When Teddy Roosevelt first established the Grand Canyon as a national monument in 1908, he said “… keep this great wonder of nature as it now is… Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it.”
Now, a proposed project threatens to mar the pristine nature of the Grand Canyon, and has been met with much public controversy.
The Grand Canyon Escalade project, if approved, will include restaurants, hotels, and a gondola that would carry 4,000 people a day 1.6 miles down into the canyon. The project sits on the eastern edge of the Grand Canyon, just above where the Colorado and Little Colorado rivers meet. Before the project can begin development, it must be approved by the Navajo Nation,…show more content… Lamar Whitmer of Confluence Partners, says. “We want them to feel the canyon from the bottom.”
One group, however, vehemently opposed to the project is Save the Confluence. They say that the land is sacred to the Navajo tribe. A prominent and outspoken member of the Navajo tribe and leader of Save the Confluence is Renae Yellowhorse. “Where the waters come together, that's where life comes from, and then when we go back, after we finish our life journeys, that's where we go back to,” she says. “These are clan stories; these are not stories that are in any books.”
Adding to the complicated issues of the project is what some see as a dire need for jobs and development in the area, particularly for the Navajo people. For decades, the federal government prohibited any kind of development on the land in something known as the Bennett Freeze. Many Navajo blame this freeze for the poverty and lack of basic needs like running water and electricity on the reservation. The freeze was lifted in 2009, and the Navajo supporters are hopeful that a project like the Escalade Project would bring much needed jobs to their people. Confluence Partners promises up to 3,500 jobs, jobs that many Navajo see as absolutely necessary to the preservation of their tribe and
