Navajo Administrative History

By the early 1990s, the two principal problems of the ruin had been with the monument for a long time. As elsewhere in the region, erosion of the canyon bottom posed a primary threat. Widening of the creek at Betatakin similar to that at either Keet Seel or Inscription House could have disastrous consequences. While the ruin remained in very good condition, the threat of falling sandstone presented the possibility of damage to the ruin and harm to unfortunate visitors. Both of these perennial problems required vigilance and constant attention.

Managing the two outliers posed additional problems. Despite its closing, Inscription House was the most vulnerable to unauthorized visitation, the elements, and ecological conditions. Without a constant NPS presence and easily accessible from Arizona Highway 98, the ruin suffered from a range of depredations. Some were typical vandalism: name-scratching, destruction of fences, and general callous behavior directed at the site. Others were long-term management concerns, such as the continual erosion of the wash in Nitsin Canyon that began to encroach upon the approach to the fragile adobe-construction ruin and the lack of a consistent source of funds for stabilization in the aftermath of the demise of the Navajo Lands Group. [47]

Efforts to address such problems dated from before 1968. The closure of the ruin to the public resulted from the inability to protect Inscription House from these two threats. After 1968, attempts to add land for a contact station began. In 1976, Archeologist David J. Breternitz received a contract for stabilization and excavation.

The project led to recognition of the need for a ranger station at Inscription House, and in 1978, the Park Service made a serious effort to acquire additional land. Officials planned to re-open the area to the public in 1979 on a reservations-only basis with a live-in seasonal ranger in the new contact station. An Environmental Assessment was completed, and permission from the landowner, a Navajo named Frank Reed, was secured. The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation accepted the assessment of the Park Service that no adverse impact would occur as a result of the project, but Brewster Lindner of the NPS pointed out that the people who made the lease agreement had no authority to do so. In addition, the lease did not include enough land for sewage and water, and local people regarded the construction of a permanent ranger station as a threat and an intrusion. Flawed in this fashion, the proposal died. The structure was not built and the plan was never implemented.

At the dawn of the 1990s, park staff recognized the precarious position of the 40-acre Inscription House tract. In 1988, the Park Service removed the last vestiges of its presence at Inscription House. Interpretation signs, the visitor log, and other basic features were collected and brought back to the Betatakin unit. Even logs wired in place as a bridge across the ever-deepening wash were taken away. Inscription House had no real protection but evidence of frequent trespassing was clear. One off-duty ranger recounted meeting people on the trail into the ruin, and on occasion running into people inside the Park Service fence there. Vandalism was endemic, and the rapid rate of erosion compounded other problems. The only money for stabilization came from the regional office special projects fund, but there were no guarantees that the support would be annual. Inscription House reflected an aggravated version of the situation of most detached units in the park system. [48]

Facing many similar problems, Keet Seel fared better. Erosion of the Keet Seel Wash presented a major threat. It had doubled in size and depth since 1940, and recent fences put up have slumped into the wash. The 160-acre section was victim to the land practices of the people around it. Livestock grazing continued nearby, exacerbating existing erosion and possibly leading to changes in the micro-environment. Yet there were positive dimensions to the situation at Keet Seel. The installation of a ranger at the site during the summer that began in the early 1960s curbed vandalism. [49] In no small part as a result, the ruin was the best preserved of the three major ones in the monument, and at the beginning of the 1990s, few threats to the ruin itself were evident. Besides erosion, only the lack of funds to keep a ranger in the canyon threatened Keet Seel ruin.

The modern era had also transformed interpretation at the monument. Despite its archeological mandate, the park had a long history of interpreting both the prehistoric and historic pasts of the western reservation area. Both Anasazi and Navajo culture had long been represented in the programs of the monument. John Wetherill began the process, and sympathetic superintendents and rangers from Art White to Clarence Gorman helped make a place for Navajo culture in the interpretation plan of the monument. The location of the monument in the heart of the reservation, the number of Navajo laborers who worked there, and such obvious Navajo features as the construction of the pink hogan reinforced the two-pronged approach. In the 1960s, the exhibit plan for the visitor center codified this dual perspective when it emphasized both Navajo and Pueblo themes for the monument.

For visitors this added measurably to their experience. The name of the monument piqued their interest in the Navajo as well as the Anasazi. Summer crafts programs, exhibits, interpretation, and the Navajo-owned and managed gift shop all contributed to furthering that interest. Visitors could find a multi-layered cultural experience when they visited Navajo.

Individual Navajos in interpretation found themselves in a choice position to convey their culture to visitors--if they wanted to. According to former park rangers, interpretation required unusual personality characteristics for Navajo people. To interpret, an outgoing nature and an outward enthusiasm generally inconsistent with Navajo culture and uncommon among Navajos was essential. Some younger Navajos possessed these traits; Shonto (Wilson) Begay, a fixture in interpretation early in the 1980s, "had people eating out of his hand," one of his peers recalled. He could convey information to visitors in a fashion to which Anglos responded. Many others had difficulty overcoming this cultural barrier. [50]

Yet some features of the interpretation scheme at Navajo were rare in the modern park system. Navajo offered old-style NPS interpretation in the modern era. The guided tours essential for the protection of the ruins had been the signatory practice of Frank Pinkley's Southwestern National Monuments group in the 1930s. By the mid-1960s, most park areas had given it up as impractical and too expensive in the face of large numbers of visitors. But the unique circumstances at Navajo rendered strictly economic and numerical considerations moot. As a result of the fragility of the resource and its distance from visitor services, in the 1990s, Navajo maintained a guided tours-only policy reminiscent of the early days of the agency.

In the early 1990s, Navajo National Monument remained a place in transition. In many ways, it had became a modern park area staffed by a modern professional staff. In others, it remained an outlier, a place out of the mainstream, faced with local concerns and needs. Its position within the Southwest Region enhanced its paradoxical state. Navajo fared well under the Navajo Lands Group, but less well after the return of direct Southwest Regional Office management. [51] In the group, the weaknesses of a small park were protected. As one of many parks in the region, the park lacked the obvious institutional support provided by the group as well as the commonality of interests with other parks that the group structure provided. As money within the system became less available and the demands on the monument increased, the paradox of modernity and remote character continued to plague the monument.

Yet this situation at the monument allowed for a closer relationship to the people of the immediate area than was possible at most park areas. "Sometimes we did not feel there was a boundary" between the park and the people around it, one park ranger recalled, and his peers supported this point of view. [52] Navajo National Monument was in a unique position. An important piece of the local economy, it was as dependent on the Navajo people in the vicinity as they were on it. This interdependence meant that a complicated relationship critical to the park had to be fostered, nurtured, and preserved. While increasing integration of Navajos in leadership roles at the monument was an important step, the situation always remained tenuous, dependent on cross-cultural perceptions.