Navajo Administrative History

New management studies in the mid-1970s showed that the monument had a number of administrative issues that still needed resolution. The constituency of Navajo National Monument had changed significantly since the completion of the approach road. Not only did more people come to the visitor center, even the small percentage of those that visited Betatakin or Keet Seel represented an exponential increase in the number of people who used the backcountry at Navajo. By the mid-1970s, even more visitors sought the experience. Park officials needed a strategy to assess and manage the increased impact.

The formalization of restrictions on trips to Betatakin and Keet Seel followed. A ceiling of 20,400 visitors per annum was established for Betatakin ruin. These were to be divided into groups of twenty, of which no more than one group would be allowed into the ruin each hour. This effort was designed to mitigate both the ecological and psychological carrying capacity of the ruin--the tolerance of people for people--and help keep the feeling of solitude that early visitors to the canyon expressed. [30]

At Keet Seel, there were similar problems. In 1972, 1,404 people visited the backcountry ruin, and officials expected that had not weather and water conditions held visitation to artificially low levels, the total would have been much higher. But Keet Seel was a fragile, unique place, much of which remained in pristine condition. Stabilizing it for larger numbers of visitors meant compromising its character to promote visitation. Park Service officials determined that the visitation total must not exceed the carrying capacity of the ruin. A firm limit of 1,500 per annum, divided up as fifteen per day, was instituted.

Reservation systems seemed the best solution to the problems posed by limits on visitation. For Keet Seel, prenumbered permits were issued on a first-come, first-served basis until 4:30 P.M. the day prior to departure. Any combination of horse riders and hikers was acceptable, but the limit was firm. For Betatakin, a limit of six tours of up to twenty visitors per instance during the summers became the norm. In spring and fall, the number of trips was reduced to four. But because of the frequency of tours during the summer, it was easier to accommodate those who wanted to go to Betatakin. They could generally get a travel permit on the day of their departure. [31]

Even more telling, Navajo remained anomalous among park areas because of the lack of the Park Service administrative control over the land on which facilities were located. In the 1970s, the move to charge entrance fees at all park areas gained momentum. In 1978, every unit in the system was surveyed. Navajo could not charge, Superintendent Hastings insisted, for the Park Service did not own the land on which the visitor center stood, had no arrangement with the Navajo Nation that would allow the agency to charge a fee, and could not enforce its rules as long as area Navajos used the road to the visitor center as a thruway. At the dawn of the 1980s, when Secretary of the Interior James Watt sought to put the park system on a paying basis, the inherent restrictions on Navajo moved it further away from the administrative focus of the Department of the Interior. [32]

By the early 1980s, the management problems of the monument had become consistent. The lease of the land on which the development stood remained a leading concern for park staff, growing numbers of visitors sought to experience the monument, and some management and interpretation programs had become dated. The slide and tape presentation needed improvement, for both the materials and the content were lacking. But as Dan Murphy, writer/editor for the Division of Interpretation and Visitor Services of the Southwest Region, noted, the hike to Keet Seel was "one of the best reasons for the existence of the [Park] Service." [33]

Management style at the monument also underwent a transformation. Since the arrival of James L. Brewer in 1939, Navajo had been administered by a generation of "old-style" Park Service men. These people were a unique breed. They had grown up with the agency, shaped by the difficulties inherent in the management of parks far from the mainstream. What characterized this group was a commitment to service and a lack of a sense of boundaries. Park people of this generation were Park Service through and through. The Park Service was a way of life that extended beyond the work day and in some circumstances beyond park boundaries. [34]

Frank Hastings, superintendent of the monument from 1972 to 1980, fit this mold. Under Hastings, Navajo became a self-motivated world where you did what it took. Nor was service limited to the park itself and visitors. The Informal Navajo Assistance program, as Hastings referred to it, continued. It included pulling pickups out of the sand or snow, donations of food during periods of heavy snow, and a system of support for individuals or families that needed care. In some instances, families stayed with members of the monument staff during difficult times. [35]

This ethic was communicated to everyone on the staff. "If a Navajo came up to the monument and said: `stuck down the road,' remembered ranger John Loliet, "we'd go and pull 'em out--no cost." Staff members did what each job required, often without noticing if they worked beyond quitting time or on activities that might not technically have been construed as park business. [36]

Nor was Hastings' approach new. For Brewer, John Aubuchon, Foy Young, Art White, Bill Binnewies, and others, the park was much more than a job. It and its relationship to the people of the region was an expression of themselves. In many instances, the informal relationships improved the status of the park in the region. Local people felt close ties to the monument, promoting interdependence in a park that needed its neighbors.

But by the 1980s, the old-style Park Service was becoming a memory. The insistence of upper echelon officials that park employees had to be protected against uninsured injury, compounded by the need for protection from liability for off-hours use of federal property, led to more stringent reporting. Rather than work "off the clock," as NPS people referred to the practice, supervisors insisted that rangers and other employees clock in their overtime. Parks with small budgets--such as Navajo--had to discourage employees from recording extra hours. There was no way to compensate them, but if they did not report hours worked, they left themselves uninsured and open to sanction if something went awry. The informal relationships of the era before 1980 had to become more formalized. Significant changes in the way park employees worked and ultimately in how they felt about the park system followed.