Oct. 31, 2017, marked one of the most important victories this century for Navajo, Hopi and other indigenous people who call the area near the confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado rivers both home and sacred.

Join Save the Confluence in saying NO to the proposed Big Canyon pumped hydro storage project on a tributary to the Little Colorado River

Before seeing the Confluence, I had only seen the Grand Canyon once, despite being raised and having lived in the Navajo Nation for years. My experience on the Desert View rim of the canyon had a touristy feel to it. I felt like I did not experience my first Grand Canyon visit to the fullest extent, though I did feel amazed at how vast and awe-inspiring the canyon was.

  Editor's Note: This is Kayla Yazzie's guest essay about a trip to the Grand Canyon East Rim in western Navajo Nation in May. The trip was to the area high above the rim of the Little Colorado and Colorado River called the Confluence. Yazzie is a Grand Canyon...

The Grand Canyon Trust is offering a chance for Native youth to view the canyon from above this month.

The sacred site bill seeks to protect canyons, waterways of portions of Grand Canyon East rim on the Navajo Nation. The move comes amidst a developer’s plan to extract groundwater to generate electricity for cities.

Two members of Save the Confluence families are part of storytellers featured in a video celebration of the Little Colorado River.

Even though the gondola proposal is dead, developers continue to try to exploit the area. Everything from proposals to drill for water in a land already stricken by long-term drought, to bringing Jeeps loaded with tourists onto the land continue to be pitched. Families, just struggling to survive on the land, as they have for generations, live in shacks with leaky roofs, no electricity and  no water unless it is hauled in by truck. Above all, the very culture of the people is at stake.