Bears Ears National Monument

There is no there there. Gertrude Stein in Everybody’s Autobiography

(idiomatic) The indicated thing, person, or other matter has no distinctive identity, or no significant characteristics, or no functional center point…Wiktionary.

When I visit Bears Ears, I am visiting the ancestors. I leave an offering, and I reconnect back to my ancestors. This whole area is sacred to us — from a petroglyph to a site, from a spring to a viewshed, from the smallest rock to the mountains, they talk, they speak with us. Octavius Seowtewa the head medicine man of A:Shiwi (Zuni) tribe and a member of the Zuni Cultural Resources Advisory Team.

People go to Niagara Falls to see Niagara Falls. If they see the surrounding area, that is a bonus, but that is not why they went to Niagara Falls. Bears Ears has no Niagara Falls; it is all surrounding area. That is not to say that Bears Ears isn’t worth saving; it is a vibrant environment, rich in scenic beauty, rich in human history, and considered sacred by five local tribes. It is very much a place worth saving; it is also an acquired taste. People lived here a long time ago, and they left traces of their civilization, traces of our common history on this land. The traces are everywhere but they are mostly hidden.

When Obama established Bears Ears National Monument in the waning days of his presidency, I was surprised even though I had two memorable backpacking trips in the general area. The first was from Bears Ears, itself down to the Colorado River in Dark Canyon, and the second was down Grand Gulch from the Kane Ranger Station to Collins Spring. They were memorable trips, and Dark Canyon was especially spectacular, but they were multiday backpacking trips in hard-to-reach areas. The easy-to-reach stuff just didn’t seem to be that distinctive.

Now that Michele and I have actually been to Bears Ears and seen it as a separate entity on the ground, I don’t think I was entirely wrong. Not entirely. My first reaction was that the lack of a signature sight was a problem, but that was only my first reaction, my White Tourist reaction, not my reaction after talking to people and reading about it. Bears Ears is not meant to be a typical National Park/Monument destination for us aimless tourists; it is intended to protect the land and the treasures on that land.

As an aside for those who don’t follow Utah Wilderness legislation, President Obama, under Proclamation 9558, established the Monument as a 1.35 million acre set-aside. For comparison, that is larger than the Grand Canyon or Glacier Nation Parks (or the State of Delaware). On December 4, 2017, President Trump, under Proclamation 9682, reduced that to 201,397 acres (while adding 11,200 acres). Then, President Biden, under Proclamation 10285, restored the Original set-aside plus the 11,200 acres President Trump had added. End aside.

Protecting this land, however, is more complex than we would like it to be. It raises the question, Whose land is Bears Ears? Who are we protecting the land for? This corner of Utah is contested land; the land is sacred to the local tribes, but the Mormons also consider the Hole in the Rock Trail sacred or semi-sacred, at least. And what about the guy who says “My great-grandfather hunted on this land, my grandfather and father hunted here, and now you’re saying I can’t? My hunting rights are sacred to my family and me.”

To try to resolve this and to make everybody happy – or equally unhappy – the Proclamations call for joint management by saying the Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of the Interior (Secretaries) shall manage the monument through the USFS and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), respectivelywith guidance and recommendations on the development and implementation of management plans by a Commission of one elected officer each from the Hopi Nation, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah Ouray, and Zuni Tribe. Everybody we talked to about this convoluted management plan added, “Whatever that means.”

Another thing we heard, over and over again, is along the lines of “Now that this is a National Monument, there will be a lot more people and more vandalism. They should have just left it alone.” I’m sure that is at least partially true. When we spent six days hiking Grand Gulch, we saw no other people. On this trip, we saw people everywhere. But it probably would have become popular over time anyway. The area is just too spectacular.

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