Black Canyon Celebrates 10th Anniversary as National Park

Getting the Black Canyon designated as a national park was a long and difficult journey, but many of those who fought to protect the canyon were on hand Saturday to mark the tenth anniversary of that achievement.

A leading champion of the bill that created the park, former Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, joined former Rep. Scott McInnis and others in an outdoor ceremony overlooking the canyon.

Campbell gave a lot of credit to his wife, Linda, for helping get the bill passed to establish the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. He said her family settled in this area in the late 1800s, “not long after my relatives on the Indian side stopped chasing her ancestors.”

Campbell said the park set an example for the rest of the country because it was the first time that the park service, the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service collaborated in managing a national park.

The ceremony opened with a prayer and a blessing, read in Ute, by Roland McCook, representing the Ute tribe.

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