Loading cart contents...
The snow moon sets on a month-long stay in a very… unique place. I feel like I do these self-organized residencies—historically in the form of meandering road trips—to challenge what I know and understand, and this stay may have been the most unusual so far.
My base has been just outside of Colorado City and Hildale, a couple of sibling towns on the Arizona-Utah border founded by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), where eventually Warren Jeffs ran his polygamist cult. He was arrested and imprisoned 20 years ago. The town was just released from court supervision as it continues to transition into a normal, modern community out from under the thumb of this extremist church. There are still vestiges of those walled compounds and unfinished homes and meeting halls—often clad in plain OSB because not finishing them exempted them from some real estate taxes, and the former FLDS meeting hall and at least one other large building right on U.S. 89 are stripped, empty shells.
There are plenty of new developments, like contemporary townhomes, a mainstream LDS church, a brewery, coffee shop, and even—would you believe it—a Subway sandwich shop. These businesses, in addition to a very normal grocery store that sells wine and liquor, were out of the question a few decades ago. There was a new compound being built just down the road from where I was staying, dug into the ground like an earth home so no one could see in, and presumably, it was harder to see out.
The area is teeming with people heading to Zion or who are mountain biking on the surrounding BLM land, and new build is going in next to livestock corrals. There are OHVs everywhere, and no truck is worth its salt if it’s not a 3000 series or a Super Duty—or from the 1980s. But there are glimmers of history and culture, like Maynard Dixon and Edith Hamlin’s home and studio near Mt. Carmel. A few local artists emphasize Southwest themes, and St. George has a handful of galleries focused on regional work.
This is the strangest place to be absorbing news about ICE in Minnesota or any outside-world-anything, because this place is its own wavelength. It feels cocooned, ironically, in the wide-open desert. I’ve felt challenged and frustrated by it. But people, on the whole, have been exceedingly friendly. My car is covered in red dust. I hear gunshots occasionally across the canyon. There are 2,000-year-old Indigenous archaeological sites within minutes of where I spend much of the day working or enjoying the January sunshine. Cattle have wandered into my yard, and I’ve heard coyotes in the middle of the night. Local ranchers think that my three walks per day with my dog—gasp, on a leash—is “ambitious.”
If I were to have stayed here for three or four days, my whole outlook would be different than it is now. And I’m sure if I stayed a year, I’d understand more about what I don’t even know that there is to know. I’m sure it’s obvious to locals that I’m not from here, and I’m also certain we don’t see eye to eye on lots of things. But it’s also hard to get a read on it. I don’t relate to Dodge Rams, flag-whipping dune buggies, “modest dress,” or Mormon gospel lessons in coffee shops. But there are also a few old hippie types wandering around, and of course, plenty of out-of-state passers-through on their way to Zion National Park or the other way toward Page. Viewed through an anthropological lens, it’s fascinating to witness a place in transition, acknowledging that I’ve very little idea what it was like 20 years ago—but if this is what it feels like now, what must that have been like?
These opportunities to glimpse very different ways of life than my own are the kinds of things that open my mind and diminish my fear. There is always room to work on building both my understanding of others and my own confidence, opening portholes here and there to more empathy during a time when that is—mystifyingly—under attack. People will always surprise you. Beliefs are meant to be prodded. Conclusions are designed to be reached as a result of research. Expectations are made to be defeated. The more I travel, the less I seem to know. And the more answers I find, the more questions I have. ✧
All images by Kate Mothes.