The author Jim Kristofer sought refuge in the natural world on the Colorado River in the hopes that it would help him recover from a painful loss.
Horseshoe Bend is a famous sight that can be seen in images all over the world. It is located just outside of Page, Arizona and is a curved flank of orange Navajo sandstone that was carved by the green water of Tóóh Bikooh, which is known in English as the Colorado River. Visitors who walk to the brink of Glen Canyon can see Horseshoe Bend. After my family relocated to the Navajo Nation when I was seven years old, I began swimming in that water for the first time as a child. Later, when I was in my teens and 20s, I worked as a river guide and continued to swim in that current. The indigenous Navajo people disregard concepts like as "epoch" and "millennia" when speaking about those waters.
What many tourists may not realise is that Horseshoe Bend is only one section of a canyon that was originally inhabited by three different Native American tribes: the Anasazi, the Paiute, and the Diné (Navajo). These people cultivated crops, hunted, and lived and died in this canyon for generations. It is also the place where I would have taken my kid if she had reached the age where she could have paddled a kayak. After this, I will never again witness her perform that action.
The Sierra Club made the proclamation in 1963 that Glen Canyon, a length of roughly 200 miles of winding, sinewy rock walls extending from southern Utah into northern Arizona, had passed away. In the preceding decade, the Bureau of Reclamation had commenced construction on the Glen Canyon Dam. By the middle of the 1960s, a wall of concrete that stood 700 feet tall had submerged the majority of Glen Canyon beneath the waters of what was then renamed Lake Powell. The local indigenous populations, which were dependent on the canyon for food, shelter, and spiritual rites, had their human rights completely disregarded. These communities relied on the canyon for all of these things. Only 16 miles of the canyon, which includes Horseshoe Bend, were not destroyed. The majority of the ecology that was found in Glen Canyon, as well as more than 3,000 dwellings, were destroyed.
That passing was lamented by the Sierra Club and other environmental organisations. In the year 1869, while the canyon was still whole and healthy, Major John Wesley Powell wrote about gliding along the Colorado River "hour after hour," stopping now and again as his attention was "arrested by some new wonder." As the name suggests, he wrote about "towering monuments," "fern-decked alcoves," and "oak-set glens" in his journal.
But I wonder if the folks who said that this location was doomed had stood at the overlook of Horseshoe Bend and looked at the plants and animals that are still able to be found there. Do the bighorn sheep, the herons, and the peregrine falcons aware that they live in an environment that is considered to be "dead"? What does it mean to die? Nobody knows but those who have really gone through with it.
My daughter is aware of it. A little over a year ago, she was born, and then a few months later, she passed away. She weighed exactly four pounds and a half. After digging a hole for her, I covered her body with a receiving blanket before placing it in the ground. I am now in constant contact with her. She is never found in a location where I am not.
The Navajo people, whose culture I was not born into but was blessed to learn from and grow up in, hold Glen Canyon in the highest regard as a sacred place. Following the departure of my daughter, I made the decision to travel to the canyon in order to provide a sacrifice to the gods and demonstrate to them what I had been deprived of. I wanted to demonstrate, much like the canyon does, that objects that are thought to be "dead" may frequently find new ways to survive.
In the month of June, I took a road trip to Page, Arizona, where I rented a kayak from Kayak Lake Powell and paddled along the Colorado River for a distance of 16 miles. After having my kayak carried upstream by a different local outfitter, Wilderness River Adventures, I landed on the beach that is closest to the dam and left it there. I discovered the skeletal bones of a great blue heron (tát'áá halééh, which translates to "The One Who Walks on the Water") among the willow trees that are located close to the water's edge. The Diné believe that the heron travelled along the rivers of the First World, a spiritual location that existed at the beginning of time when all of creation created in darkness. To this day, the Diné still invoke the bird in prayers for protection. The diyin dine'é, also known as the divine Great Ones, often let the animals speak for them. I buried the animal's remains. I wailed in the grass next to the river. I waded up to my ankles in the icy water and poured some of it over my head and neck.
Tó é iina is a saying that translates to "water is life." As I made my way back to my kayak, I paddled beneath the soaring wings of peregrine falcons and drifted beside the verdant ferns that grew along the springs in the canyon wall. When I went to put up my tent that evening, there were bats flying around in the yellow dusk of the evening. The sound these beetles made as they moved across the sand was identical to the sound that was described in the legends concerning the First World.
I was able to determine the rotation of the planet by seeing the stars as they moved beyond the stone borders of the canyon rim, which was a thousand feet above me. The formation of these rocks dates back to an aeon when dinosaurs still roamed the globe. What was once buried has since come back to life thanks to the erosion caused by the Colorado River throughout time. Glen Canyon is its modern name. As the moonlight illuminated the canyon, I observed its beauty. My first impression was that in order for this location to exist, a lot of other things had to be sacrificed.
The first thing I did in the morning was break down my camp, replenish my water bottle from the river, and then I went paddling downstream to look for a suitable location to present my gift. I held a feather from a né'éshjaa, also known as a great horned owl, which is considered to be the conduit for communication between this world and the spirit realm. These feathers are used by the Diné in ceremonial sand paintings as well as to assist in the healing process.
Horseshoe Bend In Arizona, USA pic.twitter.com/bWAB7yxwvT
— Nature Explorer (@_magical_nature) October 1, 2022
At a bend in the river, I beached my kayak and began climbing a route that had been made by tsétah dibé, also known as bighorn sheep. The sheep emerged from the rocks in front of me as I climbed the first sand embankment, and I continued my ascent. In a distance of less than 30 feet, I could see four rams, ten ewes, and four lambs watching me. After offering them a greeting in Navajo, I continued on my way. The flock walked in front of me like guides, guiding me through the sharp stone and the treacherous sand. One ram guided three of its conspecifics up a cliff that was thirty feet tall and into the shadow of a little side canyon. While I was walking by, the ram was leading them back down, and he poked his head around the corner. His dark brown eyes puffed out as he regarded me from such a close distance that I could have reached out and touched the tip of his nose. According to the Diné, tsétah dibé are imbued with magical and curative properties. In the cultural spiritual compass, the tsétah dibé are beings from the north, which represents the road of death and return. This direction is represented by the colour black. Maybe the ram noticed who was walking along side of me. I am certain that my daughter was present with us.
After some time, I arrived at a location where the water had carved out a smooth bowl in the rock, and a hackberry tree grew in close proximity to the basin. If she were still alive, this is where she would have played. My feather offering was fastened to a leafy branch, and I poured water from my hands into the cupped palms of the tree.
The next day, which was my final day of this vacation, I drove to Horseshoe Bend and stopped at the overlook there. I then returned the kayak. Twenty years ago, while I was working as a river guide, this location was nothing more than a tiny dirt side road next to a mile marker. Today, during the busiest times of the year, the overlook sees as many as 10,000 visitors each day, many of whom pass through the town of Page on their way to the overlook's paved parking lot. A guardrail made of welded steel fence runs along the precipice of the canyon. In the heat of the day, tourists were taking photos with their smartphones, including a group of Tibetan Buddhist monks dressed in brilliant ochre robes. I watched as they did this while I stood there. People smiled frequently and crowds came and went throughout the day.
One thousand feet below, the Colorado River meandered gently as it carried ducks and kayakers while it painstakingly carved its way through the rock, sculpting and creating for all of eternity. It may know, as I have, and others may learn, that in order for all of this to exist, a great deal had to be sacrificed in order to make room for it.