Posted on January 11, 2013
Have
you ever seen the Grand Canyon in Arizona? It's a sight that
President Theodore Roosevelt wanted every American to see at least
once in his or her lifetime. (Of course, it's great if people from
all over the world see it, too...)
Roosevelt
didn't want the land around the Grand Canyon to be ruined by
development. Apartment houses and factories along the South Rim would
not, in his mind, be an improvement. The canyon would be protected
from such development if it were a national park, but only Congress
could set aside land as a national park. So Teddy Roosevelt did the
next best thing: he declared the Grand Canyon to be a National
Monument.
On
this date in 1908, he said, “Let this
great wonder of nature remain as it now is. You cannot improve on it.
But what you can do is keep it for your children, your children’s
children, and all who come after you, as the one great sight which
every American should see."
I've
seen the Grand Canyon several times, and it is breathtakingly
beautiful (although I don't know that I would position it as the #1
sight to see!). My husband doesn't fully appreciate it—he would
rather interact with beautiful scenery, hiking up beautiful trails to
lovely lakes, fishing in streams, and so forth. His only interaction
with the Grand Canyon has been driving to a lookout, looking down on
all that colorful beauty, and then driving to some other lookout.
But
of course many of the five million people who visit the canyon each
year DO interact with the scenery. The three most popular activities
are whitewater rafting through the canyon, hiking down to the canyon
floor (and of course back up again—that's the tough part!), and
going down and back up by mule. (My brother did an unusual
half-hike/half-ride on his honeymoon. He hiked down to the canyon
floor with his bride, but then he got injured—a broken or badly twisted ankle or
something. So his wife had to hike out alone and get a mule, go back
down to my brother and help him ride up to medical care.)
Some
people love to photograph the canyon at different times of the day,
because different shadows and lighting give the canyon different
versions of beauty. Some people paint the canyon. One of the pricier
activities is taking a helicopter ride over or through the canyon.
And there is a new activity available: the Skywalk. Visitors must
wear booties over their shoes and then walk almost 70 feet out, over
the canyon, on a “bridge” with a clear, 4-inch-thick glass floor.
Skywalkers get to see all the way down to the bottom of the canyon,
4,000 feet below, over the railing or down below their feet.
May
I just say “yikes”?
I'd
also like to say “Hooray for Teddy Roosevelt!” Congress did
eventually make the Grand Canyon a national park (in 1919), but who
knows what might have happened if Roosevelt hadn't seen the
importance of safeguarding national scenic treasures, hadn't set up
18 of these treasures
as national monuments, hadn't started the conversation about
conservation?
Also
on this date:
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