2018 - Blog #6 - Lands Rich in Indian History

Panorama of Monument Valley

Heading south from Moab, we skirted the edges of Canyonlands National Park and Bears Ears National `Monument until we entered the Navajo Nation on the southern-most, eastern edge of Utah. 

Driving south into Monument Valley

  Here we stayed in Goulding’s Campground, in Olijato-Monument Valley, just across the highway from the Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park.   We just loved this campground.  It was nestled in the crevice of two massive red rock walls and we looked out our front-room window at the most beautiful view of Monument Valley.   It was hot and dry here too but there was a nice, constant breeze through this campground that made it comfortable.  

Goulding's Campground - our HiLo is in the middle of the picture

 This area is rich in Indian culture and in the history of the Goulding’s friendship and business relationship with the local Navajos.   The rock formations here are known for resembling animals and other familiar images (ie: “John Wayne’s boot”).  The first known inhabitants of the valley were the Anasazi Indians who lived here over 1500 years ago.  In 1924 the Gouldings moved here and established a trading post but they are best remembered for bringing the motion picture industry to the valley which provided income and assistance for the Navajo’s survival.   The first movie filmed here (in 1938) was “Stagecoach,” starring John Wayne.   Some of the other well-known movies filmed in this valley are:  Thelma and Louise, How the West Was Won, The Trial of Billy Jack, Back to the Future III, Billy the Kid, and Forest Gump.   Thousands of visitors from all over the world now come to see Monument Valley.

Us with Right Mitten Mesa in the left background - several famous auto commercials have been filmed here and Metallica made a music video while up on top of the mesa

While we were here we took a jeep tour with a Navajo guide and learned so much about the tribal park and the people who live here.   Most of the people who live here do not have electricity or running water. They drive several times a day (our guide said even up to 5 times a day) to get free water from a fresh water source on the Goulding property just past our campground.   The pickup trucks, often with small trailers, haul huge water containers that carry around 100 gal. of water each. 

Navajo homestead

"female" Hogan with small sweatlodge Hogan in the back

   The wood covered with mud homes that they live in are called Hogans.   The larger (round) Hogan is the one they live in and is considered “female,”   the smaller (more rectangular) one is the “male” Hogan, and the very small (also more rectangular) one is the sweat lodge for religious purposes and meditation.  About 300 families live in the valley year round.

Wild mustangs in Monument Valley

From Monument Valley, we crossed over into Arizona and headed southeast to Canyon De Chelly (pronounced “d-shay”) National Monument in Chinle, AZ.   This part of the Navajo Nation was quite different because it definitely doesn’t have the income resources that Monument Valley has and the poverty is seen in the beggars, solicitors, stray dogs and cats, and signs that warn tourists to lock their vehicles and not leave valuables inside.  

First Ruin - Canyon De Chelly National Monument

  Even the Cottonwood Campground in the National Park was managed, or maybe better described as “minimally managed”, by the Navajo nation and was a bit sketchy.   We stayed there two nights and Jerome slept through all the weirdness in this campground but Jean didn’t get much sleep at all.    The first evening that we were there a drunk, scruffy-looking guy drove his Polaris ORV erratically through the campground, rap music blaring, a black pirate- skull flag waving in the breeze, stopping at many of the campsites (including ours!), giving the finger, then pointing and shouting “F….  YOU”!    It was first, and hopefully last time (in a campground), that Jean felt unsafe enough to call the police. 

pictographs (drawings and paintings) on the walls of Echo Cave Ruin - Canyon De Chelly National Monument

petroglyphs (carvings) on the walls near Kokopelli Cave - Canyon De Chelly National Monument

 

Jean had visited here 56 years ago with her family and they had hiked down the 600 ft. cliff wall to the White House Ruin.   She was excited to return here to relive the memories and experience with Jerome.

White House Ruin - Canyon De Chelly National Monument

 This time though we opted to take the Navajo- guided jeep tour instead of torturing our poor bodies and maybe making it down the cliff but not being able to get back up and live to tell the story!    The tour was wonderful.  We were very lucky to get a great guide who grew up in the canyon and still lives there.   Canyon De Chelly is considered a “closed canyon” meaning that what happens there is determined by the 65 families that live there and no one can enter the canyon without a guide.   In fact, the first mile or so into the canyon is a struggle through a foot or two deep sand and can only be traversed by horseback, foot, or high-clearance 4-wheel drive.   The rest of the tour was also in sand but not quite as deep.   5 MPH seemed fast under these conditions!   People have lived in Canyon De Chelly’s several canyons for nearly 5,000 years. 

if you look closely in the middle of the picture you will see the footholds carved into the canyon wall - this is part of one of the 36 "hidden" trails up to the top of the canyon

 These people included the Basketmakers, the Anasazi (predecessors of today’s Hopi and Pueblo Indians), and now the Dine’, the Navajo people.   As in the Monument Valley Tribal Park, the families that live here in Canyon De Chelly do not have electricity or running water either.   We did see one home that had solar and we learned that only 3 of the families stay year round down in the canyon.   They have had a 5 year drought here and since the Army Corps of Engineers built dams upstream, depriving them of their main water source 9 years ago, it has made life very hard for the people living in the canyons on their small farms with their animals and fruit trees.  All-in-all, we both thought it was worth Jean being scared a bit while we were there to be able to see this canyon and learn about the history and the people who live here.

mustang colt (it's mother was nearby) - the mustangs in Canyon De Chelly are free roaming but are all owned by the Navajo families that live in canyon valley

After being in the Navajo Nation for five days, it was time to move on.    ‘Until our next blog,  we send you our best wishes and hope all is well for you and yours.        Jerome & Jean   (and Carly, too)