This blog is a summary of “Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni: Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument,” a story created with ArcGIS StoryMaps by the Grand Canyon Trust. For a deeper dive, we encourage you to explore the original story.
Above the serpentine bends of the Colorado River, where ancient winds shape stone cathedrals and silence stretches for miles, a new story is being written—or, perhaps, an old one is finally being heard.
In August 2023, with tribal leaders gathered beside him, President Biden signed the proclamation establishing Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument. This moment marked the protection of nearly one million acres of culturally and ecologically rich lands encircling the Grand Canyon. But for the 13 Tribal nations who have called this place home since time immemorial, it was much more than federal recognition. It was a homecoming.
Named in the Havasupai and Hopi languages, Baaj Nwaavjo—meaning “where Indigenous people roam”—and I’tah Kukveni—meaning “our ancestral footprints”—speak to the profound relationship between the land and the people who have stewarded it for millennia. Their stories are written in petroglyphs and on pottery shards, in the rhythmic flow of springs, and in sacred sites like Red Butte—known variously as Wii’i Gdwiisa, Qawinpi, or Tsé zhin li’ahi—a geological and spiritual landmark with stories as layered as its sandstone walls.
“For us, everything is connected,” said Dianna Sue White Dove Uqualla of the Havasupai Tribal Council. “The trees, the sap, the rocks, the animals—we used everything to live.”
That interconnection lies at the heart of the Grand Canyon Tribal Coalition’s efforts to preserve and protect this land from looming threats—uranium mining, overdevelopment, and the slow erosion of cultural memory. As groundwater winds its way through limestone corridors to emerge at life-giving springs, so too do generations of knowledge flow from those who have lived in balance with this land.
The Grand Canyon Trust played a critical role in supporting this vision. As a partner to the tribal coalition, they helped shape the national monument not as a static boundary, but as a living testament to Indigenous resilience and wisdom. Their advocacy, storytelling, and environmental science helped elevate Indigenous leadership and secure the protections this place so desperately needed.
The monument designation is not a conclusion—it’s an invitation. With it comes a tribal commission, tasked with guiding the land’s future through an Indigenous lens. Collaborative stewardship, informed by traditional knowledge, will ensure that both sacred sites and endangered species, dark skies and desert springs, are protected for generations to come.
The Grand Canyon Trust and the Grand Canyon Tribal Coalition’s work was recognized as a finalist in the 2024 ArcGIS StoryMaps Competition. Their immersive story—a digital window into these landscapes and the people who protect them—invites all of us to learn, reflect, and walk respectfully in ancestral footsteps.
Experience the full story: Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni story
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