A number of Arizona communities are considered Dark Sky cities — including Flagstaff, Fountain Hills and Sedona. DarkSky International is also based in Tucson.
Some tribal communities also take their dark skies very seriously.
Annette McGivney is a Colorado-based journalist who often writes for Arizona Highways Magazine; her article in the September issue, called "As Different as Night and Day," chronicles her trip to the Kaibab-Paiute reservation in northeastern Arizona.
She told The Show more about what she found.
Full conversation
ANNETTE MCGIVNEY: Well, it was incredible. I mean, I live in a rural area that has fairly dark skies, and so you think you live in a place with dark skies, but then when you go to a place that really has dark skies, you know, like the bottom of the Grand Canyon or in this case, the Kaibab-Paiute reservation, you realize how much you aren't seeing.
So, It was just, you know, from horizon to horizon, just sparkling stars everywhere and, you know, the Milky Way was visible and the constellations were so prominent and it was just spectacular in a way that really grabs your attention that when you're, you know, looking at stars in a fairly dark place is not as dramatic.
MARK BRODIE: Yeah, well, what was it like for you to be sitting there looking at the night sky, knowing that, you know, for the people whose land you are on, this is, this isn't just science, this is, you know, this is super important to them.
MCGIVNEY: Right, and you know, talking to the Native Americans for this story, different tribes in Arizona, the Kaibab-Paiute and also the Apache on the San Carlos Reservation in eastern Arizona.
You know, I was fortunate to kind of get their worldview about the stars and the night sky and how it's not just like, oh, like those are really beautiful, those constellations, or it's nice to be able to see so many stars, but actually that they feel a deep personal connection to the stars.
And, and I thought about that, and I thought about, you know, what is that like? I mean, I, you know, it, it definitely changed my own view about the night sky that I've tried to incorporate since I did this story.
BRODIE: Well, you write about sort of the interconnectedness between science and everything else that it's not, it's not just, you know, oh look, these are the stars, they're, you know, giant balls of gas, etc. It seems as though to some of these tribal communities like it's more meaningful than that, what you can see in the night sky.
MCGIVNEY: Right, and, and you know, like you can get into it from a technical scientific perspective, which actually aligns with their view, you know, I'm not talking about like astrology and your horoscope or anything like that. I'm talking about that the big bang when, you know, the stars are, you know, exploded and created the Earth that those elements that created life on Earth is actually within our own bodies and within all, you know, cell-based organisms on the earth, and those are in the moon and, you know, elsewhere in the planets.
And so we are all interconnected even on that like scientific level if you get, you know, at it from a meta perspective and so you know, it's kind of like mind blowing to think about it.
BRODIE: Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like for some of these tribes, it's been a very conscious decision to keep their skies dark and to make sure that any light pollution is really, really kept to a minimum.
MCGIVNEY: Right. Definitely for the Kaibab-Paiute tribe, they joined, you know, the program for, with the International Dark Sky Association to adjust the lighting on their reservation, which is already in a very remote area on the Arizona strip in northeastern Arizona.
So, you know, it was already dark and then, you know, to remove like spotlights on houses and have more dark sky friendly lighting. And other reservations, they are in rural areas, so they're more prone to have dark sky in the first place, but I think in general, They value the stars and being able to see the stars that perhaps people living in big metropolitan areas like Phoenix just forget about.
BRODIE: Yeah, well, it's interesting because as you say, some of these reservations, especially the Kaibab-Paiute, it's in a pretty remote area. However, you did quote some folks saying that, you know, over the years they have been able to start seeing lights from places like Phoenix or Las Vegas, depending on what part of the state they're in.
How big of a concern is that to folks who live in these communities?
MCGIVNEY: Right. Well, for the traditional practitioners who really try to stay in touch with their native traditions and their stories, which, you know, a lot of them revolve around the stars. It, it interferes with their ability, you know, to, it's like noise, you know, you're trying to listen to something and you hear all this, a garbage truck driving down the road, you know, it's just like, I, I can't listen to this beautiful music because of this noise.
And so Bob Stevens, who's a traditional practitioner on the San Carlos Apache Reservation, told me that, you know, he goes out in the wilderness and is sitting on a mountain top and trying to connect with the stars. He had a beautiful quote that he listens to the stars that he feels like they speak to him, but when he sees that glow on the horizon of Phoenix, it's, it's, it's an interference. It's like a noise that interferes with the message he's trying to get.
BRODIE: I wonder if anyone with whom you spoke made the comparison between light pollution sort of precluding them from being able to participate in the interconnectedness between, you know, people and the universe.
Was there any comparison made between that and, for example, land that is sacred to a particular tribe is used for some kind of development or used in a way that those tribal community members don't approve of, or those two very different concepts for these folks?
MCGIVNEY: No, I, I don't think they're different. I mean, you know, from an Indigenous perspective, everything is interconnected. So, you know, whether it's the San Francisco Peaks in northern Arizona, which is sacred to 14 tribes, or the whole, you know, solar system and being able to see the stars and the constellations, it's all like that's sacred to them as well.
I, I mean, something I found really interesting when I was reporting this story was how the Navajo Nation, the Diné people, were very offended by the new practice business of people wanting to send human remains, like burial remains to the moon, and I never, until I saw, you know, a news report about how the Navajo Nation president wrote a letter to NASA saying, do not fund this. This is like an affront to our spiritual beliefs that you are contaminating the moon with human remains, and I never thought of that.
I, you know, it really opened my eyes to like, wow, what's happening on the moon, that defacing the moon is a spiritual issue for them in the same way defacing the San Francisco Peaks with man-made snow is a spiritual issue for them.
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