USA
Exploring Arizona’s Tribal Lands
by Randy Minks
Visions of classic John Wayne Westerns flooded my mind as our Navajo driver/guide negotiated the bumpy road in Monument Valley, a spellbinding landscape that Hollywood for generations has used to symbolize the American West.
I’d seen the red-rock monoliths and spires hundreds of times in movies, TV shows and commercials. And now, seated with nine other tourists in the back of a flatbed truck, I was thrilled to be checking off my bucket list this sagebrush-dotted kingdom straddling the Arizona-Utah border, a place where tribal members have lived for centuries.
Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park was one of many eye-openers on a recent trip that took me to Navajo and Hopi reservations in northern Arizona. I also got a taste of Indigenous cultures at two Native American-owned resorts in greater Phoenix.
Talking Stick Resort
Soon after arriving at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, I was relaxing at Talking Stick Resort, an upscale oasis on the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community. Tribal art, artifacts and design elements are woven throughout the 15-story hotel tower and the golf clubhouse that serves two championship courses offering panoramic views of the mountains and Sonoran Desert. A museum room, called The Cultural Center, showcases handcrafted pottery, baskets and other treasures, including a traditional talking stick carved with symbols representing events in the calendar for the O’odham (Pima) and Piipaash (Maricopa) tribes. One night I caught an Indian dance performance by the pool, down a level from the sprawling Las Vegas-style casino.
The 496-room hotel is part of the Talking Stick Entertainment District, which encompasses Arizona Boardwalk, a complex with attractions like OdySea Aquarium, Museum of Illusions and Butterfly Wonderland. Salt River Fields at Talking Stick serves as the Cactus League spring training home of baseball’s Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies. For good photo ops in the district, follow the Salt River Art Trail, a collection of sculptures and murals by local artists.
In neighboring Scottsdale, the two-day Arizona Indian Festival, part of late January’s Scottsdale Western Week, took place during my stay. Spotlighting the state’s 22 Indigenous communities, it featured traditional dancing, food vendors and crafts for sale. (Tribal lands account for a quarter of Arizona’s territory.)
Petrified Forest
On my way to Navajo lands in northeastern Arizona, I stopped at Petrified Forest National Park. When dinosaurs ruled the earth, these strangely eroded badlands were a rainforest. The logs scattered across the hills today had become buried beneath layers of silt and over eons turned into solid crystalline quartz. Hiking along the Crystal Forest Trail, you’ll see remnants of the prehistoric forest in various colors. The logs look cut or sawed, but they just broke that way. You’re free to pick up chunks of petrified wood, but it’s illegal to remove even a small sliver. Visible from Newspaper Rock overlook are sandstone bluffs bearing petroglyphs created by Ancestral Puebloan people more than 500 years ago.
Hubbell Trading Post
My first stop on the Navajo Nation was Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site, a farmstead that preserves the best remaining example of a typical Southwestern trading post. Established in the 1870s by John Lorenzo Hubbell, it continues to operate as a store that sells household goods and Indian arts and crafts, including the famous wool rugs and silver/turquoise jewelry made by Navajo artisans. The Hubbell home, lived in by family members until 1967, is filled with original furniture, mounted animal heads and portraits of Indian leaders.
The Navajo Nation, which spills into Utah and New Mexico, is the largest Native American reservation in the United States, both in population and geographical area.
Canyon de Chelly National Monument
An archaeological site sacred to the Navajo, Canyon de Chelly (pronounced “de shay”) comprises two long canyons with magnificent walls of red sandstone. Park roads along the rim afford stunning views, but the canyon floor can be visited only with an authorized Navajo guide.
Bouncing along a rutted road in a military-type troop carrier, my group stopped to view ancient petroglyphs and ruins of cliff dwellings. Horses on the roadside belong to some of the 70 families with ancestral claims to the land, where they live in summer cultivating fields and tending livestock.
I stayed at the only accommodation inside park boundaries—adobe-style Thunderbird Lodge, a Navajo-owned and -operated motel with 69 rooms. At its restaurant, located in a former trading post built in 1902, I had a delicious Navajo Burger, served not on a bun but inside puffy, crispy Navajo fry bread.
Monument Valley
Few places can equal the sheer majesty of Monument Valley, an expanse of red-hued boulders, pinnacles, buttes and mesas rising dramatically from the sandy desert floor. One of the most photographed places on earth, it’s appeared not only in John Wayne films like The Searchers (1956) and My Darling Clementine (1946) but in such movies as Easy Rider, Thelma & Louise, Forrest Gump and Transformers 3, to name just a few.
The best way to experience Monument Valley is a 2½-hour Goulding’s Sunset Jeep Tour that makes several photo stops on a 17-mile loop through the otherworldly terrain. As your guide explains, the towering “monuments” have names like West Mitten, East Mitten, Elephant Butte, Camel Butte and The Thumb. While these rock castles merit photo after photo, it’s wise to set the camera aside at some point and pause to let the grandeur sink in. Besides jeep tours, guided hikes and horseback rides are available.
More Navajo Nation Adventures
From Monument Valley I traveled west to Navajo National Monument, where a paved trail through a juniper-pinyon pine forest took me to a promontory high above a 13th century cliff dwelling tucked in the canyon alcove below. Trailside signs identify native plants and how the Navajo and Hopi people traditionally have used them.
On Navajo land just outside of Page, an ethereal experience awaits hikers who squeeze through the tight passageways of Antelope Canyon, one of the Southwest’s most pictured natural wonders. The caverns’ smooth, curvy walls of pinkish-orange sandstone glow with sunlight streaming through small gashes in the rock above. Led by a Navajo guide, our cavern crawl involved ladders and stairways.
Hopi Homeland
The Hopi Reservation, curiously, is completely encircled by the Navajo Nation. The tribe is known for its pottery, basketwork, silver jewelry and carved wooden kachina dolls.
I had a chance to delve into tribal culture with Randy Lomayaktewa Sr. of Experience Hopi Tours. In the mobile home of Duane Tawahongra, our group watched as the master silversmith crafted pieces of jewelry with painstaking precision. At her Iskasokpu Gallery, Ivy Honyestewa demonstrated how she weaves dyed yucca fibers into beautiful baskets.
The Hopi hop also made a brief stop at Oraibi, said to be the oldest continuously inhabited village in North America (founded around AD 1150). The 20-some families living in humble houses get along without electricity or running water.
Our half-day excursion ended with lunch at the Hopi Cultural Center’s restaurant, where I feasted on the Hopi Hot Beef, a mound of thinly sliced roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy crowning a bed of fry bread.
Back in Metro Phoenix
My week-long swing through Arizona tribal lands wrapped up with a day at Sheraton Grand at Wild Horse Pass, a luxury golf resort on the Gila River Indian Community. The oldest reservation in Arizona (established in 1859) contains miles of undeveloped land. On a trail ride from Koli Equestrian Center, you might spot some of the 1,500+ horses that run wild on ground settled long ago by the Pima and Maricopa tribes.
Besides being rewarded with awesome scenery and cultural insights, I came away from the trip with warm memories of friendly, enthusiastic people who obviously enjoyed sharing their heritage and deep respect for the land, the sacred land of their ancestors.
