Though I’m not quite in Israel yet, I thought that I’d give this blog thing a shot and talk about the family pre-kids going off adventure. Albeit only for a few days and only a few hours drive away from home, our trip to Canyon de Chelly was pretty amazing. Before going, I had heard it described as a smaller version of the Grand Canyon, so my expectations were not so high. But though the canyon, geologically, did not present such a striking impression as the immensity of the Grand Canyon, Canyon de Chelly offered so much more with respect to Native American history and modern life.
Our first impression of the canyon was mostly from the car. We drove a little bit about the periphery, getting out to see a couple of the overviews. We did one hike (the only one open to the public without a guide) on the first afternoon. I’ve gotta be honest, though, that first impression was not the most convincing.
As it turns out, Canyon de Chelly is a National Monument full of interesting politics. The canyon was the home of many different Indian tribes including the Anasazi, Hopi, and, more recently, Navajo. Because of the ties that the Navajos have to the land, they were given Canyon de Chelly as part of the reservation. However, due to the Navajo Nation’s difficulty with policing the area and preventing theft of artifacts, they turned governance over to the United States government, making Canyon de Chelly a National Monument. However, the land belonging to each clan remains in their possession and the clan members have permission to enter and even live in the canyon on their ancestral land.
Much of this information, we discovered on our second day at Canyon de Chelly when we went on a 6 hour jeep tour of the canyon (though in reality it ended up being more like 5 hours which was too short for my mom and me, but still too much for my brother and dad.) Our guide, Bobby, showed us a canyon full of spectacular pictographs painted on the canyon walls by the generations of residents of Canyon de Chelly as well as the amazing Anasazi ruins perched up in caves lining the canyon. Along the way, we also learned about the struggles that modern Navajos have with the effort to preserve their culture and the new generation’s desire to return back to the original name for the tribe, Diné. We also saw the scattering of summer homes belonging to families that move into the canyon to live during planting and grazing seasons and then come up to live in the neighboring town of Chinley. Mixed in with those were a couple of year-round houses as well as an ancient ruin that had been converted into a modern house!
All of this history and the love that the Navajo people have for this beautiful piece of the natural world made me see the canyon as much more than a gorgeous and interesting geologic occurrence to be studied (which is saying a lot for me!) No, Canyon de Chelly is nothing less than a home.
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