In this episode, host Dave Barak speaks with Kelli Jones, Indigenous Park Ranger at Grand Canyon National Park and how her Native background has brought more depth to her role as a National Park Service ranger.

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TRANSCRIPT:

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[intro music] Dave: Welcome to My Park Story, presented by the National Park Service. People form connections with their favorite national parks and programs, and this park-cast is a place to come together and share those stories. I’m your host, Dave Barak. Today's guest is Kelli Jones, park Ranger at Grand Canyon National Park.

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Dave: Today I have the pleasure of speaking with park Ranger Kelli Jones of Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. Kelli, how are you?

Kelli: I am doing great, enjoying this really nice fall weather here in the park. Dave: That sounds amazing because I think people associate Grand Canyon with intense heat. And I'm glad that you're getting a little reprieve here in the fall and that sounds great. So Kelli, what's your park story? Kelli: So I would like to introduce myself in my language. Yad Esh A Kelli Jones Inishya. So I just said in my language, hello, my name is Kelli Jones Katnasani A Nishlyn. And I come from the matrilineal clan of the Tangle people. Aqua, Ego Dinette. Asan Nishlyn. And that is who I am as a dinette and Navajo woman. So I was born and raised on the Denech Nation, which is known as the Navajo Nation. And I work here at Grand Canyon National Park as a park Ranger. An interpretive park Ranger.

Dave: Fabulous. How long have you worked at Grand Canyon? Kelli: I worked at Grand Canyon one year with an internship through Ancestral Lands Conservation Corps, and I worked as a seasonal Ranger here. So I would say all together, I've been working with Grand Canyon National Park for about 3 1/2 years right now. Dave: Cool. And I have a sense geographically of where the Navajo Nation is located. But growing up, how far away from Grand Canyon were you? Or how close?

Kelli: Yeah, I my site at Grand Canyon National Park, where, you know, Grand Canyon is such a huge park. It's 277 river miles, but part of the park I work on the South Rim, 25 miles from the main South Entrance station heading east is the Desert View location of the park, and that is where I'm actually located at working and from Desert View location about less than 10 miles heading more east from that area is the Navajo Nation. So I'm really close to home and part of that Desert View location is such a very important part of where I work at with Grand Canyon National Park.

Dave: As a as a young person, as a student, did you have a connection to the park? Did you visit with family? Did you come on field trips with school? You know, you must have had a connection with it being so close to it growing up.

Kelli: You know what's hilarious is that my school did offer field trips to Grand Canyon National Park, and in 3rd grade I ended up having the privilege with my class going to Grand Canyon. But to be honest, I don't remember even seeing the Canyon. I remember going to the IMAX theater for some reason from my memories as coming from my childhood memories, but I think that after that I haven't been. I haven't visited the park at all until I started my internship with Ancestral Lands about almost like 5 to 6 years ago. And that was my first time coming out to Grand Canyon.

Dave: I did want to ask you that. I wanted to ask you, when you see Ancestral Lands Internship, can you tell us a little bit more about what that program is?

Kelli: Yeah. So the ancestral Land Conservation Corps is they work with the southwest region and they focus on a lot of working with young Indigenous adults ages 18 through 30 to try to get some career development through public lands. And that can either be through conservation at these public land areas, through national parks. It's a really great career development for Indigenous young people to reconnect to these ancestral lands. But as well as learning and experiencing different career paths that is available within these public land opportunities either through Park Service, through Forest Service, through firefighting, through any, I guess you can say federal agencies that protect and preserve these public lands in the Park Service. We also have a very diverse career paths for anybody to be part of through firefighting, through trail maintenance, through taking care of the river operations, through even just if you want to just have an office job. There are these jobs that are available that people are not really aware of.

Dave: And we've discussed you and I previously about your desire and advocacy to see more Indigenous peoples involved in the National Park Service. But land preservation in general, besides, you know, the ancestral land corps, what are some other ways that you could recommend for Native people to get involved and to be a part of this, To be a part of this agency, having ideas that we can create for the youth and start participating in schools, more in the Tribal schools so that they can start looking at the next.

Kelli: We can start looking at the next generation of these Tribal young people that they can start working with the Park Service and helping us start managing these areas. And because we do have deep connections to this place and who knows more about these places than the native people themselves, it is managed by the park. But we still have that spiritual connection to these places. So and it's and it's not just for the Native people, but we can share that culture and our resiliency of our native culture for to the public as well. So they can also get educated that Native people are still here and that they still connect to these very important places. Dave: Certainly there are several parks that are very specifically telling Native American stories and yet even parks that are focused on other topics, there are Native stories that occurred there.

Kelli: A lot of the narrative that we create in national parks is always on the timeline of when it became a National Park. And that creates historical trauma of local Tribal communities that they're not allowed into these places and that creates systemic issues that we had created as well. And I think that once we go and really be honest about, well, you know, whose ancestral homelands these really are and still today, we can definitely create a true narrative of what it used to be. And then as well as it will also be a lot easier for us as national parks to even build better relationships with Tribal communities, because that's always been a challenge as well in the past. And with Grand Canyon National Park, we work with 11 associated Tribes here and the what we are creating here that kind of is really building that narrative around. We are still here as native people is the desert view location is actually changing into a Tribal welcome center. So the 11 associate Tribes have been working on this project for almost 10 years now with the park and having conversations of how can we bring this true narrative of this place that we still call home, which is Grand Canyon. And we really want our visitors to come into this Tribal welcome center at Desert View area to see that they are home too. Because this place is for all of us as people and we are all in one world and we are all 11 human beings that we can all share this place. But also how can we respect this place for the next generation, not just for the visitors but as well As for the Tribal communities we have now?

Dave: Secretary Holland, Director Sam's, both are Native Americans. How does it make you feel when you see the secretary and the director who are Tribal members, active Tribal members, leading both the, the leading, both the Department of Interior and the National Park Service? Kelli: I see that. I look at representation and it is very important in leadership. It's very important that Deb Haaland and Chuck Sams are in those positions to empower other Native employees who are in the Park Service, that our voices do matter and how can we stand strong together to have our voices be heard internally within the government. I think that's important because that's the only way change will happen and our stories will be heard through the public eye. And it also helps with identifying cultural days to be aware out in the public eye like Native American Heritage Month. It's such an important month for us that is coming up.

Dave: November for the listeners is Native American Heritage Month.

Kelli: Yeah, I'm really excited for this, for November to come up, because November is a way that as Native people is to express our culture and our traditions and show our resiliency of who we are as Native people. And understanding that we are still here. And that I wouldn't say that we live in two worlds, which is the Native world and then the Westernized world. But I believe that we live in one world together where we can show that diversity in our Tribe, show that we are proud of who we are. And that just helps the next generation for our native youth and our native young adults to carry that tradition and keep those traditions alive because that's what kept us going since time immemorial. And I think that's something that we should express in that month is a time for us to express that culture and really excited for Native American Heritage Month to happen. And if anybody has you know want to learn more about that there's so many events that is nationwide in each state that expresses that and shares that from all the Tribes across the nation.

Dave: Kelli, how will you personally commemorate or celebrate Native American Heritage Month.

Kelli: So personally I with the with Grand Canyon National Park, we are trying to bring in more native presenters from our 11 associated Tribes to talk abou