For Immediate Release: July 20, 2007
Contact: Erica Asmus-Otero (505) 660-7017/Erica.asmus-otero@state.nm.us

Santa Rosa Lake State Park Part of Event to
Retrace Navajo ‘Long Walk’

SANTA ROSA, NM – Forty teachers from seven school districts on the Navajo Nation will be
retracing steps to Fort Sumner, New Mexico – the same route that their ancestors took more than 140 years ago - which will include a stop at Santa Rosa Lake State Park. The group will participate in a bus tour to the Bosque Redondo Memorial at Fort Sumner, touring various associated lands and sites along the way, during the trip slated for Wednesday, July 25 through Thursday, July 26. Orientation for teachers starts at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, July 24 in Albuquerque at the Plaza Inn Albuquerque.

“This Tour is a great opportunity to further explore the heritage of Santa Rosa State Park and the indigenous peoples that shape the diverse heritage of the region, and fits with our mission to expand outdoor education,” said Park Manager Mike Brown. “State Parks extends a warm welcome to the Tour and we look forward to future collaboration with the Navajo Nation.”

The tour follows one of the major routes to Fort Sumner that the Navajos were forced to take under the orders of Colonel Kit Carson. Nearly 9,000 Navajo captives were forced to march over 350 miles to Bosque Redondo during the winter of 1864. Those who survived the “Long Walk” joined the Mescalero Apache at Bosque Redondo.

Approximately 200 Navajo died of cold and starvation during the two month trek, while others died after they arrived at the reservation. Most of the Mescalero Apaches eluded the military guards and abandoned the reservation in November 1865; while another three years passed for the Navajos before the United States Government acknowledged Navajo sovereignty, which later took place in the historic Treaty of 1868. A century later, a portion of Fort Sumner and the Bosque Redondo Reservation were declared a New Mexico State Monument in 1968.

On Wednesday, July 25, the tour will focus on outdoor science education at Santa Rosa Lake State Park, and include a drive through eastern New Mexico. On Thursday, July 26, the tour will continue to Bosque Redondo Memorial at Fort Sumner State Monument.

Dr. Jennifer Nez Denetdale, who is the first Navajo woman to earn a PhD in history from the University of New Mexico, will speak at the park as well as Katie Gilbert, a Navajo
mathematics/science teacher from Kirtland Central High School and Navajo Nation Water
Rights Commissioner; and Colorado Supreme Court Justice Gregory Hobbs, a noted authority in Western water law. At the park, teachers will learn about the ecology of the landscape then and now.

The event is part of a five-year, $2 million grant to the University of Northern Colorado’s
Presidential Academy in History and Civics Education related to the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, which seeks to develop better-informed citizens through higher standards of teaching history and government. Similarly, New Mexico State Parks’ outdoor classroom initiative - No Child Left Inside - aims to utilize outdoor classroom sites to improve student academic achievement, increase test scores, build resource stewardship ethics, and increase teacher job satisfaction.

The trip is sponsored by the University of Northern Colorado’s Presidential Academy in History and Civics Education, and funded through the US Department of Education.
For more information, contact Santa Rosa Lake State Park at (505) 472-3110 or Michael Welsh at (970) 302-9207. A website for the program with a complete listing of the week’s events is available at: http://www.unco.edu/middleground.

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