International Visitors Will Face Much Higher NPS Entry Fees

Hi Everyone, Kate here.

Please indulge me for a few words about Archaeology Southwest’s year-end campaign on this Giving Tuesday. Your gifts wholly fund this weekly newsletter and so many other aspects of our work not funded by grants and contracts.

We’re thinking a lot these days about trails, pathways, detours, and resilience. That might resonate. Here’s a video statement from Steve on this.

Through to the new year, our staff are contributing weekly blog posts on this theme of pathways, and I can tell you, as our group copyeditor who has seen the recollections now published and the insights coming soon, these essays are moving, poetic, and thought-provoking. I’m so blessed to work with these folks.

And that especially includes Sara Anderson, Director of Outreach (which includes being our social media manager), who is bringing our staff members into the sound booth in her office and recording them reading their own words. Magical.

Here’s Skylar Begay in words and in audio.

Here’s John Welch in words and in audio.

I hope you listen—you won’t be sorry. And thanks for considering a donation to keep this newsletter, and all of our work, going strong and moving forward.

Sincerely,

(No signature this time because that image file messes up the particular template for this email on some providers; we’re working on it. But you all know I’m a real person!)

Kate Sarther, VP of Communications & Outreach, Archaeology Southwest

Banner image: Balcony House courtyard, NPS

International Visitors Will Face Much Higher NPS Entry Fees

Starting on Jan. 1, foreign tourists will have to pay a $100 surcharge to visit the country’s most popular national parks under a new plan by the Trump administration. That’s three to five times the typical entry fee for U.S. residents. …

The increased pricing comes as more and more international tourists are choosing to stay away from the United States. Canadians, who have historically formed a large share of international travelers, are continuing to boycott American destinations amid [the] trade war and harsh rhetoric directed at Canadians. Chris Ameron and Maxine Joselow for the New York Times | Read more »

International Visitation to Navajo Nation Parks “Evaporates”

Fallout from the slump in travel to the United States has reached all the way to Monument Valley, where a dozen Navajo guides told The New York Times that their international business evaporated this year. Foreign arrivals to the United States overall are down nearly 5 percent, or 2.3 million people, through August compared with the same period in 2024, according to the U.S. Travel Association. …

Data from the credit card company Visa showed spending by Canadians, who make up [San Juan County (UT)]’s largest share of international visitors, was down 37 percent this year through June compared with the same period last year, said Allison Yamamoto-Sparks, the county’s visitor services manager. Gabe Castro-Root for the New York Times | Read more »

Grand Canyon Park Employees Follow Other NPS Units in Move to Unionize

Grand Canyon National Park workers are moving ahead with a union drive that will become official Monday, when they file their petition with the Federal Labor Relations Board. Organizers say close to half of the park’s 500 employees have already signed on. …

Workers pushing to join the National Treasury Employees Union say they started the campaign due to concerns about looming job cuts and the future of their benefits. Shanoa Totherow, another Grand Canyon National Park employee, told KNAU, “Nobody is coming to save us, so we need to do something for ourselves.” Karla Demery for The Travel | Read more »

17,000 Acres Returned to California Tribe

Tule elk are once again roaming the Sierra Nevada foothills southwest of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks after a historic land return that Gov. Gavin Newsom is calling the largest of its kind in the region’s history.

The 17,030 acres made up of two former ranch properties were recently returned to the Tule River Indian Tribe, the California Natural Resources Agency announced on Wednesday. The tribe’s ancestral lands straddle the foothills of present-day Tulare County. Sam Mauhay-Moore for SF Gate | Read more »

UCLA Student Groups Hold NAGPRA Teach-In

The offices of Sherry Zhou, the Undergraduate Students Association Council’s external vice president, and Jayha Buhs Jackson, a USAC general representative, hosted the event alongside the American Indian Student Association.

Attendees learned how to submit student testimonials to the UC Board of Regents about the UC’s allegedly incomplete repatriation of all remains and belongings. Buhs Jackson encouraged attendees to speak during public comment at the UC Regents’ meeting—held Tuesday to Thursday at UCLA—as part of the accountability process. Jamie Joaquin for the Daily Bruin | Read more »

Call for Proposals: Research and Travel Grants, Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society

AAHS entertains proposals for Research and Travel Grant Awards each year between January 1 and February 15. Membership in AAHS is required and all members are eligible to apply. Student memberships are only $20! Research grants of up to $1,400 are awarded annually. Travel grants of up to $700 are also available to support or present research. Research in archaeology, anthropology, history, or ethnology in the US Southwest or Northern Mexico is considered. Learn more »

The $5,000 annual F. Lewis Orrell, Jr.-Carryl B. Martin Research Grant honors two of AAHS’s benefactors, Carryl B. Martin and F. Lewis Orrell Jr., whose bequests to the Society made this award possible. A single award of $5,000.00 is given annually to a high-quality archaeological or historical research project that focuses on significant questions in the archaeology or history of the southwestern US or northern Mexico. In the spirit of the donors, projects that provide opportunities for participation by avocational researchers or collaborate with affiliated descendent communities will be prioritized. Learn more »

Publication Announcement: Historical Ecology and Cultural Keystone Places

Steve Wolverton and Chelsey Geralda Armstrong, issue editors. Ethnobiology Letters Vol. 16, No. 2, 2025. Read more (open access) »

Publication Announcement: SAA Archaeological Record Vol. 25, No. 5

Authors include Michael R. Polk; Alice B. Kehoe; Jeffery H. Altschul and Keith W. Kintigh; German Loffler; Anna S. Antoniou, Caty DuDevoir, and Taylor Haynes; and Grace Hunt Sui. Society for American Archaeology | Read now (free digital edition) »

TONIGHT, Dec. 2, Online and In-Person (Tucson AZ) Event: Path of Light: Retracing the Expeditions of Charles L. Bernheimer

With Morgan Sjogren. In 1929, explorer Charles L. Bernheimer dreamed up a National Park proposal that may have prevented Glen Canyon Dam and protected the surrounding landscape. Inspired by a decade of expeditions in the Four Corners region, Bernheimer wanted to “do more than be a sightseeing tourist.” To contextualize past and present efforts to protect Glen Canyon, author Morgan Sjogren retraced Bernheimer’s more than 300-day-long Glen Canyon expedition, guided by historic journals and photographs. Archaeology Café (Archaeology Southwest) | Register to attend in person (free) » | Register to attend online (free) »

December In-Person Lectures (Santa Fe NM)

Dec. 8, Thatcher Seltzer-Rogers, Ascendancy of Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, Mexico; Dec. 15, Sarah Oas, Foodways and Archaeology: What Histories of Flavor and Cuisine Tell us about the Past. 6:00 p.m., Hotel Santa Fe. $20 at the door or $55 for the series of 3 programs. Southwest Seminars | Learn more »

Dec. 5 Online Event: Macaws for Metal?

With Michael Mathiowetz. After AD 900, scarlet macaws from tropical Mesoamerica became significant in ritualism of Mogollon and Puebloan societies in the US Southwest and Mexican Northwest. A cross-continental “Aztatlán-Huasteca Network” may have connected Aztatlán societies in west Mexico to the Gulf Coast during the Postclassic period, thereby facilitating the eastward transmission of metals and metallurgy to the Huasteca with scarlet macaws moving along the Gulf Coast westward to Aztatlán societies and northward to the SW/NW. Mathiowetz will explore the evidence and logistics of these ritual economies in northern Mesoamerica. Pre-Columbian Society of Washington DC | Learn more and register (free) »

Dec. 18 Online Event: Inhabitants of an Archaeological and International “Frontier”

With Hunter Claypatch. Speaking on the Precolonial History of the Santa Cruz Valley and the Arizona-Sonora Borderlands, Claypatch will share how Hohokam and Trincheras culture inhabitants of this contact zone were shaped by regional cultural interactions yet flourished and had unique forms of expression from 700 to 1300 CE. Third Thursday Food for Thought series (Old Pueblo Archaeology Center) | Learn more and register (free) »

Dec. 21 Winter Solstice Tour (Marana AZ)

With Allen Dart. From 8:30 to noon, Dart will lead a tour to Los Morteros Hohokam Village and Signal Hill CCC & Petroglyph Sites near Tucson. Los Morteros is an ancient village site that includes a large Hohokam ballcourt, bedrock mortars, and other archaeological features. The Signal Hill site in the Tucson Mountains includes Hohokam petroglyphs and historic 1930s Civilian Conservation Corps architecture. Participants provide $45 donation and their own transportation. Register by 5:00 p.m. on December 19. Old Pueblo Archaeology Center | Learn more »

Remember to send us notice of upcoming events and webinars, tours and workshops, and anything else you’d like to share with the Friends. Thanks!