Alastair Bitsoi

This story was produced by RE:PUBLIC and is co-published here by permission. MOAB, Utah – Between the red rock canyon walls of the Colorado River, Aniston Hanks, 20, stood in the water while her best friend, Shauna Belone, 21, sat along the river’s shore. The two Diné citizens spent part of their summer learning about water, land, plants and conservation across the Colorado Plateau through The Nature Conservancy’s NATURE Program (Native American Tribes Upholding Restoration and Education).

by Alastair Lee Bitsóí, Source New Mexico July 1, 2024 NEW YORK — Every summer as a kid, Kevin Patterson, 29, hiked up the Lukachukai-Ch’ooshgai Mountains, following the hooves of the sheep and goats to his family’s camp. Up the steep sandstone slope, the young shepherd would stop to rest at the local spring, a paradise in the summer heat. This spring is one of the rare spots on this side of the range where reeds abundantly grow.

Navajo miners near Cove, Arizona in 1952. (Photograph by Milton Jack Snow, courtesy of Doug Brugge / Memories Come To Us In the Rain and the Wind) NEW YORK — Every summer as a kid, Kevin Patterson, 29, hiked up the Lukachukai-Ch’ooshgai Mountains, following the hooves of the sheep and goats to his family’s camp. Up the steep sandstone slope, the young shepherd would stop to rest at the local spring, a paradise in the summer heat.