Jane Marie Baloo, 69, whose home lies 7 miles north of Black Mesa Chapter, has been a Kitsiili resident all her life.

She has seen the mode of transportation go from horses and wagons to automobiles.

“In the old days we used horses and wagons for our transportation. It was easier then. In those days the roads used to be like wagon trails. It wasn’t as hard. Our own transportation doesn’t last long. Tear and wear. With the horses, it’s different. You don’t have to worry about flat tires on the horses,” Baloo said.

“My dad, he passed on about 32 years ago. He would tell us, ‘Maybe it’s going to be you,” who will see the road paved.

“Now, what he said is coming, and I want to see the highway.”

Baloo recalled the first time she ever saw an automobile in Kitsiili back in the 1940s. It belonged to a resident they called “The Man With The Vehicle.” When her brother returned from serving his country, he too, had an automobile.

“I used to think, ‘What did they do to the wagons?’ In those days, the vehicles looked like wagons — the way the wheels were — the old Model T. This is what my brother used to drive back and he used to transport me to the boarding school in Piñon. I watched him drive and I thought, ‘This is amazing.’”

Last winter, with snow 5 feet deep in some places with up to 8 foot drifts, they ran out of hay for the horses, she said. As the snow melted, it became too muddy for the animals to go out and forage on their own. When she and her husband Freddie attempted to go into Piñon for supplies, they mired down in the mud.

Road crews from Navajo and Apache counties and the Bureau of Indian Affairs got them back on the road and guided them all the way to the highway. “That’s how we got feed for the animals and water to help us. These are the kind of times that we go through every year,” she said.

“With the highway here, we can travel to the (main) highway and get what we want — like the other people do.”

Helene Yellowhorse, 71, lives on the west side of Oraibi Wash. “There is 50 homes and 200 people there, and 69 students they have to pick up every day. Sometimes we get the mud so bad the students miss the bus — no school for like a whole month last year. We are so far behind.”

Amos Johnson, Navajo Nation Council delegate for Black Mesa/Forest Lake/Rough Rock, said construction of N-8066 is long overdue. “It’s been in the planning 30 years. It’s 14 miles up to the school, but the first stage is only going to cover 7 miles. That’s $33 million. So we’re going to try to work on Phase II to get support to move that up on the priority list.

“We’ve done plenty of stories in the past and everybody knows what we go through at Black Mesa. We’re resilient people. We try to prepare for the winter every year.”

Yellowhorse said she has to cross two washes to get to her home. “Sometimes it gets really deep in the big snow and we can’t get across for like a whole month, and we have to kind of almost suffer.”

She has worked as a long-term care provider with the state Access program for about 12 years, traveling the dirt roads to Black Mesa, Rough Rock and Piñon every day to check on elderly patients.

“I get a new truck and use it 4-wheel, and it only takes about four years till it’s falling apart. You get stuck in the mud, there’s no choice. You have to dig. If you have a chain, you put the chain on, even if it’s in the water,” she said.

“Working with the elderlies, we have to show ourselves up there every day. They need help so bad, with their coal, with their woods, with their water. Some of them are on dialysis.

Some you have to give them shots. They don’t know how much medicine to put in there themselves. Some ladies they can’t see, they can’t read. You have to be out there.”

Rose Lee, 58, was raised in Black Mesa by her mother and grandmother. She is the oldest of 14 brothers and sisters.

“My grandma and my mom, both of them had a heart attack.

They didn’t make it because of the road. My grandma, she got sick and got stuck in the mud. That’s the way we lost her. And the same way with my mom. She had a heart attack and she didn’t make it to the hospital. That happened again two years ago in May. My oldest grandson, he turned 10, and we didn’t make it to the hospital again. He had asthma,” she said.

Critical patients are taken to either the Indian Health Service hospital in Chinle or Hopi Health Care Center. “In Piñon, they don’t take emergency care at night. It’s only during the day.

When we have a lot of snow, they use the helicopter,” Lee said.

Back around 1966 and again in 1975 they had big snows. Hay for the animals and food supplies had to be brought in by helicopter. “When we needed milk for the babies, we had to use the horses to go to Piñon (22 miles away) to get milk for them,” she said. “That’s why we need a better road, a paved road. This is really a rough place.”

Dorothy Yazzie also has her share of memories from being stuck on N-8066. “I was with my kids and my niece and we got stuck about 5 miles down toward Piñon late at night.

There was nobody, no help, nothing. We had to walk about 3 miles just to go home.

“That was a horrible experience for me and my kids, walking in the pitch black and making sure we stayed on the road, and trying to figure out where it turns off to the wash. We had to walk into the wash and that was even more scary,” she said.