Articles by Garet Bleir

Indigenous nations have accused the Canyon Mine mining company of desecrating land, medicine, and water surrounding Red Butte in Arizona, just six miles from the Grand Canyon and from land held sacred by the Havasupai Tribe. In response, a four day Havasupai Prayer Gathering invited other native nations to come together beneath Red Butte for ancestral ceremonies, inter-tribal gatherings, entertainment, direct action training, and speakers. Participants spoke of past and current illegal land grabs, religious and cultural oppression, spiritual guidance, and stories of resistance.

Any day now, Energy Fuels will resume drilling for high-grade uranium ore at the Canyon Mine just six miles south of the Grand Canyon. The risks of the mine have never been fully investigated, but it doesn't take much to see the potential consequences.

More than five million people visit the Grand Canyon each year. It’s one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations, yet the public knows next to nothing about the indigenous nation living on its floor. A uranium mine in the Grand Canyon represents a major threat to the tribe’s cultural practices and the traditional ecological medicine knowledge held by the nation’s medicine people.

An investigation into the Grand Canyon uranium mine owned a Toronto-based mining company and the indigenous resistance facing it down.