During a Grand Canyon tour ,visitors can learn about not only the geological wonders of the area but the local cultures, as well. For thousands of years, several Native American tribes and nations have called the Grand Canyon region home, with descendant communities thriving there to this day. Here are a few of the groups you might get to know during your trip.

3 Native American Groups of the Grand Canyon

1. Havasupai Tribe

The Havasupai, whose name means “people of the blue-green water,” have lived in the Grand Canyon region for over 1,000 years, chiefly in the area known as Havasu Canyon. In the summer and spring, the ancestors of today’s Havasupai lived inside the canyon, taking advantage of the natural irrigation for farming. In the winter, they made their homes along the plateaus around the rim of the canyon.

Silver mining and railroad construction disrupted their traditional way of life, and in 1882, the federal government restricted their traditional homeland of nearly two million acres to just over 500. In 1975, the tribe successfully regained control of 185,000 acres of ancestral land. Today, they’re one of 11 federally recognized tribes and nations whose members you might meet on a Grand Canyon tour.

2. Navajo Nation

The Navajo call themselves Diné, or “the people,” and they’ve inhabited parts of what is now Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico for as much as 600 years. Early Navajo transitioned from hunter-gathering communities to settled farming, growing corn, beans, and squash. From the Spanish, they adopted sheep and goat-herding and silverworking.

The U.S. Army carried out several campaigns against the Navajo, forcing them onto reservations beginning in the 1860s. During World War II, Navajo men were actively recruited into the Marine Corps for service as “Code Talkers.” Today, the Navajo Nation is one of the best-known and largest federally recognized tribes in the United States, with nearly 400,000 enrolled members and 27,000 square miles of land east of the Grand Canyon.

3. Paiute Tribes and Bands

The Grand Canyon region is home to several groups of Southern Paiutes, including the Kaibab, Moapa, and Las Vegas Bands, the San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe, and the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah. Prior to contact with settlers, the various Paiute groups lived in relative peace with the neighboring Hopi, Navajo, and Ute peoples.

Paiute groups fought fiercely, and initially successfully, to resist encroachment on their traditional lands. Over the course of the 20th century, various Paiute groups succeeded in gaining federal recognition and restoring control of their traditional homelands. Today, several hundred people live on Paiute reservations to the north and east of the Grand Canyon.

If you’re interested in memorable Grand Canyon tours, get in touch with Laughlin Tours. Based in Laughlin, NV, they offer a variety of attractive tour packages covering the rim and floor of the Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam, Route 66, and the perfectly preserved gold-mining boomtown of Oatman. Call (702) 420-5345 or visit the website for more information.