This story was originally shared with us during our Story Contest by ​Cody Fetty, who won “Favorite Staff Entry” in the contest and is the Individual Placements Coordinator with Ancestral Lands Conservation Corps. The contest has ended, but you can still share your stories with us for possible publication on The Field Guide! Please email your stories (and any accompanying photos) to communications@conservationlegacy.org. 

Joining the Corps was something that I didn’t plan to do in my early twenties. I think that’s what a majority of people think when they first showed up to their orientation and the awkward stares watched you as you walked to an empty seat or sat next to a stranger from a different area code from yours. I joined in the spring of 2019. The AZCC office at the base of Dookʼoʼoosłííd, The San Francisco Peaks. I didn’t know much about camping, the outdoors or the art of fencing. I was on a fencing crew. I was hired on an Ancestral Lands Crew. I was face to face with 5 random people from 5 different areas of the Southwest. My thoughts were racing as the crew leaders were speaking to us and trying to do an ice breaker.

“Have we crossed paths at the Flea Market?”
“I wonder if they’ve done this before?”
“Is everyone here Navajo?”
“One of them better know how to make bread!”

I snapped back into it after hearing one of the leads ask me for my name. I responded how my mother and her mother and my grandmother’s mother taught me how to introduce myself. I gave more than my name. I let 5 strangers know where my mother is from, where my Cheiis (Grandfathers) are from and where I get my paternal clans. At that moment we instilled kinship on our crew, crew 366.

That sweet NDN Love.

Crew 366 was primarily based at the Grand Canyon to serve 300 hours. I grew up in Flagstaff, AZ (Sunnyside babies stand up) I lived 1 hour and 31 minutes from the Grand Canyon, never did I ever expect to get so familiar with a landscape. Never did I ever expect to do everything I learned in the corps.

I loved the repetition of a hitch schedule. Tuesday – Tuesday, if you were lucky. You would meet bright and early in either your brand new, feels starched but is just a new uniform. Or if you were seasoned and rugged like that, and you’d just stuff your uniform in either your day pack after de-rig or you left it in either a trailer or rig to return to a uniform that has tree shavings, dirt from digging tread, oil stains from chainsaw maintenance and or a grease stain from the frybread popping back at you.

In my eyes, it is a beautiful sight to see multiple crews running around at rig-up. Everyone has a task at rig-up. Don’t be all cheap and just stand there, I’d always tell myself. Or hearing my grandmother or cheiis voice in my head, “There is always something to do. Get up and move.”

That tough NDN Love.

My time in the core as a crew member to now a staff member has been rewarding in so many factors. Like I said previously, I never expected to learn so much in the corps. I formed new ideas, stepped into new friendships, instilled new skills and grew the confidence to lead and have the vulnerability to follow. I was having a reflection moment with the staff in the ALCC Navajo office the other day. I have been working with ALCC for 3 years but have been in the corps for 6 years and some change.

My most fondest moment(s) being in the corps was/is working with other Native people. From being on an Ancestral Lands crew to then running, supervising them. The joke of giving your:

Cheii
Uncle
Aunite
Niece

A job is something that always raises the question. Maybe it is nepotism? But, no. It was us creating community and expressing kinship that was taught to us by his grandma, my cheii, their auntie, his uncle. How can you be that old and be a yazh? How can you be that young and be a grandma? Honestly, the best answer we can give you is, “it’s a Native thing.”

From getting dropped off and running around at a rig-up in Flagstaff to then seeing myself in a member’s brand new boots, overly packed backpack, first season in Gallup getting dropped off and running around. I knew that I was exactly where I should be.

I am going into my 4th year with ALCC this coming February. I am proud of the work that myself and the team I work with have done over the years serving our communities, serving Native/Indigenous youth and young adults, offering jobs and career development in the field of conservation, land stewardship and cultural revitalization.

I look forward to the years ahead offering an abundance of compassion, trade-skills and career development to the cuzzins and community. To the rez kids who want to bring it back home. To the city rez kids who are still rez kids.

Concluding my love letter to the Corps. A quote from Navajo Crew 644,
“The corps saved my life.”
– unknown crew member (it was written on a dirty, muddy rig)

Forever giving that NDN Love.