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.
No comments:
Post a Comment