Jones Benally stands in the
city park of Flagstaff, Ariz., and holds a chunk of basalt as if it
is an injured bird. He looks down at his cupped hands and the words
come steady and soft:
“Everything has a life. You got to
respect it and think about what you’re doing. Like when you pick up
a rock,” he says. “If you put it down someplace else, the rock gets
confused.”
A cold wind sweeps out of the north, off
mountains dusted white by storms that seem less frequent than they
once were in the Southwest. A few dozen people watch as Benally
stoops to replace the rock in the dry grass and steps toward a
folding chair.
I consider the notion of sentient rock,
but don’t get very far. Benally is a Navajo medicine man, so he can
talk that way. I’m a white guy. But if Benally’s right, there’s a
lot of mixed-up rock around here. Sixty thousand people live in
Flagstaff, and not one of us leaves anything the way we found it.
Even without our help, this rock has seen enough violence
to forget where it came from. We are standing amid a volcanic
chaos: frozen lava flows, square miles of black ash and cinder
cones by the hundreds.
The heart of the place stands
directly in front of us: a dead volcano that leaps up from
tableland to fill half the sky. English-speakers call this island
in the sky the San Francisco Peaks.
Three winters ago,
Flagstaff had the driest winter in recorded history. There have
been plenty of dry winters lately. If I were a skier, I’d think
about leaving town.
If I owned Arizona Snowbowl, a ski
center that operates on the San Francisco Peaks, I might think
about trying to save my business. I would cut a deal with Flagstaff
City Council for a million-and-a-half gallons of reclaimed
wastewater per day, then go to the Forest Service with plans to
build 14 miles of pipeline up 4,000 feet of mountain to make
artificial snow. That’s what Snowbowl did.
And that’s why
Jones Benally and a circle of supporters have assembled at the foot
of the mountain. The people here don’t like the Snowbowl plan and
don’t much like the Snowbowl, period. Most skiers and local
business people, however, want snowmaking. They say the plan will
pump iron into the town’s anemic winter economy, bring families
together, maybe even keep kids off drugs.
Tree-huggers
question the wisdom of doing all this for the sake of so-so skiing
in one of our driest, warmest states. They talk about the delicate
alpine environment and micro-pollutants in the reclaimed water.
They speak of old-growth trees and the possibility of deformed
frogs.
But in this debate the most resonant word on
anyone’s tongue is this one: sacred. The San Francisco Peaks are
sacred to Jones Benally and the Navajo Tribe; to the Navajos‚
closest neighbors, the Hopi; and to at least 11 other Southwestern
tribes. Tribal members see the snowmaking plan as desecration.
This gathering is billed as a “prayer vigil” for the
Peaks, which makes me vaguely uneasy. I find spiritual talk
embarrassing and do not enjoy group anything. But I also hate what
industrial-strength skiing does to mountains, and I’m ashamed of
locals who think their playtime is worth offending the religious
beliefs of several hundred thousand of their neighbors. So I stare
at the rock while the journalists look for good pictures. The
medicine man takes his seat.
Jones Benally’s son, Klee,
steps into his father’s place in the circle. Klee is in his
twenties, tall and slender, with the razor cheekbones and
shoulder-length black hair of a traditional Navajo. An artist and
activist, he understands the power of image and language, and can
handle these weapons with skill. A TV camera records what he says:
“There is no other place like this. Our people pray to
the mountain and gather plants there for medicine. We don’t ski on
it. If they make snow on the mountain, it will break our people’s
hearts. I’m angry, but I try to find compassion for people who
don’t understand.”
This somber talk somehow gladdens me.
It is not the language of science or economics or politics. It is
not practical, nor reasonable. It is prayer.
On March 8,
Coconino National Forest announced its approval of Arizona
Snowbowl’s plans for snowmaking on the mountain. Appeals seem
likely. More prayers are certain.
Michael
Wolcott is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of
High Country News (hcn.org). He lives and writes
in Flagstaff, Arizona.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
