By Mayann Batlle
Cronkite News
Ty Tsosie was taught by his Navajo elders that when he needed spiritual reflection, he could go to the confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado rivers, a sacred place to the tribe.
“If you feel good about something, if you feel down about something, you go out there and pray,” Tsosie said.
But he fears that in the not-too-distant future he could be sharing that sacred place on the eastern rim of the Grand Canyon with camera-toting tourists.
A tribal chapter last month gave preliminary approval to a proposed 420-acre development at the confluence that calls for a hotel, RV park, motels, fast-food restaurants and a Navajo “cultural center.” A “gondola tramway” would take visitors to the floor of the Grand Canyon, where an elevated walkway near the river would lead tourists to a restaurant.
“You’ll have pavement. You’ll have people coming around,” Tsosie said. “Who’s going to be praying in front of a tourist site?”
But supporters of the Grand Canyon Escalade project argue that there is already considerable tourism at the site, from hikers, rafters and others who may not revere the site as much as the Navajo do. They say the project would give the tribe better management of the site while providing a much-needed boon to a struggling Navajo economy, which is particularly depressed on the western edge of the reservation where the confluence is located.
