Navajo Nation

As a result, the gulch now holds more weekend painters and Jeep tours then it does crop growers. This situation has let Navajo who are open to tourism thrive, and left those nostalgic for the past, slightly bitter.

The sun is a falling red disc by the time we climb back to the canyon rim. Back at the stable, we linger on our horses, talking with Levi Bigwater, who runs the Totsonii Ranch. Though only in his early 20s, he’s steeped in knowledge of both the land and the myths born of it. He tells how the hero twins of Navajo lore angered a menacing giant who lived in this area.

“The twins infuriated the giant so much, he smashed his club down on the earth with such force that the ground split and the canyon formed,” Bigwater says in what I’ve come to learn is typical Navajo deadpan.

The twins eventually outwitted the giant and rid the Navajo people of his presence, but the canyon would forever carry the legacy of its violent formation.

By necessity the Navajo came to see Canyon de Chelly as their last line of defence, both from earlier Spanish attacks from the south and the later Americans who marauded from the east. Present day names like Massacre Cave serve as reminders of a tragic past.

But it was the expedition ordered by Brig.–Gen. James Carleton, and fronted by Col. Christopher (Kit) Carson in 1863 that had the most devastating effect. Whether it was a ruse for the U.S. government to get at the gold believed to be under the Navajo land, or simply as retribution for Navajo raids on American outposts, is a matter of some debate. What is unquestioned is that Carson’s campaign was so ruthless the Navajo had no choice but to surrender.

With that, the Long Walk of 1864 began. Conditions on the infamous 500-kilometre forced march were so dire that coyotes trailed the Navajo waiting for the next one to drop from weakness. The 8,000 who survived the walk found little solace at their destination.

For the next four years they were interned at Fort Sumner in eastern New Mexico where the land was unarable land and even more of them succumbed to starvation. Not knowing what to do with a bad situation getting rapidly worse, Washington decided to set the Navajo free to return to their own land.

“The Americans made a mistake after Fort Sumner,” Chester says while standing on a rock protruding over the deep canyon. The bitterness that marked his face as he mentioned “Sumner” and “Long Walk” suddenly clears, to be replaced with a proud, somewhat mischievous, grin.

“They opened the gates and just let us leave,” he continues. “They didn’t chase us back to one small area. So we got all this.” Chester’s hand extends out over the canyon and beyond it to the wide, vast plateau that stretches as far as the eye can see.

Technically a 70,000 sq. km reservation, Navajo Nation seems a better name for an expanse of land roughly the same size as Wyoming. The Nation spans three states, but photographer Jason George and I narrowed our focus to the one holding the largest chunk of it, Arizona.

Over the course of our tour we put roughly 3,500 kilometres on our Kia Rio rental trying to drink in as much of this mystical land as we can. And while the little car couldn’t be faulted for moaning about the pace and frequency of our travel, it’d be hard pressed to gripe about the scenery.

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.