“Hopi ancestors lived in these canyons. From a Hopi perspective, the Glen Canyon region is recognized as a vast landscape that safeguards monuments of Hopi culture and history. This is land of the ancestors…Hopi ancestors were among the very first to experience this landscape and call it home,” he explained. Built in the late 1950s, the Glen Canyon dam flooded a significant portion of Glen Canyon and created Lake Powell. The flooding of Glen Canyon covered up sandstone formations, archaeological sites, and ecosystems. While participants were able to see firsthand the impact of man-made changes to the environment, Lyle Balenquah helped them visualize the long history that lies beneath. “An ancient oral history from the Rattlesnake Clan details the adventures of Tiyo, a young Hopi boy who journeyed down the San Juan and Colorado rivers in a cottonwood raft, centuries before John Wesley Powell claimed to be the first to do so. In modern times, Hopi people continue to visit the Glen Canyon area. We come as any visitor wanting to see and explore these lands. Yet, we also come to pay respect to our forebears. We know that below the waters of Lake Powell, there is a landscape that contains memories of Hopi history— hallowed ground that is imbued with the spirits of ancestors who remain as stewards over a Hopi cultural landscape,” shared Lyle. Experiencing ancestral landscapes like Glen Canyon, side by side with descendant community members like Lyle is central to Crow Canyon’s educational philosophy. We recognize that Indigenous knowledge is science—rooted in generations of careful
observation, deep relationship with place, and sophisticated systems of understanding the natural world. Indigenous science is empirical, tested, and transmitted through rigorous cultural frameworks including oral histories, practices, ceremonies, and ecological stewardship. At Crow Canyon, we honor Indigenous knowledge as a vital, dynamic, and important form of science that enriches and expands our collective understanding of the world. In the words of one program participant, “I have a keener insight and greater appreciation
for how Native Americans experience their natural
environment compared to those of us descended from European immigrants. I didn’t expect this.” Greater insight, new perspectives, many ways of knowing. That’s the Crow Canyon way. n
CROW CANYON ARCHAEOLOGICAL CENTER
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