{Curecanti National Recreation Area image posted by @usinterior} Curecanti NRA is a series of reservoirs on the Tomichi (Gunnison) River on traditional Ute homeland. The Ute Nation had used and lived on this land for hundreds of years, but were forced off in the late 19th century to make way for mining and ranching by white settlers. The two groups represented a clash in land use. As the Denver Tribune put it, “Either they [the Utes] or we must go, and we are not going. Humanitarianism is an idea, Western Empire is an inexorable fact.” So settlers were pretty explicit about putting empire ahead of the lives of people. The river was dammed in the 1960’s flooding many important cultural and archeological sites including petroglyphs, and is now used for boating and water recreation.

The damming of Tomichi brings up a justification that is repeated on many public lands - the idea that this land was only “seasonally” used or used only for hunting and gathering and therefore Native people have fewer rights over it than if it were permanently lived on. I’ve talked about this before in regards to historical interpretation, but this viewpoint values permanence and settlement over other life ways. When white settlers came to Colorado, they argued that the Ute did not properly use the land and therefore had no right to it - only land uses legible to Euro-Americans were considered proper. Just because you don’t understand the land use does not mean it isn’t used. Just because it is now under water, does not mean it isn’t still important to Ute people.