01/13/2026
Join Erik Stanfield and James Foguth for this presentation, film screening and facilitated conversation about Navajo river monitoring and cultural stewardship. Attend in person at Coconino Community College (Page, AZ campus) or via Zoom.
River as Teacher is a short documentary that explores Navajo relationships to the Colorado River through river monitoring trips in the Grand Canyon. The film presents the river not as a resource to be managed, but as a living teacher—one that conveys knowledge through experience, relationship, and responsibility to place. Drawing on Navajo teachings, ceremony, and observation, the film illustrates how learning occurs on the river through presence, listening, and intergenerational exchange.
The presentation includes a screening of the film followed by a facilitated conversation about Navajo river monitoring and cultural stewardship. Discussion will address how the Navajo Nation’s monitoring work has evolved over time—from an early focus on archaeological and cultural sites to a broader, place-based approach that integrates cultural values, lived experience, and environmental observation.
The conversation will also examine how Indigenous knowledge and scientific approaches can inform land and water management in a changing environment, and how learning from place can support more thoughtful and respectful relationships with the Colorado River and the lands it sustains.
James Foguth is a Navajo (Diné) filmmaker and founder of Nizhoni Films. Raised in Lukachukai, Arizona, his work is grounded in community-based storytelling and lived Indigenous experience. He directed River as Teacher, a documentary that foregrounds Navajo relational worldviews and land-based stewardship, exploring Indigenous leadership and cultural responsibility within river and land management.
Erik Stanfield is a Senior Anthropologist with the Navajo Nation Heritage and Historic Preservation Department. His work focuses on Navajo participation in the Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Program, where cultural values, lived experience, and on-the-ground learning inform land and river management. He works at the intersection of Indigenous knowledge, science, and federal decision-making, with an emphasis on collaboration, humility, and place-based understanding.
