The Big Land

I am a vast and brooding land. A land of startling contrast. A land of magnificence and splendor.

I am called Arizona.

Geologically and chronologically, I am as old as Time.

Historically and geographically, I am a youth. I was created in The Beginning, a vague reference to a time that may never be accurately established.ぐいよ I have spawned the killing heat of the summer and the treacherous snows of the winter with equal intensity. I have generated volumes of history and legend about my past, yet portions of my present remain a mystery to those who dwell within my borders.

My boundaries encompass 113,956 square miles. There are 92 individual nations on this earth whose square mileage totals do not equal mine.

If it were possible, I could bear the combined land mass of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia within myself. I am nearly four times as large as Ireland, thirty times the size of Lebanon, more than twice as large as Greece and three times as big as Liberia.

My geographical subdivisions compliment my size, for there are only 14 of them. The largest, Coconino County, contains 18,562 square miles. Denmark isn't that big. Neither are the Netherlands, Albania or the Republic of China (Taiwan). Even Santa Cruz County, my smallest, overshadows 17 nations in size.

By another set of measurements, my size is 72,688,000 square acres.

Of these, 23,467,427 are under the proprietorship of my oldest residents, the people who are called Indians.

The portion of the Navajo Reservation which sprawls across the entire northwest corner of my designated boundaries is a nation within a state. Its borders confine 9.1 million acres; there are nine states within the United States whose individual acreages are not equal to it.

The other Indian lands are not so large. The Papago Reservation to the south contains 2.8 million acres; the Fort Apache Reservation to the east is 1.8 million acres; there are many others, all smaller.

east is 1.8 million acres; there are many others, all smaller.

In all, 19 tribal governing bodies rule the 175,000 people who live on these lands, and the lands constitute 27 percent of my total.

Two hundred years ago, the people who are called Indians were the majority. Their ancestors came to me perhaps 12,000 years ago. They were hunters and gatherers. Seasons came and went, weather conditions changed, big game animals became scarce and the people followed the dwindling herds eastward, But by the beginning of the Christian Era, according to anthropologists, the canyons were again ringing with the sounds of humankind. Three principal entities emerged. Their true names may never be discovered, so they have been given others by those who seek to unearth their secrets.

The Anasazi, the "ancient ones," settled in the north where the Navajo now live; the Mogollon, who were named after a Spanish general, lived in the central mountains; and the Hohokams, whose name means "all used up," came to the deserts. They were peaceful, worked hard and stayed long in human terms, 1800 years. They were at my mercy, though, and I yielded to their agrarian pleadings only sparingly. They were responsible for some of my heritage, and my name, which is derived from "ali" and "shonak," Papago Indian words for "place of the small spring."

The recorded history of my being probably started in 1527 when 600 men in five ships left Sanlucan, Spain, to conquer, occupy and colonize. In time, some of them reached my deserts. Others followed and for the greater part of 300 years, I was one of Spain's most outlandish frontiers.

In the sequence of events that followed, I spent 25 years (from 1821 to 1846) as Mexico's most isolated political entity, then became a portion of the United States when a part of me was confiscated after a war with Mexico. The rest was purchased from Mexico in 1854 through the Gadsen Purchase.

I achieved some status in 1863 when President Lincoln named me a territory; 49 years later, on continued on page 32

THE PRECEDING PANELS

(Pages 18-19) Sandstone window in Monument Valley. David Muench

(Pages 20-21) Monument Valley vista. Ray Manley

(Pages 22-23) Early snow on San Francisco Peaks. Bob Bradshaw (Pages 24-25) An army of Saguaros, Saguaro National Monument. Pete Kresan (Pages 26-27) The color of spring near Canyon Lake. Dick Dietrich (Pages 28-29) The edge of the world the Mogollon Rim, David Muench (Pages 30-31) Arizona's red rock country from Schnebly Hill Road. Bob Clemens (Left) Man's-eye view of eternity, the Grand Canyon. Dick Dietrich

The Big Land continued from page 19

February 14, 1912, I was renamed and given full rights in the United States.

In those 100 years, from my territorial days to the present, the peoples who carve out an existence within my boundaries have multiplied, primarily because their existence no longer depends upon my natural and frequently violent instincts.

But I am not tamed or subdued. That time may come, but it is not yet. It is my nature.

For I was born of violence more than 500 million years ago in a time marked down as the Older Precambian Period, when the great earth forces crumpled the rocks and formed the mountain ranges. It shaped and has since controlled almost all my geologic history. In the unrecorded milleniums that followed, volcanic eruptions and other upheavals combined with glaciers and long periods of erosion to further mold the physical attributes I now possess.

And when the shaping was finished, I was a land of contrast.

I was the flat and arid lands of the desert, extending from sea level to nearly 3000 feet, barely covered with sparse vegetation and populated by creatures who venture forth only at night to avoid the pain of the summer sun.

I was a mountainous belt where craggy outcroppings compete with thick foilage, where the water flows freely and greens my lands.

And I was a barren upland plateau, studded by mesas and cut by intricate networks of canyons, a place of breathtaking beauty but sorely lacking in water and productive soil.

I was a land where temperatures have risen to 127 degrees above zero and plunged to 40 degrees below zero. My physical structure is only about 100 feet above sea level at a point near Yuma, but rises to more than 12,000 feet in the San Francisco Peaks near Flagstaff. I produce dust storms with blinding fury in the summer; in the winters, I send blizzards and their accompanying dangers into the mountains.

But I am also a land of grandeur.

For the same upheavals and erosions that created my deserts also created my lofty mountains.

They created the Mogollon Rim, which extends more than 200 miles across the state and ranges in height from 100 feet to 2000 feet, and whose many springs feed perennial water into the upper tributaries of the Gila, Salt and Verde rivers.

And the Grand Canyon, a 217-mile gorge of unmatched splendor, ranging from four to thirteen miles wide at the rim, and from 4000 to 5000 feet in depth; a textbook which exposes a complex history of events spanning five eras of geologic time.

And they produced Canyon de Chelly and Monument Valley, where stone monoliths rise hundreds of feet above canyon floors; and the Painted Desert, Sunset Crater, Walnut Canyon, Oak Creek Canyon.

Then my evolution progressed as the plants and animals adjusted to my conditions. They are as diverse as my lands.

Ecologists have a rule of thumb which states that every 1000-foot rise in altitude is the equivalent of about 300 miles distance north. Thus, while Yuma and the San Francisco Peaks are only about 300 miles apart geographically, they are some 3600 miles apart ecologically.

So the vegetation covering my lands are forests of spruce, pine and oak - and forests of cactus, mesquite and creosote bush.

Within my boundaries, I grow 3438 species of plants, a richness equalled by very few other regions in the world. These include 71 native cactus species and 385 types of grass. Two monuments - Saguaro National Monument and Organ Pipe National Monumet - have been established exclusively for the vegetation they contain.

Though my balance of nature is considered fragile, there are 290 different kinds of mammals subsisting on my lands.

I raise rattlesnakes who are dangerous and spiders who aren't. I grow 63 species of fish in the waters of my 20 designated rivers and 128 lakes. And I am inhabited by 21 species of frogs and toads, 48 species of snakes, 44 kinds of lizards and five kinds of turtles. I harbor sheep and opossum, wolves and hawks, coyotes and javelina.

And one other: Man.

Man, who like the other mammals is adapting to my diversity, taming some of my whims, adjusting to others.

Man has recorded that 80 million acre feet of water fall within my borders every year, but only two million acre feet are captured, and he knows that he must offset that disparity, for water has always been the determining factor as to who would survive my harshness. Through dams and science, he is learning to utilize what water is available and to seek new sources.

He harvests the flatlands and the deserts to produce food and clothing, and harvests the forests to produce shelter.

In most years, my lands lead the nation in cotton-lint yield per acre. My citrus crop is valued at $35 million annually. My forests yield enough lumber annually to build nearly 40,000 homes, and since 1874 I have surrendered more than 45 billion tons of copper to the world. I also conceal rich deposits of molybdenum, uranium, vanadium, lead, zinc and silver.

And gold.

The gold is not nearly as abundant as the legends it produces, but it was indirectly responsible for the first roads across my girth, built more than a century ago because people wanted better routes to the fields of yellow metal.

Those roads led to others, and then the people came much more rapidly. Though they deplored me at first and called me a land suitable only for habitation by the Devil, some stayed, battled my elements, scored some victories and we became compatible.

Now the land within my borders is home for more than two and one-half million people, living in 564 cities, towns and villages. They have reshaped a portion of my being but their progress is a mere scratch upon my surface, for they take up less than five percent of my land.

Perhaps they will stay. They have learned to live with my frequently capricious ways.

Perhaps they won't. Perhaps they will abuse my lands and resources to such an extent that I shall no longer sustain them.

But it is of little consequence to me, for I shall remain.

I shall remain as a vast and brooding land.

I am Arizona.