BY ROGER CLARK
Eight years ago, an Arizona salesman said that he could “save” Navajo people from poverty and cure a host of other ailments by building a mega-resort on Navajo land on the eastern rim of the Grand Canyon. As its main attraction, he proposed to build a tramway to carry up to 10,000 tourists a day into the canyon and down to the confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado rivers.
“Grand Canyon Escalade,” he promised, would employ thousands of local residents and pay millions of dollars in annual fees to the Navajo Nation. The salesman claimed to have spent five million dollars promoting the project.
Late last year, Save the Confluence, a small group of determined Navajo families who live and raise livestock in the area, joined with allies to slay the “monster,” as they’d come to call Escalade.
On October 31, 2017, Save the Confluence families and their coalition scored a big victory when the Navajo Nation Council voted 16-2 against legislation to approve the deeply divisive tramway project.
The proposed 420-acre resort would have included two hotels, a gas station, parking lots, and a restaurant perched on the rim of the canyon, all built entirely within the Navajo Nation. The proposed tramway would have extended down to an elevated walkway, food stand, and restrooms located along the shoreline of the Colorado River.
They also voiced their support for community-based economic development, wherein local land-use planning respects customary and cultural uses and fosters Navajo-owned businesses and enterprises.
Following the decisive vote by Navajo lawmakers, the Bodaway/Gap Chapter of the Navajo Nation voted to rescind the 2012 resolution that approved the land withdrawal needed to build Escalade. By a vote of 55-0, the community reversed the hotly contested resolution and discussed how they could permanently protect the area through designating it as a sacred area. “Bil ni’dzil gaal,” Bodaway/Gap Chapter Vice President Leonard Sloan said in Navajo, declaring the project “clubbed to death.”
Had the Navajo Nation approved Escalade, the National Park Service would have challenged the construction of the tram and riverside facilities because the land between the river and the canyon’s east rim is disputed. The National Park Service claims that its jurisdiction extends from the river to a quarter mile east and, therefore, it would prohibit the project from being built within Grand Canyon National Park. However, the Navajo Nation’s Boundary Act of 1934 established the Colorado River as the nation’s western boundary. The legal basis for pushing the park boundary to a quarter mile from the river has never been tested.
Before passing the Grand Canyon National Park Enlargement Act of 1975, Congress discussed the possibility of extending the national park boundary from the river to the Grand Canyon’s east rim. However, the final bill said that enlargements to the park boundary would require approval by the Navajo Nation to amend the Navajo Boundary Act of 1934.
No interior secretary since 1975 has sought concurrence from the Navajo Nation to extend the national park’s boundary to Grand Canyon’s east rim. That may be because the Navajo Nation is not likely to relinquish its historic claim to the land. However, under the same law, the secretary is “authorized and encouraged to enter into cooperative agreements…providing for the protection and interpretation of the Grand Canyon in its entirety.”
Cooperative agreements could open the door for the Navajo Nation and its citizens to partner with neighboring tribes and the National Park Service to protect the confluence by reaching consensus on how it should be managed. They could help improve the interpretation of the region through co-developed educational programs presented by native people. And they might stimulate local economic development by directing park visitors to tour guides and other services located in nearby native communities.
One example of an ongoing cooperative initiative is at Desert View Watchtower. For several years, an intertribal advisory group has been assisting the National Park Service in transforming the watchtower into a “first-voices” interpretive center, which currently includes artists, demonstrators, storytellers, and presentations about regional history.
Located at the eastern entrance to the park, on a high point whose windows look out toward the confluence and the aboriginal homeland of many tribes, Desert View might also become a place where visitors can hear stories about the Save the Confluence campaign to stop Escalade and receive information that encourages them to visit places and businesses outside of the park.
An agreement by local leaders, agencies, and tribal authorities to cooperatively manage the confluence and educational programs could serve as a catalyst for finding common ground elsewhere. Such cooperative agreements could become the building blocks to better protect and interpret the “Grand Canyon in its entirety,” as Congress had intended.
By making creative use of the existing authority to reach cooperative agreements, we could bypass any need to fight over boundaries. The unity that empowered the Save the Confluence coalition provides a great start for writing a new chapter in the Grand Canyon’s history. In turning the page on Escalade, we hope to strengthen the bond forged while defending the Grand Canyon to build a more mindful, prosperous, and respectful bridge forward.
Roger Clark directs the Grand Canyon Trust's Grand Canyon program.
Advocate Magazine
Spring/Summer 2018
Get the magazine in the mail Subscribe now
