Before long, Goulding was showing the images to 43-year ... Merriam lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Monument Valley is located within the 26,000-square-mile Navajo reservation.

Uranium mining between the 1940s and the 1970s in and around the Navajo Nation left cancer and pollution in its wake.

Peter Stackpole/The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty ImagesTwo Navajo women stand near a piece of unearthed uranium in New Mexico in 1950. For decades following the start of World War II ...

Energy Fuels also owns the Roca Honda mine near Mount Taylor in New Mexico. The shortest route from Roca Honda to the White Mesa Mill in Utah also runs through the Navajo Nation. Energy Fuels ...