"There was little that we had as far as material things," says Louella Nahsonhoya, whose photo and oral history are one of many on display in the School of Communication's new exhibit, "That's What It Looked Like." Photo by Dan Boone and Ryan Belnap/NAU Bilby Research Center

'That's What It Looked Like':
New exhibit showcases northern Arizona's land and people

The land is full of stories. In northern Arizona, they're stories of weather, of cattle, of wildlife. They're stories about water—or its lack. They're stories of how people have managed to live in rugged, challenging environments.

Some of the stories northern Arizonans tell about the land will be on display in a new exhibit at the NAU School of Communication gallery. "That's What It Looked Like: Selections from Northern Arizona's Ecological Oral Histories" showcases words and photos collected as part of a groundbreaking oral history project at NAU.

Since 2005, NAU's Ecological Oral Histories project has collected tales from ranchers, foresters, Native American farmers, wildlife biologists and other long-term residents of northern Arizona. The people interviewed have told of fires, floods, droughts, snowstorms, the rise of tourism, changing ranching and forest economies and changing Native American communities from the 1930s to the present day.

Large-format color photographs of the narrators—taken by NAU photographers Dan Boone and Ryan Belnap—and large text panels relating their stories will be on display from Oct. 30 through Nov. 16.

Admission is free. An opening reception will take place from 5-7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 30. The gallery is on the second floor of the School of Communication, building 16, on Knoles Drive.

"Oral histories allow us to document the stories of people who otherwise don't become part of the written historical record," says project coordinator Peter Friederici, assistant professor of journalism in the School of Communication. "Memories fade and people pass on. It's vital to get these stories down so that people who live in northern Arizona in the future will know how the land and people changed during the 20th century."