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Bears Ears: Landscape of Refuge and Resistance
Designated in 2016 by President Obama and reduced to 85 percent of its original size one year later by President Trump, Bears Ears National Monument continues to be a flash point of conflict among ranchers, miners, environmental groups, states’ rights advocates, and Native American activists. In this volume, Andrew Gulliford synthesizes 11,000 years of the region’s history to illuminate what’s truly at stake in this conflict and distills this geography as a place of refuge and resistance.
Gulliford’s engaging narrative explains prehistoric Pueblo villages and cliff dwellings, Navajo and Ute history, stories of Mormon families who arrived by wagon train in 1880, impacts of the Atomic Age, uranium mining, and the pothunting and looting of Native graves that inspired the passage of the Antiquities Act over a century ago. The book describes how the national monument came about and its deep significance to five native tribes.
Bears Ears National Monument is a bellwether for public land issues in the American West. Its recognition will be relevant for years to come.
Gulliford’s engaging narrative explains prehistoric Pueblo villages and cliff dwellings, Navajo and Ute history, stories of Mormon families who arrived by wagon train in 1880, impacts of the Atomic Age, uranium mining, and the pothunting and looting of Native graves that inspired the passage of the Antiquities Act over a century ago. The book describes how the national monument came about and its deep significance to five native tribes.
Bears Ears National Monument is a bellwether for public land issues in the American West. Its recognition will be relevant for years to come.
- GenresHistory
512 pages, Paperback
Published October 31, 2022
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November 13, 2025Purchased in the local interest section while in Moab, UT (July 2025).
February 4, 2023
Andrew Gulliford’s book, Bears Ears: Landscape of Refuge and Resistance, from the University of Utah Press (2022) is a history of the region in and around San Juan County in southeastern Utah where a new national monument was designated in 2016 by President Obama. The boundaries of Bears Ears National Monument have changed with each successive presidential administration. The state government of Utah and its Republican supporters oppose extending federal control over land in the region. Native Americans generally, along with those supportive of conservation interests, support the monument.
Gulliford says his book is "not a guidebook" though it is, at least, a guide's book. Gulliford is a professor of history and also a seasoned tour guide, and he says his aim here is to blend personal memoir and environmental history. In truth, the book reads like the transcript of a tour guide in a park - conversational, expansive, and often lacking tight organization. The book deals extensively with the political and economic history of the region and focuses, especially later in the book, on the political issues related to federal land management. Gulliford has compiled ample local history material and seems determined to work it all in. In its weak spots the book is less a perspective on the history of the region that would place it in the context of wider economic or social trends, than a compendium of stories.
Let me start with what I most liked about the book. Gulliford provides valuable accounts of Native American suffering at the hands of white, primarily Mormon, settlers in the region. The long history of white residents in San Juan County working to deprive Native Americans of healthcare, land, education, the right to vote, a voice in government, and even a past - through the theft of artifacts and destruction of archaeological sites — continues to this day. The story is one of malice on the part of white and Mormon settlers and citizens and it is ongoing into the present through local political disputes.
A central focus of this theme in the book is the local indifference to federal laws against removing artifacts and human remains from Native American archaeological sites, e.g. graves and dwellings. In describing the growing impetus for legal protection of native sites, Gulliford accounts for the moral complexity of the actions of a few early excavators, Richard Wetherill in particular. Although he extracted great quantities of material from native sites, Wetherill also helped to raise awareness about the need to protect the sites. The account of how American archaeology matured through this period would make for a book in itself, as would an account of almost any aspect of the mistreatment Native Americans have experienced in Utah.
Not just appalling but also frightening is Gulliford's account of the environmental history of uranium mining and the lingering hazards for those exposed to radioactive dust and unrefined ore. Driven by a national need for uranium for defense and the energy industry, the U.S. federal government sacrificed the safety of miners and area residents through lack of regulation. It's a story, again, that might make for a book in itself and one that needs to be more widely known.
Bear's Ears is very nicely designed and produced by the University of Utah Press. The images, photographs in particular, displayed beautifully on my iPad, as good as in any book I've ever had.
I found it challenging, though, that the book kept trying to become a local history despite its broad themes. The constant attention to local stories dilutes its focus. Gulliford clearly loves to relate colorful stories about characters from the region’s past, early excavators in particular. Like a knowledgeable tour guide, he adopts the tone of someone intimate with the subject matter, which make his approach easy to embrace. But as can happen once a guide finally has an audience, the pace of exposition becomes quite leisurely.
We learn a lot that might have been omitted at no cost to the story, for instance that signs about an event near Bears Ears were stolen one summer, or that a rock was thrown at a rental car parked near a community meeting in Bluff where a contentious redistricting issue was being discussed. Perhaps these events are of keen interest to those immediately involved but for many readers outside the area it’s too parochial. I cannot help but think that a firmer editorial hand would have helped Gulliford steer a more direct course through this material.
While he wants to insert himself into the story for effect, his occasional use of the first person does not always add value. Gulliford has spent time in the landscape and had personal involvement with some of the political controversies, but he seldom gives himself an interesting role in the story. At times he is able to add detail that other records don’t provide, and there’s even a rare poetic first person reflection here and there, but too often his use of the first person doesn't add new information and instead merely validates that he's been to a particular place himself or seen a landscape feature. This isn’t experiential writing like we find in a more adventurous account of exploring the region. I’m thinking here of some writing by Craig Childs. And maybe that approach would be out of place in a historical study, but if it’s going to be used at all the first person perspective should be used at least to add greater detail or stronger opinion, if not the thrill of exploration. Where I thought it might have been deployed more extensively is in his descriptions of personal interactions with those who have played a role in the recent history of the region.
The title seems seems partly inapt. The book isn't just about the controversy of the national monument, though it's that in part. The book’s scope precedes that controversy in time and goes beyond the monument boundaries geographically in almost every chapter. It's as though Gulliford is trying to rally readers to adopt a new, politically loaded nomenclature. I think the book’s title might have better described the contents through reference to a more common or generic name for the region. I’ll admit the Bear’s Ears title grew on me over time, but I still think there’s a mismatch between the broader regional history he’s presented and the reference to one landscape feature, among many, in the area.
Finally, there are compositional oddities. Sentences of uncertain relationship frequently find themselves together in paragraphs. Gulliford quotes himself as an authority at a couple of points. President Clinton is introduced as "William." The storyteller's tack sometimes takes him off course. "I've been on the trail of this potato," he writes of a small tuber which he thinks may hold economic promise for the region — if only its toxicity can be subdued. Having spent many hours with Mr. Gulliford's book, I feel certain that should he ever catch up to it, that potato will be in for a long tale indeed.
I received a free ebook copy that was provided to me with the expectation of a review.
Gulliford says his book is "not a guidebook" though it is, at least, a guide's book. Gulliford is a professor of history and also a seasoned tour guide, and he says his aim here is to blend personal memoir and environmental history. In truth, the book reads like the transcript of a tour guide in a park - conversational, expansive, and often lacking tight organization. The book deals extensively with the political and economic history of the region and focuses, especially later in the book, on the political issues related to federal land management. Gulliford has compiled ample local history material and seems determined to work it all in. In its weak spots the book is less a perspective on the history of the region that would place it in the context of wider economic or social trends, than a compendium of stories.
Let me start with what I most liked about the book. Gulliford provides valuable accounts of Native American suffering at the hands of white, primarily Mormon, settlers in the region. The long history of white residents in San Juan County working to deprive Native Americans of healthcare, land, education, the right to vote, a voice in government, and even a past - through the theft of artifacts and destruction of archaeological sites — continues to this day. The story is one of malice on the part of white and Mormon settlers and citizens and it is ongoing into the present through local political disputes.
A central focus of this theme in the book is the local indifference to federal laws against removing artifacts and human remains from Native American archaeological sites, e.g. graves and dwellings. In describing the growing impetus for legal protection of native sites, Gulliford accounts for the moral complexity of the actions of a few early excavators, Richard Wetherill in particular. Although he extracted great quantities of material from native sites, Wetherill also helped to raise awareness about the need to protect the sites. The account of how American archaeology matured through this period would make for a book in itself, as would an account of almost any aspect of the mistreatment Native Americans have experienced in Utah.
Not just appalling but also frightening is Gulliford's account of the environmental history of uranium mining and the lingering hazards for those exposed to radioactive dust and unrefined ore. Driven by a national need for uranium for defense and the energy industry, the U.S. federal government sacrificed the safety of miners and area residents through lack of regulation. It's a story, again, that might make for a book in itself and one that needs to be more widely known.
Bear's Ears is very nicely designed and produced by the University of Utah Press. The images, photographs in particular, displayed beautifully on my iPad, as good as in any book I've ever had.
I found it challenging, though, that the book kept trying to become a local history despite its broad themes. The constant attention to local stories dilutes its focus. Gulliford clearly loves to relate colorful stories about characters from the region’s past, early excavators in particular. Like a knowledgeable tour guide, he adopts the tone of someone intimate with the subject matter, which make his approach easy to embrace. But as can happen once a guide finally has an audience, the pace of exposition becomes quite leisurely.
We learn a lot that might have been omitted at no cost to the story, for instance that signs about an event near Bears Ears were stolen one summer, or that a rock was thrown at a rental car parked near a community meeting in Bluff where a contentious redistricting issue was being discussed. Perhaps these events are of keen interest to those immediately involved but for many readers outside the area it’s too parochial. I cannot help but think that a firmer editorial hand would have helped Gulliford steer a more direct course through this material.
While he wants to insert himself into the story for effect, his occasional use of the first person does not always add value. Gulliford has spent time in the landscape and had personal involvement with some of the political controversies, but he seldom gives himself an interesting role in the story. At times he is able to add detail that other records don’t provide, and there’s even a rare poetic first person reflection here and there, but too often his use of the first person doesn't add new information and instead merely validates that he's been to a particular place himself or seen a landscape feature. This isn’t experiential writing like we find in a more adventurous account of exploring the region. I’m thinking here of some writing by Craig Childs. And maybe that approach would be out of place in a historical study, but if it’s going to be used at all the first person perspective should be used at least to add greater detail or stronger opinion, if not the thrill of exploration. Where I thought it might have been deployed more extensively is in his descriptions of personal interactions with those who have played a role in the recent history of the region.
The title seems seems partly inapt. The book isn't just about the controversy of the national monument, though it's that in part. The book’s scope precedes that controversy in time and goes beyond the monument boundaries geographically in almost every chapter. It's as though Gulliford is trying to rally readers to adopt a new, politically loaded nomenclature. I think the book’s title might have better described the contents through reference to a more common or generic name for the region. I’ll admit the Bear’s Ears title grew on me over time, but I still think there’s a mismatch between the broader regional history he’s presented and the reference to one landscape feature, among many, in the area.
Finally, there are compositional oddities. Sentences of uncertain relationship frequently find themselves together in paragraphs. Gulliford quotes himself as an authority at a couple of points. President Clinton is introduced as "William." The storyteller's tack sometimes takes him off course. "I've been on the trail of this potato," he writes of a small tuber which he thinks may hold economic promise for the region — if only its toxicity can be subdued. Having spent many hours with Mr. Gulliford's book, I feel certain that should he ever catch up to it, that potato will be in for a long tale indeed.
I received a free ebook copy that was provided to me with the expectation of a review.
May 5, 2023
The recently redesignated national monument has captured the attention of lots of people including the author of this book, Andrew Gulliford. Using his personal knowledge of portions of the Bears Ears National Monument and historical research, he guides the reader through the long struggle to have it recognized as an area significant to Indigenous people and descendants of Anglo pioneers. In the telling, Gulliford touches on prehistory and its physical remnants that attract thousands of tourists, gives passing acknowledgement of the perspectives of ranchers and settlers, and goes into detail on the behind-the-scenes discussions, petitions, and negotiations that ended with the first Bears Ears proclamation by President Obama and its subsequent downsizing by President Trump. It is a broad history of the area that dives deeply into time as it builds toward a future for the Bears Ears.
If you ignore the frequent abrupt changes in subject and whiplash from time shifts, the book is easy to read and informative. Gulliford provided some historic facts that are at odds with my understanding, but for the most part the book stands as a good mix of memory, history, and hope.
If you ignore the frequent abrupt changes in subject and whiplash from time shifts, the book is easy to read and informative. Gulliford provided some historic facts that are at odds with my understanding, but for the most part the book stands as a good mix of memory, history, and hope.
May 31, 2024
Very well researched, documented, and written -- a true eye-opener for me even though we lived in Moab in the mid-60s, visited Monticello many times, and have been to Bluff, Mexican Hat, Goosenecks of the San Juan, Natural Bridges National Monument, etc., a couple times. My wife Maurine as an infant lived with her parents briefly on the Navajo Nation. I have enjoyed other extensive related personal reading, but I see now that my knowledge was little more than that for a typical tourist. This book paints a thousands-years, time-laps picture of San Juan County, Utah. The author Andrew Gulliford, a professor of history and environmental studies at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, lived a four-decade relationship to the Bears Ears area and to San Juan County which is thoroughly explained in his Acknowledgments where he writes, "My wife and I . . . wanted to fight for landscape preservation to save the magic and mystery of Bears Ears as one of the largest intact Native American cultural landscapes in the united States." I envy him for his very interesting life. He is respectful to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, BYU, and all things Utah although in several instances he attaches the word Mormon as an adjective unnecessarily or improperly to various entities -- for example, on page 189 he speaks of "Utah's largely Mormon political delegation" in which "largely Mormon" is unsourced, irrelevant, and unnecessary. He finds good in San Juan County people while also detailing their errors. When I was a missionary for the Church in my early twenties, my understanding of the relationship between whites and indigenous peoples in San Juan County was very naive, and, for this reason and many others, I appreciate very much what I have learned from this book.
December 29, 2022
Beautiful but Sad
Well researched book that has gone into great detail about this area in the Southwest. I wish I could visit all these places but know that I must be satisfied with what I have seen. See you on the Trash Tracker, Andy
Well researched book that has gone into great detail about this area in the Southwest. I wish I could visit all these places but know that I must be satisfied with what I have seen. See you on the Trash Tracker, Andy
August 11, 2023
Good historical background for BENM.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews