A Nation within the Nation: Part One

South of Kayenta down Indian Route 59 there are bus stop signs, but the last school I saw lay several miles behind me.  There are no houses in sight from the road.  Ominous storm clouds roam across the sky and hover over my windshield.  Despite the grayness cast over the land, the soil still looks red, although muted.  Monumental rocks the size of skyscrapers lay scattered throughout the expansiveness. 

A right turn on US-191 South takes me to the small town of Chinle, Arizona in the Navajo Nation.  A TripAdvisor search reveals the disparity of those who visit versus those who live here.  Burger King is the third best restaurant out of five.  Three-star hotel reviews often start:  “I actually felt safe here.”

Beyond the Chevron selling cheap gas and the Holiday Inn offering $99 rooms lay Canyon de Chelly (pronounced DE-SHAY).  On a wall at my aunt’s house in Florida, there hangs an Ansel Adams print of the canyon in the nook where I make my coffee.  I have stared at that picture daily and decided it is best I see this place in person, if only to justify hanging such a decoration on the wall.  As for my more serious intentions, I sought this place out due to its remoteness and its never-heard-of-it quality. 

      

My experience with the Navajo, and Native Americans in general, is limited to Tony Hillerman novels and history books.  For the first twenty-four years of my life, I had never seen a Native American until I drove to Seattle.  My only dwellings upon Native Americans have been filtered through a white perspective filled with pessimistic images of desolation and drunkenness.  It is difficult to drive through a reservation without feeling sympathetic toward people who have been wrought from their lands, exterminated like pests, and continually screwed over by the US government.

 

There is a clear gulf between my life experiences, cushioned by a comfortable middle-class whiteness, and those of the Navajo, whose history of violence and discrimination is entangled with this nation's westward expansion.  I can’t help but feel awkward and self-conscious of my language when I even discuss Native Americans.  Terms such as reservation, Indian, and native all emphasize their distinction and isolation from the majority in a way that always seems insensitive, categorical, and racist.  I am troubled, too, to admit my honest judgments, yet I don’t want to offer false impressions based on sympathy for an unfortunate evolution of which I played no direct role.  I will only offer observations based on the questions answered by somebody who is much more authorized than me. 

The Navajo Nation is the largest reservation in the country, and Canyon de Chelly lies in north-eastern Arizona, near the border of New Mexico.  This monument is co-governed by the Navajo Nation and the National Park Service, but it differs vastly from most public lands.  The Navajo call this place Tsegi (Say-ih) and to them this land is sacred and they still live there today.  You must hire a licensed Navajo guide to explore the canyon interior with the exception of one trail that leads toward the White House Ruins.

I had two days off from my job, so I made the five-hour drive with my friend Kendyl.  I have a tendency to create overly-ambitious itineraries that often leads to discomfort, slight fatigue, and mild hunger.  This was the first trip of the season I wasn’t going alone, so I made thorough plans to avoid bungling the journey.  The first day we hiked into the canyon and reached White House Ruins, an Anasazi cliff dwelling.  The trail is a little over a mile, and we had the whole thing to ourselves.

Many Anasazi sites can be viewed from paved trails, only a few hundred yards away from the parking lot.  The trail to the White House Ruins isn’t overly strenuous, but viewing the Anasazi ruins in peace is rewarding enough.  I want to feel like I worked for the view, both with logistical planning and physical exertion, and I want to feel as though I deserve this memory of gazing at this ancient house of stone.  Of course, there are more remote places than this, but this will do for now.

Later that night, we set up our tents at the campsite near the visitor center.  I foraged for dry kindling but most of the twigs were slightly damp.  I found some scraps of paper in my car and lit them with a cigarette lighter I used to flambé desserts at a previous job.  I squirted hand sanitizer onto the wood pile, and the dismal flames shot up through the grill grate and the fire became formidable enough to be worth mentioning.

We ate the remainder of our sandwiches we bought from the Subway in Page, Arizona and talked little but mostly of the present and never about the job.  The isolation of a park job often results in side-effects like cabin fever.  The drama of recurring characters dominates nearly every conversation, no matter its insignificance.  Sitting before the fire under a leafless tree, that other world rolled forward like a rerun, but I could briefly forget its grip on my mind. 

The rain started again and put out the fire.  I climbed into my tent and fell asleep before being woken up a few hours later by a torrential downpour smacking against my thin nylon shield.  The bottom of my tent caved in from the force of the water.  I made myself as comfortable as possible and was soon fast asleep again.  The next morning after we had coffee and breakfast at a diner in Chinle, I hired a guide to take us farther into the canyon.  

Greatest Snow on Earth

A springtime blizzard made me contemplate the precipitation.  It was a few days before May, and I was brushing powder off my windshield.  Utah license plates boast the state has the greatest snow on Earth.  As I have never been skiing and have lived mostly in places where snow has only a minimal appearance, I looked into this claim to see what makes Utah’s snow so noteworthy.

When I first arrived at Bryce in mid-March, there was snow on the ground and throughout the canyon.  During one of the first weeks, temperatures hardly rose above twenty degrees as we were pummeled with snow.  Then we received a few weeks of relative warmth until one stretch at April’s end when it snowed nearly every day.  Sometimes I would see little pockets of snow clinging to the roof shingles in the morning and a light covering on the dirt.  By the afternoon, the snow would melt, but this particular week produced whiteout after whiteout just as I began to anticipate the warmer spring weather.

Utah averages about 500 inches of snow each year, and sometimes the numbers can reach above 700 with the aid of El Nino.  There are usually forty winter storms, 18 of which dump over a foot of snow in one day.  It rarely sprinkles here.  Precipitation in Utah is more of an all or nothing deal.  With the exception of low desert areas, summer can be very brief.  Depending on the elevation, certain areas can receive roughly 250 days of winter per year.  Snow in June is not out of the question.

Despite these impressive numbers, there are snowier areas in the country.  Mount Baker in the state of Washington receives nearly 650 inches of snow annually.  On an international scale, a ski resort on the Hokkaido Island of Japan receives the most short-term snowfall due to its brief, yet intense monsoon season.  But the claim of the greatest snow on Earth has more to do with the quality rather than the quantity.

The Wasatch Mountain Range near Salt Lake City is considered one of the best places to ski in the entire world.  The reason for this has to do with the Goldilocks principle.  If the snow is too light and dry, there is no stable base, and the snow shouldn’t be too heavy and wet.  The mixture has to be just right, and Utah apparently has the perfect snow density——an ideal balance between powder and salt content thanks to the lake effect.

Storms brewing in the Pacific Ocean blow eastward across the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  When the snow is unleashed in California and Nevada, it is fairly wet, packing a ten to twelve percent moisture density.  As the clouds pass over the Great Salt Lake, they dry out and become colder.  These conditions create snowflakes called dendrites.  These are the classic snowflakes you often cut out in arts and crafts in elementary school.  They are light-weight and have a symmetrical, crystal shape that pack nicely together.  The ski slopes of Utah generally have a dense base with a fluffy coating of dendrites on top. 

This combination produces an ideal body.  To achieve this, snowstorms should be frequent, but too much snowfall would offset this delicate balance.  These “just right” conditions of Utah’s mountains enable skiers to float on the top layer without scraping the ground.

I once received a job offer at Alta, a popular ski resort in Utah that is mentioned in Forbes Magazine’s Top Ten in North America in 2016.  I didn’t accept the position because the pay was too low (roughly $1,000 net profit per month).  The interviewee said people take the job primarily for the free skiing pass.  Apparently, the snow in Utah has such a powerful grip for some that it’s a bigger priority than one’s income.       

Anasazi

Anasazi is a Navajo term that means enemies of our ancestors.  The word is used to comprise a group of Paleo-Indian hunters who eventually settled into the Four Corners region thousands of years ago.  An alternative term, and one that is often preferred, is Ancestral Puebloan.  For those that are unfamiliar with both those terms, cliff-dwellers usually rings a bell.  The Anasazi built stone houses embedded into cliffs, often inside mesa walls on the Colorado Plateau in the high desert country.

Many of their homes are still standing, albeit with a few pieces missing, and they left pottery, baskets, and even drawings behind.  Leftover graffiti found on canyon walls is called either a petroglyph, which is a carving or engraving, or a pictograph, a painted image.  A lack of moisture in the desert has enabled these relics to remain visible today.

Periods of Anasazi history are often broken up into convenient categories to better understand their evolution.  The first period is referred to as Archaic, and these events took place from 2500 BCE to 200 BCE.  During this era, the Anasazi were hunter-gatherers who built temporary campsites in the canyon walls.  Deer, antelope, and rabbit were plentiful in the area.  Groups would roam through a network of canyons from rock shelter to rock shelter foraging for food.  Meanwhile, civilizations such as the Aztecs in Mexico were rapidly advancing, and a new way of life was created with the introduction of domesticated corn.

 

From the year 200 to around 750, an era known as the Basketmaker Period, the Anasazi started farming crops like beans, squash, and corn.  There are theories that many groups experimented with agriculture, but some may have reverted to their nomadic ways due to crop failures. 

In order for corn to be nutritional, for example, it needs to undergo a process called nixtamalization in which the grain is cooked in an alkaline solution such as limewater or ash.  Without this process, corn possesses no free niacin, an essential nutrient that prevents fatigue, headaches, skin lesions, and anemia.  If a population is dependent on corn that hasn’t been nixtamalized, they run the risk of malnutrition.  For some remote populations out of the loop, I could easily see how a trial-and-error period with farming could prove to be frustrating if you don’t have all the information. 

For those that stuck with farming, the groups tended to live a more sedentary lifestyle, and communities were built.  This particular period gets its name from the baskets weaved during this time.  If you hike into remote Anasazi areas, it is possible, although extremely rare, to find a basket completely intact. 

The Pueblo Period, from 750 to 1300, represents the climax of the Anasazi progression.  Villages such as those at Hovenweep National Monument were the norm.  Hovenweep is a Ute/Paiute term meaning deserted valley, and the monument stretches across the border of Utah and Colorado.  Clinging to the edges of a V-shaped channel stand stone houses with incomplete roofs and missing bricks.  Some towers are largely intact despite being over 700 years old, whereas others are piles of rubble.  Undoubtedly, there were more houses that were completely destroyed.

Anasazi ruins at Hovenweep National Monument in Utah. 

There is a loop trail that takes you to the canyon floor and along the rim where you can walk right up to the brick facades.  I can see a snow-capped mountain in the distance, but from where I stand in April the spring sun is warm and a cool breeze blows.  The American Southwest is not an easy place to live outdoors due to the intensity of the summer heat and winter snow, but there are certain pockets of the high desert that offer more suitable conditions. 

A popular question to ask when staring at an Anasazi ruin is:  Why would you build your house on top of or embedded into a cliff?  Flash floods in the desert are common on canyon floors.  Rainstorms are infrequent, and despite their brief appearances they are intense and relentless.  Dry washes quickly fill up and become creeks.  Narrow slot canyons become dangerous and life-threatening. 

Building inside a cliff also saves labor and resources, as the builders can utilize natural alcoves to avoid constructing ceilings and leveling out floors.  This strategy enables a village to take full advantage of the fertile valley.  Anasazi could plant crops both on the canyon floor and atop the mesas.

Due to the mysterious aura surrounding the Anasazi’s departure around 700 years ago, the most popular question is:  Why did they leave?  There are several theories ranging from warfare to drought.  My favorite theory deals with the Kachina Phenomenon.  According to western Pueblo religion, kachinas are spirits that personify objects in the real world, and these beings have the power to make the sun shine and the rain fall.  Like many Western religions, the Pueblos have ideas of how to conduct oneself morally.  There is an idea that the spirits told the Anasazi it was time to move on because they were sinning.  When you get too comfortable in one place, especially at a job you have mastered and have grown slightly bored with, it is much easier to get into trouble.  I’m sure the Anasazi were no different. 

For whatever reason you choose to believe in, the Anasazi abandoned their cliff-dwellings and relocated to valleys around the Rio Grande in New Mexico and the mesas on the Hopi Reservation in northern Arizona.  I’ve spoken to a few Navajos who believe they are the descendants of the Anasazi.  Given the Navajo definition of the word Anasazi (“enemies of our ancestors), I have serious doubts about this conjecture. 

I am by no means extremely knowledgeable about the Anasazi; I have read a book and a few online articles and visited a handful of sites.  With my limited research, I consider the Hopi to be the modern descendants of the Anasazi.  I don’t buy into the mystery of their “disappearance.” Like a frustrated suburbanite who moved out of his parents’ house to gain freedom and a change of scenery, I’m sure they packed up and found a more suitable place to live. 

     

The most popular place in the US to visit Anasazi ruins is Mesa Verde National Park in southwestern Colorado.  Cliff Palace is the largest dwelling of its kind in North America.  Although this park by no means achieves visitation rates like nearby Arches National Park, many visitors walk along the short, paved path to Cliff Palace.  This is the first Anasazi site I saw in person.  Despite the accessibility and large crowds, I was still amazed at the size of this neighborhood tucked inside the rock alcove.  Park Rangers are stationed there to answer questions and ensure there’s no funny-business, as it is the National Park’s duty to preserve these ancient ruins. 

Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado.

To visit other cliff dwellings, you need to book a guided ranger tour, which only costs four dollars.  Two houses are usually closed for time-consuming renovation, and one is usually left open to a limited number of visitors.  To access Balcony House, smaller but equally as impressive as Cliff Palace, you have to climb a thirty-foot ladder and crawl through a tiny tunnel originally designed for defense against neighboring clans competing for limited resources.  Last fall I went on a guided ranger tour of Balcony House, and I was impressed by the Ranger, who used to be an archaeologist who worked in Mexico.  The obstacle-course-like nature of the trip also enhanced the experience.

The Park Service is obviously trying to juggle with the paradox of welcoming visitors and stemming the flow to both showcase and protect crumbling ruins.  Their funds are usually limited, and giving house tours to thousands of visitors to 700-year-old dwellings inevitably takes its toll.  I don’t blame them for their strategy, but it is difficult to envision an ancient civilization when you’re surrounded by forty-nine members of your tour group, all of whom, including yourself, drove a car to an outlook and hiked only a few hundred yards to visit a site that someone formerly had to climb wooden pegs up a steep cliff in order to reach their bedroom.

Hovenweep, on the other hand, is located on extremely remote Indian routes beyond open ranges where cattle and horses roam the grasslands.  The fact that the nearest hotel is several hours away means that the monument is often overlooked.  When I was there, only a few other cars were in the parking lot.  I could walk up to a stone house and peek through a window.  Aside from a trio of hikers and an occasional lone photographer, the canyon was empty. 

The route to Hovenweep through the open range.  

Even more remote are the ruins at Canyon de Chelly in northern Arizona.  To get there, I drove over five hours and through the Navajo Reservation to reach the trailhead, where a certified guide took me and a friend five miles down the canyon floor through ankle-deep creeks to reach the Junction Ruins.  Rain was streaming from the sky and gushing into the canyon from the plateaus above us.  A waterfall materialized to the left of the Anasazi dwelling, and I could tell the ancient ones must have known where the water would fall and where they should build their homes to avoid being swept away in the flood. The grass in this cul-de-sac of Canyon del Muerto was greener than the surrounding areas.  This area is, and obviously was, livable.

Canyon de Chelly in northern Arizona in the Navajo Nation.

Since visiting my first Anasazi site at Mesa Verde, I developed a mild curiosity about other cliff-dwellings in the Four Corners area, but it hasn’t yet become a passion.  I realize that many of the sites look the same, and sometimes it can be difficult to justify another six hour drive to see a place that resembles something you’ve seen a few times before.  But the farther you venture away from the interstate and the more research you have to conduct, the rewards are amplified.  The more you have to physically exert yourself, just as an Anasazi would have done, you can more closely imagine village life playing out before you.  You can see why they would settle in such a bountiful area.  But when thunder beckons and your toes become numb from wading in the creekbed that suddenly filled up during the flood, you, too, can see why they left.