Current Priorities

Reconnecting People to Place, Heritage, and Identity

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At Crow Canyon, our mission is to “empower current and future generations by making the human past accessible and relevant.” Sometimes, fulfilling that mission means more than studying the past—it means helping people reconnect to it.

For many of our Indigenous partners, visiting ancestral homelands is deeply personal and transformative. Standing where their ancestors once lived, created, and gathered restores connections that have been interrupted for generations.

As an archaeologist, I have been fortunate to visit dozens of remarkable cultural landscapes. Those experiences have shaped me professionally and personally. But witnessing Indigenous participants return to ancestral landscapes carries a meaning far beyond scholarship. It is an act of cultural continuity and healing.

Many of us can relate to the intense feeling of visiting a place tied to our family history—a hometown, a village, a historic landscape filled with memories reaching back hundreds of years.

That is the kind of experience Crow Canyon programs help make possible.

“When we restore people’s connection to land, we restore their oral history; we restore their identity for future generations. We restore their cultural connection to the landscape that hadn’t seen their footprints in generations,” explains Theresa Pasqual, Crow Canyon’s EVP of Indigenous Affairs.

“I felt very connected throughout the whole trip… knowing that my ancestors were probably in the same areas we visited,” shares Stewart Valdo (Acoma Pueblo). “It made me feel very spiritually connected.”

Stewart was one of four Indigenous participants on a Crow Canyon journey through Bears Ears National Monument in October 2025—a landscape of profound cultural and spiritual significance for many Native Nations, including his own.

At Crow Canyon, we are working to expand Indigenous participation across all of our programs with care, humility, and partnership. This work is guided by the knowledge, priorities, and leadership of Indigenous communities themselves. But we cannot do it alone.

Increasing access for Indigenous participants depends on compassionate supporters like you who recognize the importance of reconnecting people to their cultural heritage and ancestral landscapes.

“Even just picking up a piece of pottery that’s been there for so long—who made this?” Stewart reflects. “Was it my great, great, great grandmother’s? To hold it, even briefly, gives you a sense of connection and responsibility.”

Moments like these are unforgettable. They are rooted in place, memory, identity, and belonging. For participants like Autry Lomahongva (Hopi/Diné), Crow Canyon provided a first opportunity to formally learn about ancestral sites with a Native perspective taught to him by Native mentors.

“My family didn’t have money for trips,” Autry shares. “It was definitely an eye-opener for me when I was able to see all these places and learn more about both archaeology and ancestral history.”

Your support helps create more opportunities for individuals like Stewart and Autry to experience these life-changing moments.

And the impact extends far beyond a single journey. Indigenous participation enriches every Crow Canyon program by bringing cultural knowledge, oral traditions, lived experience, and community perspectives into conversations about the past. These voices deepen understanding in ways archaeology alone cannot.

Your generosity also helps create pathways toward education, leadership, and careers.

Indigenous participants engage as guides, artists, educators, researchers, and cultural practitioners—strengthening both their communities and the future of archaeology itself. After attending a Crow Canyon workshop with Zuni artist Chris Lewis, Stewart returned home inspired to continue traditional Pueblo belt weaving.

“Since that program I’ve made about 20 belts,” he says. “We use those in our traditional dances. There aren’t many belt weavers out here in Acoma. I want to learn so I can provide not only for my family but also my community.”

This is the lasting impact of your support: Connection restored. Knowledge shared. Traditions carried forward. Future generations empowered.

Today, I invite you to make a meaningful gift to support Indigenous participation in Crow Canyon programs. Your contribution helps fund travel, stipends, and educational opportunities that reconnect Indigenous participants with ancestral places while strengthening living traditions for generations to come.

As Stewart beautifully shared: “I just hope I get the chance to experience even more so I have a better understanding of where I came from.”

With your help, more individuals will have that opportunity. Together, we can expand access to ancestral places, strengthen cultural heritage, and ensure archaeology tells a fuller, richer, and more human story—one shaped by the voices and experiences of the communities most connected to the past.

With deepest gratitude,