lot of the components to having a successful filmmaking production is your team. And so how all the students communicate to one another, how they're able to um initiate kind of just like respect for one another and also initiate a respect for the role that they're assuming in whatever line of production. So, in one particular exercise we had students have a different production role and so one student would be working in the camera as a cinematographer. One would be first AC, so first assistant camera. Another student was the second AC and also too, we had someone who is on sound mixer, someone who is operating a boom, the camera and then directing, so everyone worked together. They were able to communicate and then after they were done with the interview, they all switched up roles and um started interviewing each other and everything. And so, in that process they were able to learn firsthand that they were able to also to communicate to their peers, uh introduced themselves too and so having them more comfortable, I guess in those public settings and that can be a very interdisciplinary um… Just an element that you can always use in different aspects, like public speaking of sorts and so it's really good for students to exercise this and to work together as a team and to communicate and now I'm just like, so happy to have the opportunity to, to have them develop that skill and take that to, to whatever it is they want to pursue in life.

Alli: OK, So what advice would you want to give to young film makers just starting out?

Deidra: Yeah, I would. The advice that I would give to young filmmakers is to just keep filming, to use whatever you have access to in, in terms of a camera. I think that a lot of filmmakers today, especially up and coming filmmakers. They have access to their phone that can record and has unlimited amount of data that can be transferred, airdropped to your computer and so. Um, that workflow is definitely more expedient than it was in yesteryear. When I started out with film making. Back then, it was more of using DV cameras and shooting on tape and then capturing that using a FireWire cable and having that on a hard drive and then re like naming all the files and so today it's more expedient. It's faster. Students um who are just wanting to learn more, I would just suggest learning how to operate your camera on your phone. Learning what exposure is, what ISO is, what shutter speed is, and what frames per second, what that means, and even too the quality 4K HD 2K and utilizing different techniques like maybe time lapse and um different slomo options, faster frame rates and utilizing that language because film in itself is a language. And I think once you learn the different elements and techniques you can manipulate it with ease and create what you want to and so having that accessibility to a camera, to a phone, that's something that I would urge all up-and-coming film makers to utilize, utilize and also too um a tripod. Learning how to use a tripod and to create a steadier shots, or to have it at different heights to create different perspective. I think all of those tools are really important to learn and to have a grasp on when you're beginning with filmmaking, and I think another tool to utilize is maybe buying an old film camera and learning how to take film photos using different film stock, different, um yeah, color film, black and white film, slide film and just learning how to utilize those tools. I would definitely suggest that to younger film makers.

Alli: OK, great. Thanks so much, Deidre.

Deidra: Yeah, no problem. Hágoónee'.

Alli: So where can people learn more about you and your work? Deidra: Yeah, so people could learn more about me on my website, deidrepeaches.com or through Instagram. I have some content on there. And then also YouTube. But yeah, feel free to check all those outlets out and um and shoot me an e-mail if you want to. My contact information is on my website.

Alli: Thanks again to Deidre for sharing about her work and her perspectives. 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.

Deidra Peaches is a Diné filmmaker whose films have been shown at festivals around the world, including a short film at the Sundance Film Festival. In this episode of the Behind the Scenery Podcast, Deidra talks about her work, her connection to the Grand Canyon, exploring her culture and identity through filmmaking, and the importance of elevating Native voices. Learn more at deidrapeaches.com

Tags: grand canyon, national park, film, indigenous, diné, cinema

October 26, 2024

First Voices - Kelkiyana Yazzie

Transcript

Transcript

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 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. 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 nááli, 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. 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 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 highway 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 fry 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 really really rare. My boss is a second-generation park employee. I know 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, or 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, 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. Inside the alcove as well, where the Cliff dwelling, where 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 miss 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 hundreds of years ago, and it still has a living connection to the Hopi and many other Tribes who still do 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, he said 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 intend 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 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 in 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, 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 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 listened to me and and watched 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 dedicated to learning about past human peoples and their behavior and their cultures. But to science, a modern. But 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. They 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 were 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 300 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 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, it 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 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 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 Lyndon, 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 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 enforce 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 the North Rim podcast, but every single person I’ve 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 others’ 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 if 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 are 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 were 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 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. 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, because 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 an 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 in 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.

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.

Tags: grand canyon, national park, park ranger, indiginous, native, navajo nation, navajo national monument

September 7, 2024

Looking Up - Accessing the Night Sky with Kevin Schindler

Transcript

Transcript

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.

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.

Tags: grand canyon, national park, night sky, astronomy, pluto, lowell observatory, accessibility

August 8, 2024

Art and Activism with Amy Martin

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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

“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.

Tags: grand canyon, national park, art, advocacy, conservation, photography, baaj nwaavjo i'tah kukveni

July 6, 2024

Looking Down - Kevin Schindler's Time as Astronomer-In-Residence

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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.

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

Tags: grand canyon, national park, astronomy, history, exploration, time

June 15, 2024

Strength Through Diversity with Superintendent Ed Keable

Transcript

Transcript

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.

"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!

May 29, 2024

Down to Bedrock with Kevin Fedarko

Transcript

Transcript

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.

"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

Tags: grand canyon, national park, through hiking, backpacking, kevin fedarko, pete mcbride, national geographic, affiliated tribes

May 11, 2024

Canyon Connections with Amy Martin

Transcript

Transcript

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.

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?

Tags: grand canyon, national park, photography, river guide, park ranger, phantom ranch, mom, mother's day, family

April 6, 2024

Studying Grand Canyon with Dr Larry Stevens

Transcript

Transcript

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.

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.

Tags: grand canyon, science, colorado river, springs, water, invertebrates, climate change

March 9, 2024

First Voices - Gerald Lomaventema

Transcript

Transcript

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.

"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.

Tags: grand canyon, national park, hopi, silversmith, running, olympics, native, sacred

February 1, 2024

Wild River with Wayne Ranney

Transcript

Transcript

♫ 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

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

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.

Tags: grand canyon, national park, colorado river, rafting, white water, river trip, geology

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