Hualapai Indian Reservation, Ariz. ? A struggling Indian tribe is hoping to change its fortunes by luring tourists out over the edge of the Grand Canyon on a glass-bottom observation deck 4,000 feet above the Colorado River.

It’s called the Skywalk, a horseshoe-shaped walkway that will jut from the canyon’s lip and offer the kind of straight-down, vertigo-inducing views that had previously been available only to the likes of Wile E. Coyote.

“We have to do something, and this is something spectacular,” said Sheri Yellowhawk, a former tribal councilwoman overseeing the project.

But the $30 million Skywalk, financed by a Las Vegas businessman and set to open in March, has also ignited a debate among Hualapai (pronounced WALL-uh-pie) elders. Some question whether the prospect of riches is worth disturbing sacred ground that holds artifacts and burial sites.

But other elders say the Hualapai have to do something to end the despair and joblessness that plague the tribe’s 2,200 members, more than a third of whom live below the poverty line.

In 1995, the tribe’s only casino folded after foundering for seven months. Tourists were in no mood to travel 21 miles over an unpaved road to gamble on the reservation – especially not when Las Vegas is just 2 1/2 hours away by car.

Four years later, the tribe invited daredevil Robbie Knievel to jump a side canyon on his motorcycle, hoping the stunt would raise publicity for the reservation as a tourism destination. (He made it across without breaking any bones.)

This artist's rendering provided by Grand Canyon West shows the Hualapai Indian Tribe's Skywalk, a glass-bottom observation deck 4,000 feet above the Colorado River hanging over the western edge of the Grand Canyon.

But years later, the tribe’s river rafting and horseback riding operations still draw far fewer visitors than Grand Canyon National Park, about 90 miles to the east.

Planned as an audacious feat of engineering, the Skywalk will be cantilevered 70 feet out past the canyon’s limestone walls. It will be open to the sky, with glass walls and a glass floor.

It will be supported by steel beams anchored 46 feet into the rock on the lip of the canyon. At 4,000 feet above the canyon floor, it will give visitors a vantage point more than twice as high as the world’s tallest buildings. At that height, the Colorado River will be just a thin brown ribbon.

Architect Mark Johnson said the Skywalk will be built to withstand canyon winds of 100 mph and will be capable of holding a few hundred people without bending. It will have shock absorbers to keep it from wobbling up and down like a diving board and making people woozy.

“Hopefully it will give people some security,” he said.

The Hualapai are completely dependent on the 345,000 visitors who come to the reservation each year to tour the tribe’s end of the canyon by boat or helicopter. Grand Canyon National Park, by comparison, gets 4.1 million visitors a year.

Tickets for the Skywalk will cost $25.