North Kaibab Ranger District

The district encompasses most of the Kaibab Plateau, with the southern boundary bordering Grand Canyon National Park. A visitor center is located at Jacob Lake, 30 miles south and east of Fredonia at the junction of highways US 89A and AZ 67. Major John Wesley Powell, the famous explorer of the Colorado River, was the first in written record to apply the term “Kaibab” to the plateau. “Kaibab” is a Paiute Indian word meaning “mountain lying down.” Most of the Kaibab Plateau was withdrawn from the public domain in 1893 as part of the Grand Canyon Forest Reserve. In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt created the Grand Canyon Game Preserve. This area included lands on both sides of the Grand Canyon and essentially all of the North Kaibab Ranger District. In 1908, the forest reserve north of the Grand Canyon, including the game preserve, was renamed the Kaibab National Forest. In 1919, Grand Canyon National Park was created from the Forest Service lands surrounding the Grand Canyon. In 1934, the Tusayan National Forest south of the Grand Canyon was consolidated into the Kaibab National Forest, forming the present forest boundaries. The forest area north of the Canyon became the North Kaibab Ranger District, one of the three ranger districts of the Kaibab National Forest. The Kaibab Plateau is an island of forested lands surrounded by the sage, grasslands and canyons of lower elevations. The plateau, with elevations up to 9,000 feet, is bordered on the south by the Grand Canyon, on the east and west by tributary canyons of the Colorado River, and on the north by plains that are dissected by the tiers of uplifted cliffs of the Grand Staircase.