National Park Service officials are proposing to create an inter-tribal cultural center at Desert View in Grand Canyon National Park/NPS
What do you know about Native American presence, historically, at the Grand Canyon? Or how today's tribes view the canyon? There's an effort under way to provide Grand Canyon National Park visitors with greater understanding of Native American use and cultural views of the canyon via an Inter-tribal Cultural Heritage Site at Desert View.
Park staff is seeking public comment on a proposal to modify facilities at Desert View to create the cultural heritage site. The public input will help as the agency prepares an environmental assessment on the proposal.
Located at the southeast edge of Grand Canyon National Park, Desert View is the east entrance to the park. Desert View provides many visitors with their first introduction and orientation to some of the park's most significant resources, including the Desert View Watchtower and its surrounding historic district. The area also offers spectacular views of the Painted Desert and the Little Colorado River gorge.
Given the significance of the site, its infrastructure, and proximity to neighboring tribal lands, the NPS is proposing to transform Desert View from a traditional scenic overlook and visitor services area into an Inter-tribal Cultural Heritage Site. This will provide opportunities for first-voice cultural interpretation from associated American Indian Tribes-including cultural demonstrations-and enhance visitor orientation to the cultural significance of the site and park while helping inform visitors about tourism opportunities on surrounding tribal lands.
To accomplish these goals, the NPS is proposing some modifications to existing infrastructure, some demolition of underutilized facilities, and potential new construction within the existing developed footprint at Desert View. Among the infrastructure changes being proposed are new restrooms, an orientation plaza, and trail improvements,
Additional information, including a newsletter on the specifics of the proposed action, is available at this website.
Interested parties can participate in the following public scoping open houses:
Tuesday, February 20
6 to 8 p.m.
DoubleTree Hotel Flagstaff
Wednesday, February 21
4 to 6 p.m.
Shrine of the Ages Auditorium
A webinar is scheduled for Tuesday, February 27, from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m.
Public comments on the proposed action will be accepted through March 6. Comments that provide insights about the project purpose and the park's current proposal are particularly helpful, and new ideas and proposals are welcome. Following the public comment period, the NPS will analyze and consider all feedback and begin preparation of the EA.
The NPS is working cooperatively with a number of partners, including: representatives from the Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians, Havasupai, Hopi, Hualapai, Navajo, Zuni, and Yavapai-Apache tribes, the Grand Canyon Association, the American Indian Alaska Native Tourism Association (AIANTA), the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and park concessioners.
Comments
I think its a wonderful idea to include more information on the history of Native Americans in and around the whole Grand Canyon area. I also relaly ike the idea of staying within the original footprint of the park. New restrooms are always a good idea, as is enhancing existing trails. The National Parks should tell the stories of ALL Americans.
A great use of a historic site to provide cultural education on some of the local Native American tribes.
Chris Vandall, OZ Architecture
I'm always a proponent of incorporating native peoples' traditions, ideas, and ideals, in ways that the public can learn from; however, before I support this specific idea, which is superb in principle, I'd like more information about the modifications that would be required to existing structures - especially the Watchtower which is an icon of early "parkitecture" - and how any such modifications would affect the local environment and the visitor experience vis-a-vis the canyon overlook.
I think a much better site would be at the main visitor's center complex. It gets far more traffic and is more accessible than the Desert View area.
Frankly I've never understood why the Navajo haven't already built a history/culture facility and crafts area just outside the Park gate on Navajo land. Would represent and serve the Tribe much better than the shacks currently lining the highway.
I really like what the Grand Canyon National Park has started doing with utilizing the Desert Watchtower and surrounding areas for an Inter-Tribal Center but you have an opportunity to make this into so much more- a really important destination point with both static exhibits about the cultures of the southwest that utilized the Canyon area and are living here today as well as more in depth interpretation exhibits . The small visitor services building is much to small for the valuable exhibits that will be needed for those people who would utilize a more in depth exhibit. If you have a storytelling componet to this and you develop an intern program so that you can video the storytellers than you create a very important oral history program that can be exhibited whether storytellers are available or not. Because the National Park Service has such a great background in developing exhibits, developing an internship in that as well will allow you to develop skills in that area that all ofthe surrounding communities can use too. I would invision abn appropriate development here would serve those people who want to come and use the area to see into the canyon as just another overlook. I would like to see it developed to also appeal to those people who would like to learn more about the Indian Cultures in the area and would come in to spend 2 to 4 hours between the displays and the exhibitors and demonstrators.
I suspect that the thinking behind putting the tribal cultural heritage site at Desert View rather than Grand Canyon Village is that the village is already too congested, and has the main visitor center, geology museum, and all the rest of the cultural features. The tribal cultural heritage site could be the major interp feature at Desert View. I suspect (and hope) a fair fraction of the visitors interested in regional tribal culture will come or go via the east entrance, making the loop to Waputki Natuional Monument.
[If you haven't been there, I highly recommend Wupatki, which was something of a crossroads, and does a nice job interpreting the context and exchange among the various cultures of the past ~2000 years. Also, the story of the cinder cone eruptions onto a farming culture are a nice story related to the band of cinder cones running past Flagstaff.]
Something at Desert View could either emphasize the more western tribes' pespectives, or emphasize recent & current tribal cultural heritage, either way both stand-alone and complimenting Waputki (and Mesa Verde and Walnut Canyon and Aztec Ruins and ...).
VC-- From a quick scan of the PEPC site, while they aren't far along the planning process, they aren't looking at modifying the desert view tower except perhaps by moving the visitor contact desk out of it and into a new separate visitor center. They're looking at re-striping parking lots, maybe expanding restrooms, setting up outdoor areas for "first-voice" interpretation and cultural demonstrations, and maybe a new actual visitor center building within the built-up area footprint.
Bob--
From the south, it's Kaibab National Forest from the park boundary south to several miles south of Tusayan. From the east, it's Kaibab NF from where 64 turns north-northwest more than 2/3 of the way to Desert View, so again the reservation isn't within 5 miles of the park boundary, and doesn't even get the pinyon-juniper zone along the highway. I doubt that there's enough groundwater to support facilities where the rug, jewelry, & pottery stands are, and probably not at the Little Colorado River Navajo Tribal Park. In terms of well water and a bit of shade in the summer, I think Desert View inside the park is a much better location for this, especially if it ends up with outdoor cultural demonstrations.