Navajo Nation

The drop is over 300 metres. The path, steep and narrow, is a jumble of large boulders washed down a jut in the cliff side in one of Arizona’s epic downpours. Black, the mustang beneath me, is growing more hesitant with every step. He picks his spots carefully, like a dandy trying to cross a rock strewn stream without getting wet.

Gabriel Chester, our Navajo guide, frustrated at Black’s tentative pace, dismounts, walks over to a tree, twists off a branch and puts it in my saddlebag saying “here’s your gas pedal.”

Now I merely have reach toward the switch and Black instantly overcomes his reluctance, tackling the rocks with a new found bravado.

“That’s it,” says Chester whose horse, Charlie, shows none of Black’s carefulness. “You have to let him know who the boss is.”

Arizona and the Grand Canyon are synonymous in most people’s minds, but the state is also home to another deep cut in the Colorado Plateau—the Canyon de Chelly. It, along with the adjoining Canyon del Muerto (Canyon of the Dead) and Monument Canyon form the Canyon de Chelly National Monument, which lies entirely within the Navajo Nation in the northeastern corner of the state.

Although smaller than the Grand some 225 kilometres to the west, Canyon de Chelly (pronounced de-SHAY) has a visceral pull unique unto itself. Hosting the ghosts of some 5,000 years of inhabitants, its ancientness is revealed through the Anasazi ruins tucked into the steep sides of its walls.

Yet while the timeless aura of the canyon is strong, it resists being just a relic of the past. From a lookout high above, we watch the microscopic activity down on the canyon floor. The Navajo still use it as grazing land, and what look to be miniature replicas of horses and sheep, call out for closer inspection.

“The canyon heals your mind,” Chester tells us. “You just ride down into the canyon and you feel the beauty, it’s like heaven. You feel the air and the emotions. People cry when they first come here because they see things with their imaginations.”

In truth, the imagination has very little work to do.

With its ruins, ancient petroglyphs, and red finger-like rock formations jutting from its floor, the narrow valley generates a magical realism all on its own. Even a simple hogan, the traditional Navajo log cabin, standing lonely on a rise with the red canyon wall towering behind it, casts a spell of perfect pastoral enchantment.

It’s close to a half an hour before the hard angle of the path finally flattens out. Given the dryness of the land above, I’m surprised by the tight thicket of cottonwoods and cedars that greets us on the floor of the canyon.

We breath it all in. Eventually, I ask Chester if we can run the horses a little. He laughs, nods, and kicks both heels into his horse’s sides.

Black breaks into a trot instantly, as if the slow saunter was not his natural pace. Soon he’s in full gallop heading toward a darkened grove of Russian olive trees ahead. The hardy trees with their silvery foliage bring a welcome lushness to the canyon floor, but are not without controversy. Russian olives—the name points to foreign origins—were introduced nearly 100 years ago, ostensibly to stop erosion of the valley floor. But some Navajo who live here say it was to make the land more pleasing to the white man’s eye. Whatever the reason, the quick-spreading trees made the soil unsuitable for its traditional use as farmland.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 20th, 2007 at 8:50 pm and is filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site. Add to del.icio.us.