Few sights are as readily identifiable, and few places speak more clearly of American nationalism than the Statue of Liberty. In 1903, President Teddy Roosevelt declared the South Rim to be "one of the great sights every American should see."
That is right. Today, every traveller recognizes the Grand Canyon as a one-of-a-kind testament to Earth's past and a symbol of the American experience. Visitors, on the other hand, maybe unaware of the reason. They still have no idea that it was huge and obnoxious long before it became grand and inspiring. They probably don't realize that appreciating such an odd scene is as difficult as sculpting it geologically. They do not realize what they're seeing unless they're on a pilgrimage to a holy site.
'This non-profitable place'
One of the first natural wonders found by Europeans in North America was the Grand Canyon. Captain Garca López de Cardenas led a Coronado expedition party to the South Rim in 1541, 138 years before explorers discovered Niagara Falls, 167 years before Yellowstone, and almost 300 years before Yosemite. The buttes were much higher than the great tower of Seville, according to a party who crawled down to the river but failed to meet it. After that, there was silence. Some Coronado chroniclers didn't even notice this detour. Francisco Tomas Garcés, a Franciscan friar who was following tribes up the Colorado River, came to the rim in 1776, encountered the Havasupai tribe, and then left. Fur trappers in Taos were aware of the massive gorge, which they dubbed the Big Caon, and avoided it. They steered exploration parties of the US Army Corps of Topographic Engineers away from the canyon, which had no water or land access.
Lt. Joseph C. Ives then led a steamboat up the Colorado River in 1857 in search of the Big Caon. Ives travelled down Diamond Creek to the inner gorge after the steamboat hit a rock and sunk near Black Canyon, briefly stopping at the South Rim, and concluding in 1861 with one of the most prominent proclamations ever issued by an American explorer.
Major John Wesley Powell descended the Colorado River through its gorges eight years later, renaming the Big Canyon the Grand Canyon, and writing a classic account of the river view. Captain Clarence Dutton wrote an equally classic description, this time from the rim, in the first monograph published by the modern US Geological Survey in 1882. There was a difference. It was primarily the rise of geology as popular science. The Grand Canyon was a "wonderland" for modern science, despite its lack of importance as a transportation corridor. Artists were drawn to landscapes, and the canyon seemed to be both original and operatic. Thomas Moran and William Henry Holmes were commissioned by Powell and Dutton to paint and ink a highly visual scene.
The Grand Canyon had been a spot to avoid before Powell and Dutton. It was now a thing of beauty to behold. Twenty years later, Teddy Roosevelt stepped off a train at the South Rim, calling it "a natural marvel... utterly unmatched in the rest of the world," adding nationalism to the mix. It was a mind-boggling 180-degree turn of events. The geologic mystery of the canyon is how the south-flowing Colorado River abruptly turned west to carve its way through four plateaus, cross-grained. This is also, to a large extent, what occurred in terms of culture. Intellectuals defied established aesthetics to create a convincing spectacle out of a place that didn't look like pastorals or alpine mountains.
Unlike several other natural wonders, the Grand Canyon is not apparent unless you are standing on the bottom. It isn't like a river's source or a mountain's top in that you are attracted to it. You must go out of your way to find it, and then deal with the visual revelation that it brings. It's just like that.
It is only possible for humans to taint it
It still does, which contradicts its status as a natural wonder. The canyon, however, has aided both the beauty and preservation of the landscape in two respects.
To begin with, it expanded on the conventional emphasis on the bucolic, alpine, and green by including an appreciation for exposed rock, gorges, and earth colours. It allowed people to appreciate the Colorado Plateau's broader context, which included the Grand Canyon but was otherwise off the beaten path of American settlement and economy. This physiographic province now has the country's largest density of parks and monuments.
Second, in the 1960s, controversies over planned dams in the Grand Canyon led to the rise of postwar environmentalism. Advocates were able to effectively argue for the canyon's protection because of its cultural significance. Glen Canyon, on the other hand, was dammed because it lacked this background.
However, in more modern preservationist thought, the Grand Canyon lies awkwardly. The broader goal has been to go beyond early parks' geologic monumentalism and integrate living ecosystems rich in biodiversity and unique habitats. The Grand Canyon, on the other hand, is an incredible geological wonder. It would maintain its cultural influence even though it had no living things inside its massive amphitheatre. Its size is so enormous that, apart from flooding the inner gorge, it's difficult to imagine what people might do to permanently alter it.
It is possible, however, to detract from the canyon experience. It only takes an obscured horizon, a visually perplexing perspective, or social noise to detract from individual vision's quiet peace. The shock of seeing the Grand Canyon without filters or foreground continues to have a huge effect. The rim simply disintegrates. The canyon appears suddenly and unmistakably. It's an unmediated human epiphany. For the Grand Canyon's cultural alchemy to function, the sensation must be preserved.
Threats to it aren't new, but they've progressed from mining, dams, and industrial tourism to the compounding insults of the Anthropocene epoch. Nonetheless, the Grand Canyon, as Roosevelt recognized, attests to the most basic of all needs. “Don't change anything... It's been working for eons, and only man can ruin it.” “Keep it for your children, your children's children, and those who come after you,” he advised.
We can do so despite climate change, invasive species, a shambolic global environment, broken politics, and a national attention span that is too short for sound bites. It's fine if we leave it alone.
Source: www.smithsonianmag.com/
