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Canyon de Chelly National Monument, Arizona
Keep off the path, beware the gate, watch out for signs that say hidden driveways
Canyon de Chelly (pronounced Canyon de Shay but spelled Canyon de Chelly for no good reason) is both a National Monument run by the US Department of the Interior as well as someone's home, at least during the summer. This unusual mixed use is aided by the natural geography of the place- the easily accessible canyon rim is filled with overlooks and park visitors while the floor of the canyon is left to Navajo farms and summer homes and has an almost complete ban on all non-Navajo visitors. And while the two worlds are separate and may even be equal, it sure as hell doesn't feel that way in person. Looking down from the top, you soon find that all you want to do is to step foot in those forbidden lands and see what all the fuss is about for yourself.
The Navajo might not want you to visit the canyon floor but luckily there are still ways down. The NPS maintains and allows unaccompanied visitors on one trail only, the White House Trail, a short out and back trip down and across the canyon to see a small cliff dwelling. The trail is maybe two miles total and only drops 500 or 600 feet, but you feel every step (at least on the way back) in the high elevations of the hot dry desert. And while you may be allowed on the trail you are certainly not allowed off the trail, multiple signs warn you that private property surrounds you and that heavy fines await anyone curious enough to wander off the trail and into the reservation.
Ok, so first the Navajo say that everything on the canyon floor is forbidden, but then they allow you on a trail and then they even let you drive right on down into the canyon to see anything you want, although with that last freedom comes a few stipulations. First of all you need a Navajo with you at all times (which seems reasonable), you need to pay a fee (the park is otherwise free so I guess that seems reasonable too) and you can't take any pictures of any Navajo or their homes (slightly less reasonable though certainly understandable). The park allows you to rent your own private Navajo to ride with you in your own private car (or walk with you down the canyon on forbidden trails) or you can go on a private or group tour led by a local. I chose the last option, a half day afternoon guided driving tour that included stops in both Canyon de Chelly and the attached Canyon del Muerto. The trip took us past farms and dwellings (photos bad) and cliff drawings and cliff dwellings (photos good).
One quick story. The afternoon tour left at 1PM and lasted four hours, and while I did not miss the tour a few others (for thoroughly understandable reasons) did. All four corner states are in the US Mountain Time Zone, however as a law the state of Arizona does not practice daylight savings time. Contrary to this practice, the large Navajo Nation inside Arizona does practice daylight savings time while the Hopi Reservation (contained entirely within the Navajo Nation which is within Arizona) does not practice daylight savings time. As you drive through the state(s) and through the reservation(s) there are no signs letting you know of such oddities and sudden changes, no warnings, no help. So if you decide to drive to Chinle and Canyon de Chelly keep that in mind (and check your watch against every clock you can find).
The cliffs at Canyon de Chelly have similar cliff formations and dwellings (though much smaller) to what you might find in Mesa Verde in Colorado. For indeterminate reasons, the large Ancient Puebloan population abandoned Mesa Verde around 1200 and headed south. Theories such as droughts, invading tribes and overuse of resources are popular, although one ranger told the story of a member of the Hopi tribe who had a far different explanation. He said that they left because it was just time to leave.
The Hopi man may not have only had a point but he may have also had the answer. After the Ancient Puebloans dispersed from their cliff dwellings they disappeared into other tribes, including the Hopi, the most traditional of the remaining North American tribes. The Hopi have no written history or religion but instead a strong oral tradition, told and retold for generations and decades and centuries all the way back to the Ancient Puebloans and beyond. What is left (after over 800 years of people playing the game "telephone" over and over again) is the single, simple reason (it was just time to leave) that no western fact trained archaeologists could probably ever suggest or possibly even understand.
All over the place, all over the cliffs you'll find evidence of past visitors. In addition to the sporadic (small) cliff house ruins, you'll find cliff drawings from the Ancient Puebloans, the Hopi and then the Navajo, usually side by side by side. After the Ancient Puebloans disappeared the Hopi moved in and then the Navajo. Relatively speaking, the Navajo were late comers to the southwest, their tribe migrated from Alaska and in fact speak the same language (Athabascan) as the tribes near Denali and the First Nations in the Yukon. The Navajo and Hopi did not especially get along, and the Navajo today regard the Ancient Puebloan sites as little more than curious ruins, one of the reasons that they want their own privacy protected but could care less how many photos you take of someone else's ruins.
Life in the canyon floor can be beautiful, dusty, isolated, surprising and tough, although if you're a Navajo you're probably already used to things like that. The Navajo were in the canyon when the Spanish arrived and again when the Spanish forced groups of Navajo into slavery in (what is now) Texas and again when the US Calvary and Kit Carson came and again when they were forced out in a 300 mile death march and again five years later when the survivors were allowed to return. Today the situation for the Dine (what the Navajo call the Navajo) seems much more stable, families that once farmed land in the canyon still farm land in the canyon and families that once lived in the canyon still live (summer only) in the canyon, although I guess many of them spend their time guiding visitors around or trying to sell them souvenirs.
