Lets Bring It All Together: THE GREATER GRAND CANYON

A LONG MATURING: THE GREATER GRAND CANYON 

Over almost two centuries, spasmodic and often unconnected actions and designations have pieced together the patchwork of recognition and designations and ownerships and protections that today cover THE GREATER GRAND CANYON.

In topographic and geologic terms, GREATER GRAND  CANYON conceptually originated, in the 1960's, to confront and prevent the catastrophic damming of the Colorado at two sites in the Canyon. This effort traced the nearby complete drainage for the world-famous Grand Canyon, parcelled out over the decades in a Forest Reserve, National Park, National Monuments, and parts of the Grand Canyon on Reservation lands of the Hualapai, Havasupai, and Navajo.

In human terms, the Grand Canyon is recognized as integral in the heritage of several long-settled Peoples: the Apache, Havasupai, Hopi, Hualapai, Navajo, Southern Paiute, Yavapai, and Zuni, now joined together in the several-membered Grand Canyon Associated Tribes.

In 2023, after a dozen years of effort, human and geographic elements were brought together by the Canyon's Associated Tribes and U.S. Representative Raul Grijalva, resulting in President Biden's establishment of Baaj Nwaavjo I'tah Kukveni National Monument (translated: the Havasupai baaj nwaavjo: “where Indigenous peoples roam; and Hopi i’tah kukveni: “our ancestral footprints.”) 

This proclamation move toward realizing the Greater Grand Canyon was not the first effort to formally celebrate the Canyon's full extent. The 1975 Grand Canyon National Park and Havasupai Reservation Enlargement Act included this hopeful call (my emphasis):

Sec. 6. In the administration of the Grand Canyon National Park, as enlarged by this Act, the Secretary is authorized and ENCOURAGED to enter into cooperative agreements with other ... agencies and ... WITH INTERESTED INDIAN TRIBES providing for the protection and interpretation of the Grand Canyon in its entirety...to the end that there will be a unified interpretation of the entire Grand Canyon. 

I wrote about the new Monument in several posts in July 2023, including maps. Then, in posts in September 2023, I recapitulated the history of our changing awareness of what the Grand Canyon has become: the Greater Grand Canyon. These include maps that group the units and show the extent of our new inclusive conception. Here's one, freely emphasizing the several different building blocs:

The green line around is an approximation of the GGC. There are a couple of anomalies: The orangy striped piece to the northwest is not part of the Grand Canyon, but misleads by carrying the name of Grand Canyon - Parashant N. M. Also, it seems odd that the Kaibab Plateau, a Forest Service unit, was not included. That is even stranger today, summer 2025, because the rampage of the Dragon Fire emphasized the unity of the plateau's great forests, and had it been put in Baaj Nwaavjo, perhaps there would have been a greater chance for it to have a less commercial future. Maybe, if the BNIK Commission (see next paragraph) grows into a lively influence, it would lean toward a bison+forest restoration future.

In order to bring about the cooperation and wide-spread involvement for the Greater Grand Canyon envisaged by the 2023 proclamation, the land-administering agencies (Forest Service on the south; Bureau of Land Management on the Arizona Strip) set up an Advisory Committee of interested stake-holders and citizens. Coordinately, the Associated Tribes have created a new Baaj Nwaavjo I'tah Kukveni-Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon Commission to provide guidance and recommendations on the development and implementation of the management plan and on the management of the monument. According to the proclamation, the Commission shall consist of one elected officer each from any Tribal Nation with ancestral ties to the area that has entered a cooperative agreement or similar arrangement with the Secretaries, the BLM or Forest Service, in which the Tribal Nation and the Secretaries agree to co-stewardship of the monument through shared responsibilities or administration.