The Native American Tribes Associated with Grand Canyon

The Native American Tribes Associated with Grand Canyon

Did you know there are 11 living and active Native American tribes with strong ties to Grand Canyon? 

Credit: GCNPS

Grand Canyon National Park exists on the ancestral homelands of these 11 tribal communities, and Park staff work with their representatives to build partnerships and create programming that honors their cultural connections to this place and educates the general public about Native American perspectives of the canyon. To mark Native American Heritage Month, we’re looking at all the Native American tribes associated with Grand Canyon.

The 11 Native American tribes associated with Grand Canyon. Credit: GCNPS

Native American Tribes traditionally associated with Grand Canyon:

• Havasupai Tribe – AZ
• Hopi Tribe – AZ
• Hualapai Tribe – AZ
• Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians – AZ
• Las Vegas Paiute Tribe – NV
• Moapa Band of Paiute Indians – NV
• Navajo Nation – AZ, NM, UT (see also: Navajo Nation Parks & Recreation)
• Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah – UT
• San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe – AZ
• Pueblo of Zuni – NM (see also: A:shiwi A:wan Museum and Heritage Center)
• Yavapai-Apache Nation – AZ

Tribal Engagement

Grand Canyon National Park’s Tribal Engagement Report details the partnerships and initiatives they have worked with associated tribes to put in place in the last few years. These are some of our favorites at Hatch:

The Desert View Watchtower point is one of the few areas in the South Rim national park area where you can see the Colorado River. Photo: neufal54 on Pixabay

Desert View Intertribal Cultural Heritage Site and Welcome Center

If you’ve gone on a river trip with Hatch, you may remember your guides rounding a bend in the river and then pointing out a tower on the South Rim—tiny, but visible from your boat. That tower is the Desert View Watchtower. It was designed by Mary Colter (architect of many buildings at the South Rim and throughout the Southwest), who was inspired by Ancestral Puebloan architecture. Looking down into the canyon from the watchtower is also one of the few places where you can see the Colorado River from the South Rim national park area.

In recent years, the tower and the site around it have been reimagined as the Desert View Inter-Tribal Cultural Heritage Site to elevate the voices of the 11 tribal communities. In this new phase of Desert View’s life, it has become a site for first voice interpretive programming and economic opportunity for tribes. Now, the tower is surrounded by an amphitheater and trail system designed collaboratively with the Intertribal Working Group. It is also one of the sites of another of our favorite partnerships, the Cultural Demonstration Program. 

Cultural Demonstration Program

Active since 2014, this program provides fuel stipends, honorariums, housing, and programming supplies for Native American artists and craftsmen from Grand Canyon’s 11 associated tribes. Artists include silversmiths, potters, carvers, painters, beaders, drum makers, and weavers. They perform demonstrations and talk with visitors about their work and their perspectives as members of Grand Canyon tribes. 

Native American artisans creating and selling their wares within Grand Canyon National Park as part of the GCNPS Cultural Demonstrator Program. Photo: GCNPS

This program centers the voices of Native Americans who hold the canyon sacred, allowing them to educate the public while providing an opportunity for them to sell their work. The demonstration schedule is available on the Grand Canyon National Park website. 

Havasupai tribal members at the 2023 ceremony to rename Havasupai Gardens. Photo: Grand Canyon Conservancy

Havasupai Gardens Renaming

Guests who participate in our Upper Canyon or Lower Canyon trips (and many others who visit Grand Canyon) hike the Bright Angel Trail which stretches between the South Rim and the Colorado River. Much of this hike takes place in full sun, and the extreme heat can be a huge challenge for hikers. About midway through the trail, there is a welcome respite where shade and flowing water work together to cool tired travelers. 

This place is known to the people of the Havasupai tribe as Ha’a Gyoh, and members of the tribe resided there until forced to leave by the National Park Service. The Park forcibly removed the last Havasupai farmer in the area, Captain Burro, in 1928, and began referring to the site as “Indian Garden.” 

In 2022, the U.S. Board of Geographic Names unanimously voted in favor of a formal request submitted by the Havasupai tribe to change the name to Havasupai Gardens. In May 2023, descendants of Captain Burro attended ceremonies to bless and dedicate the sacred place to usher in the formal name change. The new name is powerful as it provides the roughly 100,000 who visit Havasupai Gardens each year an opportunity to learn about the tribe and its history.

Our river guides at Hatch are well versed on cultural and historical information about the tribes in the Grand Canyon area and points of historical significance. If you’d like to learn more from the river level, you can book here.

Visit Grand Canyon National Park’s Associated Tribes page to learn more about the peoples who have been inextricably linked to Grand Canyon since time immemorial.