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Native, Natural Northeast Arizona

From Indian Country to Picturesque Parklands

By Jeff Burdick

Look at any map of Arizona, and you’ll see lots of blank spots. Military bases, national forest, Indian reservations, wildlife refuges. They gobble up more than half of the state’s total land area. Nowhere is this more true than the state’s northeast corner where almost all of the 7,300 square miles north and east of Flagstaff is Native American territory.

But don’t let the voids on a large scale map fool you. There are more than enough paved roads here and more exotic attractions than found in most areas twice the size. There’s the still distinct native cultures of the Hopi and Navajo reservations, millennium-old Anasazi Indian ruins, insurpassable desert parkland, and mile after mile of mesa-strewn landscape that alternately call to mind Road Runner cartoons and the movie Thelma and Louise.

I started in Flagstaff (pop. 52,000). The town struck me as a bit schizophrenic. The town mixes three distinct groups that don’t seem to intermingle much. To cater to the nostalgia of the older Winnebago crowd, the city three years ago renamed its main street Route 66 and has “renovated” the architecture of the downtown area to simulate a dusty old frontier outpost. Despite this anachronistic facelift, the town’s citizenry is the youngest in the state with an average age of 26. This is thanks largely to the presence of Northern Arizona University. But few of the students though can afford to patronize the trendy, upscale restaurants, micro-breweries, and sports equipment stores that have sprung up to service Flagstaff’s third demographic group: young professionals who roll through town every weekend toward vacation homes in the surrounding San Francisco Mountains.

But buried among this detritus of modern culture is a true a diamond in the rough in the form of the Museum of Northern Arizona. This 70-year-old museum is housed in a beautifully restored southwestern ranch home. The excellent collection details the unique archeology, biology, anthropology, geology, and arts and crafts of Northern Arizona. A highlight is the large representation of Anasazi, Navajo, and Hopi artifacts, which can serve as an excellent primer for any journey into the native lands of Northeast Arizona.

As the museum’s displays explain, these lands spread across the Colorado Plateau, a giant uplifting of vulcanized land that covers most of the region. Despite the arid climate, the region has sustained human habitation for more than 15,000 years. The most renown of these inhabitants were the Anasazi, a pueblo culture that mysteriously disappeared in the 12th century. Some think the Hopi are their descendants, with the Navajo having emigrated to the region somewhere between 1300-1500 A.D.

To reach the Hopi and Navajo reservations, I drove east and then north out of Flagstaff along Highway 99. I made the Hopi Mesas my first stop. For centuries, the Hopi have quietly inhabited the four mesas that extend like fingers from the huger Black Mesa massif. For defensive purposes, they long ago established their villages high atop the mesas. From the canyon floor, their homes almost disappear completely into the bleach-gray stone.

Today most of the 10,000 Hopi live on the valley floor along with all of life’s modern amenities. (Many even make regular trips to the Flagstaff Wal-Mart.) Some Hopi, though, still inhabit the mesa tops, and most of the tribe’s ritual sites and religious rooms (called “kivas”) remain there. On the First Mesa, only the village of Walpi remains without water, electricity, and indoor plumbing. This is by choice as the tribe chooses to preserve the village as a reminder of the old ways, and five families live year-round there.

For lunch, I stopped on the Second Mesa—where a Hopi-run hotel, traditional restaurant, museum, and craft center have been established for visitors—then I hit the road again and headed east to another living relic: the 120-year-old Hubbell Trading Post. Unlike the cutely named “trading posts” in Flagstaff, Hubbell’s is the real McCoy. The floors are wood. The exposed beams are august with age. Huge steel skillets hang from the ceiling. Fabric can be bought by the bolt, and domestic staples are stacked high on the shelves. Although the old leather horse collars hanging from the rafters are just for show and the march of time has transformed one of the rooms into a souvenir shop, the other two rooms look much as they probably did a century ago.

Declared a National Historic Site in 1967 and purchased by the National Park Service two years later, Hubbell’s remains a functioning monument to the Southwest’s frontier days. In addition to the wares that can be bought in bulk, the post continues to do a lively business in native weavings. A whole room is set aside for the sale of locally hand-woven (and in some cases hand-spun) Navajo blankets called “wearing rugs.” The pieces are incredibly artful and sell for anywhere from $30 to a whopping $30,000.

From Hubbell’s, I drove 33 miles north to the town of Chinle and stayed at a Holiday Inn. Chinle is at the entrance to Canyon de Chelley National Monument. (Named by Kit Carson in the 1860s, the park goes by the peculiar pronunciation “canyon d’ shay.”) The next morning, I joined a group and took a three-hour horse ride through the lower canyon, which is notable for its sandstone vistas and Anasazi wall art and ruins. The trail follows the Rio de Chelley, which is just a seasonal stream technically called a “wash.” We viewed evidence of Anasazi habitation beneath some cliff overhangs and several petroglyphs carved into the canyon walls. The only thing that marred the morning were the occasional tourist Jeeps that rumbled through the wash and destroyed the serenity of the horseback ride.

After spending the night at the Holiday Inn in the small town of Kayenta, I set off at 7:30 a.m. for Monument Valley. I drove first to Goulding’s Lodge located just outside the park and joined a jeep tour of the park’s famous sanstone pinnacles, buttes and sand dunes. Goulding’s itself is something of a landmark. Opened in 1924 as a trading post by Harold Goulding and his wife, Goulding is credited for having first called Hollywood’s attention to the valley as a location for western films.

As the story goes, it was the middle of the Great Depression and Goulding got wind that a movie director was scouting prospective locations for his next feature film. Knowing that a film operation in the area would mean desperately needed jobs for his Navajo customers, he set off to Hollywood with a collection of photographs of the valley’s impressive sandstone landmarks. The were as good as gold, and a mere three days later, production began in Monument Valley on a small film called Stagecoach, directed by John Ford and starring a little-known actor named John Wayne. The rest is movie history, and since then, scores of movies have filmed in the valley. Recent films include Raiders of the Lost Ark, Thelma and Louise and Back to the Future III.

Despite popular belief, Monument Valley is not a national park. It is located completely on Navajo land and fully administered by the tribe. Its official name is Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park. After coal mining operations on the Black Mesa, the park represents the second largest revenue source for the Navajo Nation. Admission is $2.50 per person, $1 for seniors. Visitors can drive their own cars through the park, but unless you don’t mind bouncing your car along heavily rutted dirt roads, you are best off taking a guided tour. I took a three-and-a-half-hour Goulding’s tour for $32, which included my admission fee, lunch, and services of a native guide. Day-long trips are available, and for the most adventurous, Jeep and hiking trips can be arranged into the most secluded regions.

My tour went along the most typical route—the original roads used by John Ford and his film crews—and proved the highlight of my trip. We passed vista after vista of fantastic sandstone massifs warped by wind and rain into all sorts of breathtaking shapes. Some were buttes and mesas with dramatic arches and natural skylights. Others were tall chimneys of teetering rock. At one point, our guide chanted us a traditional native song, and in one wash, we saw a herd of cattle grazing. Throughout the morning, the reds, oranges and beiges changed and intensified while the long shadows shortened with the climb of the desert sun.

I finished my northeastern swing with two nights in the Lake Powell recreation area outside Page. As otherworldly as my previous days driving through the native territories were, the sight of Lake Powell also surpassed them. The same river and forces that dug out the Grand Canyon created a similar canyon chain in this region, but over the past half century, human engineering has completely transformed it. When the Glen Canyon Dam was completed in 1964, the canyons were filled with water as deep as 500 feet and the Colorado River was backed up almost 200 miles into Utah. What remains are the crests of arid canyon walls and mesas poking surreally out of a vast man-made lake. On every shore, the desert runs immediately to the edges of Lake Powell, but despite lying next to the second largest man-made reservoir in the world, the desert sands remain no less infertile.

But as jarring as these sights are, one cannot deny the important benefits provided by the dam: namely flood control, water storage, and hydro-electricity. Of less import but of greater visibility is the vast recreation area the dam created. Pleasure boats and touring vessels fill the marina, and roughly three million people visit annually. Despite my conservationist leanings, I couldn’t deny enjoying a six-hour lake tour that included navigations through narrow water-filled canyons and a visit to the spectacular Rainbow Bridge National Monument.

But my lake tour did leave me wondering what long-term effect this flood of water would have on such dry formations. Might it turn their submerged foundations to mushy silt and hasten their erosion? Or might all that standing water actually help preserve the canyons? No one knows for sure. Even geologists argue the answer, but what they do agree on is that whatever does happen won’t happen for many, many lifetimes. And when conclusive evidence does come in, the remains of the canyon might seem as mysterious to future visitors as the Anasazi ruins do to us today.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:  Contact the Arizona Office of Tourism at (888) 520-3434.

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