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Fort Bowie Arizona, a Frontier Landmark

Remains of Ft. Bowie corrals and stables

by Victor A. Walsh

The eight-mile dirt road zigzags through the parched hills like the river of no return. The grasses and thistles, now a golden brown, sparkle in the November sunlight. Not a blade of grass moves in the stillness. Hills and gullies stretch out in all directions like a wrinkled, windblown sheet.

At the parking lot we meet an older maintenance worker with National Parks. His deeply furrowed face is as rough as the terrain. He tells us that the Fort Bowie National Historic Site is about a mile-and-a-half down the trail. I ask him about the jutting mountain peaks on the horizon in front of us. “Those are the Chiricahua Mountains,” he says. “Geronimo use to talk to his gods up there.”

on the way to Fort BowieThe trail winds through meadows dotted with mesquite and rimmed by hills. The foot-high grasses, bent and curled by gusting winds, have turned a rich golden yellow. It is warm, quiet — an inviting place of solitude.

But 155 years ago, the last Indian war in the United States erupted here between the native Chiricahua Apache and the U.S. military. The incident that ignited the bloodshed was the kidnapping of a local rancher’s son. Settlers falsely accused Cochise, the chief of the local Chiricahua, of taking the boy. When he was not returned, a brash young officer, Lieutenant George N. Bascom, detained and executed several of Cochise’s relatives. Cochise, in turn, executed his American and Mexican hostages, and a tenuous peace was broken forever.

Markers along the way identify the remnants of a Butterfield Stage station attacked by Cochise’s warriors, the restored post cemetery, a reconstructed Apache wickiup, and the Chiricahua Apache Indian Agency adobe ruin.

A weathered picket fence encloses the cemetery. Long, narrow shadows from the rows of white headstones slice through the sunlit gold-brown grass. In 1895, the army removed the remains of all military personnel for re-internment at the San Francisco National Cemetery. Twenty-three gravesites remain — nearly all civilians employed at the fort.

I stare at the names on the headstones: John Finkle Stone, age 24; John Slater, age 35; John McWilliams, age 26. Below each name are the words, “Killed by Apaches.” They died young, too young, as did Geronimo’s two-year old captured son, Little Robe, buried here after dying in 1885 from dysentery.


Hillside near Ft. BowieFacing the sun, I look at the brown hills dotted with mesquite and scrub oak. Behind them, invisible in the glaring light, are the Chiricahua Mountains, the spiritual homeland of a people banished by conquest. Today they are part of Chiricahua National Monument.

Beyond the cemetery, the trail follows a dried river gulch shaded by thickets and saplings. Here, tucked below the pass is what drew the Apaches, Spaniards, and Americans: a year-round spring. Today its water is but a trickle, played out by history.

Climbing up an incline, I see a line of crumbling mottled-brown adobe walls in the glinting sunlight sprawled across Apache Pass. An unfurled American flag hangs limply from its post on the parade ground.

Fort Bowie artifactsI walk among the ruins — the massive cavalry barracks, the stables, and ordinance building — trying to imagine a world gone: barking dogs, a wagon lumbering up the old stage route; soldiers with their mounts and carbines. The officer’s quarters, a two-story, Victorian-style frame building with a shingled mansard roof, once stood on the far side of the parade ground. Now nothing remains but a marker stranded amidst clumps of dry grass.

I wonder what the men and their families thought or how they coped with the physical isolation of this remote place, and the lurking presence of a determined enemy defending their homeland.

Rebuilt and enlarged in the late 1860s to protect the spring and overland route, Fort Bowie never had walls, but it played a vital role as the base of operations in the last Apache war against the shaman and war chief Geronimo.

After his surrender, Geronimo and thirty-six of his followers were brought to the parade ground and loaded into wagons on September 8, 1886, destined for military prison in Florida. The entire tribe, including those who never resisted, suffered a similar fate until 1913 when 265 survivors — many born in captivity — were at last released from Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

With Geronimo’s final surrender, the fort’s raison d’être ended. In 1894, it was closed, and the small garrison reassigned to a new post in Colorado. The abandoned post quickly fell into disrepair as locals carried off timbers, windows and doors. In 1911, the Chiricahua lands west of the fort, once protected as a military reservation were auctioned off.

In the fleeting light, the adobe walls and stone ruins stand like sentinels to a time when the Chiricahua Apache waged the last major Indian resistance against the United States. They had lost their families, homes, horses, guns, and freedom—everything but their honor.

If You Go:

Getting There:

The Fort Bowie, which became a National Historic Site in 1964, is located 13 miles south of Bowie on Apache Pass Road off I-10 and 20 miles southeast of Willcox off 186. From Tucson it is 166 miles via I-10.

Attractions:

The rural community of Willcox, founded in 1880 as a camp for Southern Pacific Railroad construction crews, has a colorful history that its citizens are striving to preserve. Many of the late 19th-century commercial buildings are still intact, including the restored railroad depot, a National Historic Landmark.

The forest of spires, balanced rocks and pinnacles in nearby Chiricahua National Monument is well worth a visit. To the Chiricahua the mountains were known as the Land of Standing-Up Rocks. The monument’s 12,000 acres encompass two deserts and two mountain ranges, and is home to a wide range of plants and animals.

Accommodations:

Hotels, inns and B&Bs are available at Bowie, 14 miles north of the ruin on I-10 and Willcox, 27 miles west along AZ-186. Bonita Canyon Campground at Chiricahua National Monument is open year-round. Sites are available by online reservations. RV hookups and camp sites are available nearby at Alaskan and Mountain View RV Parks on I-10.

For More Information:

Fort Bowie National Historic Site, 3203 South Old Fort Bowie Rd, (520) 847-2506. There is a visitor center and rear access road for disabled visitors.

Fort Bowie, Arizona, Combat Post of the Southwest 1858-1894 by Douglas C. McChristian, University of Oklahoma Press.

 

About the author:
Victor A. Walsh’s passion is the trans-Missouri West with a focus on early explorations and their continuing impact on our world today. His historical and travel essays have appeared in American History, True West, Literary Traveler, California History, Journal of the West, Rosebud, Desert Leaf, among other publications.

Photos by Richard Miller and Victor A. Walsh

 

 

Tagged With: Arizona travel, Fort Bowie Filed Under: North America Travel

Arizona: Mission San José de Tumacácori

Mission San José de Tumacácori entrance

A Fusion of Frontier Cultures

by Victor A. Walsh

Shafts of early morning light flit across the two-lane paved road like an illusion. The rolling hills of the Santa Cruz Valley are painted in tones of eerie gray. Shadows linger in the ravines.

We arrive at the ruin of Mission San José de Tumacácori (Too muh ka KO re) off Arizona Highway 19 by 7:30 a.m., a half-hour before it opens. Everything is closed, including the restaurant and tourist shops across the street.

The rising light shimmers off the large mesquite trees creating spider webs of shadows out of their twisted gnarled branches. The top of the yellow stucco enclosure wall seems to glow in the warm light. I wonder if what I’m seeing is a momentary illusion of Tumacácori’s shattered past. Founded in 1691 by the intrepid Jesuit missionary and explorer, Fr. Eusebio Francisco Kino, the original mission would serve as the northern most outpost of Spanish Christendom in Arizona for over a century against near insufferable odds of struggle among different cultures in harsh desert conditions.

ChurchMy friend Dick and I wait patiently, watching two big black crows circling overhead. At 8 a.m., we enter. The grounds are empty. The mission church, which was built between 1800 and 1823, stands on the far side of a barren field as it probably looked in 1908 when President Theodore Roosevelt declared Tumacácori a national monument. The massive bell tower and kiln-fired adobe brick walls stand obliquely, silently in the morning light. Time has stopped here as if inhabited by the ghosts, by dreams somehow gone astray.

GuideIn the garden we meet our guide Wally Mohr, an effusive retiree brimming with ideas. He tells us that the mission was originally founded on the site of a Pima or Akimel O’odham Indian village on the opposite (east) bank of the Santa Cruz River. “Tumacácori is a Spanish phonetic translation of the O’odham name for their village,” he says. “It probably means ‘rocky flat place.’”

The Akimel O’odham, we learn, invited Kino to visit them. “He made Tumacácori into a year-round, self-sustaining community by bringing livestock and fruit trees to the O’odham,” says Wally, pointing at a small pomegranate and apricot tree in the garden. “He learned their language, and treated them with great respect. Unlike most missions, there was no forced conversion here.”

InteriorWe walk inside to the room with a model of the mission as it probably looked in the early 19th century. Along with the church, it features housing for the O’odham converts, numerous workshops, an irrigation system, a school, granary, cemetery and mortuary chapel, gardens, orchards and fields of beans, squash and corn.

Spanish Catholic devotions and practices were not fundamentally different from the traditional polytheistic beliefs of the O’odham. “When the Jesuits arrived, they brought even more Gods, only called saints. They had the cross, the statues of the saints, the holy water—all symbols of divine presence and intercession,” explains Wally. “The O’odham have a creation story like Noah’s Ark in which a great flood destroyed all the evil people. Their God, I’itoi, who led the first people out of the Underworld, is the equivalent of Jesus Christ.”

Bell towerOnce outside, I stare again at the church’s pale brown adobe façade decorated with a rich fretwork of pilasters and curved and pointed arches and a lofty redbrick bell tower. Big swaths of white lime plaster cling to the wall. Some of the original paint is still visible under the cornice below the main window. In its day this frontier church must have been a dazzling spectacle of color and architectural elegance; in fact, it still is — a testament to a steadfast communal faith that seems sadly out of step in modern society.

The interior is even more colorful. The lime-plaster walls of the nave are embedded with crushed red brick and decorated with Mexican baroque statuary and carvings of the Stations of the Cross. The walls surrounding the altar and the towering domed ceiling above it are still adorned with traces of the original painted and stenciled devotional imagery. The flickering candles, mosaic of color and images, and sound of choir voices echoing throughout the great hall must have brought tranquility to parishioners, Indian and non-Indian alike. The bonds of faith, born from a higher spiritual purpose, kept them together.

The church regrettably was never completed, stymied by the intractable forces of history. The struggle for Mexican independence from Spain brought chaos to the region and neglect of the missions. Apache raids once again devastated the Santa Cruz Valley. Funds for construction were meager, and epidemics of smallpox took a frightful toll among the children — so great that a new cemetery was created for their internment in 1822. Six years later Tumacácori lost its last resident priest when the Mexican government ordered all Spanish-born residents to leave the country.

Indian converts and a few settlers with the aid of visiting Mexican priests held on for another two decades. During the war against the United States, Mexico could neither defend nor supply the beleaguered mission. Lieutenant Cave Johnson Couts on his way back with U.S. troops from the 1847 campaign in Mexico noted in his journal:

Church front facadeAt Tumacácori is a very large and fine church standing in the midst of a few conical Indian huts…This Church is now taken care of by the Indians….No priest has been in attendance for many years, though all its images, pictures, figures, etc. remain unmolested, and in good keeping.

Mounting Apache raids and a bitterly cold winter in 1848 finally drove out the last residents. They carried with them the church’s holy statues, chalices and priestly vestments to San Xavier del Bac, the Tohono O’odham Indian church near Tucson.

More than anywhere else, the cemetery enclosed by high adobe walls around the mortuary chapel tells the mission’s story. There is no trace of mission-era Indian graves – long ago destroyed by weather, treasure hunters, and cattlemen who used the cemetery as a corral. Around 1900, Indian families, who remembered Tumacácori’s past, began to bury their dead once again on this holy ground – campo santo.

Mounds of rocks and old wooden crosses mark the gravesites. A few of them have bouquets of artificial flowers. There are no names; just stillness as the branches of two old mesquites cast a quilt work of zigzag shadows across an adobe wall.

If You Go:

Getting There:

  • Tumacácori National Historical Park is located off of Exit 29 of Interstate 19, forty-five miles south of Tucson, Arizona, and nineteen miles north of Nogales, Arizona. The park is open every day except Thanksgiving and Christmas from 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.

Getting Around:

  • The best way to get to Tumacácori is by care, although buses, shuttles and taxis are available in nearby towns, along with renting bicycles.

History and Attractions:

  • In 1990, Congress designated Tumacácori a national historical park. The re-designation included the mission ruins of nearby Los Santos Ángeles de Guevavi and San Cayetano de Calabazas. These ruins are not open to the public, but can be visited during the winter months as part of scheduled reserved tours.
  • The National Park Service’s mandate is to preserve the mission ruins. After residents left in 1848, the mission deteriorated. Its current appearance reflects this historical circumstance.
  • The mission hosts a variety of special events, including Day of the Dead festivities on November 2nd and the popular La Fiesta de Tumacácori during the first weekend in December.
  • The Cathedral of San Xavier del Bac, located just south of Tucson off I-19, is perhaps the finest example of Spanish colonial architecture in the United States. It is a living parish community, the mother church of the Tohono O’odham (the Desert People).
  • Located just north of Tumacácori on I-19, Tubac Presidio State Historic Park is a quiet enclave that evokes a bygone era. The park includes the 1752 presidio footprint, an excellent museum, and an innovative underground archaeology display. The town itself has many antique and handicraft shops around the main square.
  • Best time to visit the Santa Cruz Valley is during summer when many rural border towns hold celebrations such as the Día de San Juan and the Fíesta de San Agustín, two festivals with roots extending back to the Catholic Spanish era.

Accommodations:

  • Santa Cruz County is a major hub of tourism and different types of accommodations from expensive resorts to lodges, inns, motels and B&Bs are available in nearby towns like Green Valley, Amado, Tubac, Rio Rico and Nogales. Camping is available at the U.S. Forest Service’s Bog Springs and White Rock Campgrounds and RV parks exist off I-19 in Amado and on Route 82 twelve miles east of Nogales.

For More Information:

  • Contact Tumacácori National Historical Park, P.O. Box 67, Tumacácori, AZ 85640, (520) 398-2341.

About the author:
Victor A. Walsh spends his time when he’s productively unemployed prowling forgotten or unusual destinations looking for stories that connect a place and its people to their remembered past. His historical essays and travel stories have appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, American History, Literary Traveler, California History, Rosebud and Sunset, among other publications.

Photos by by Richard Miller and Victor A. Walsh.

Tagged With: Arizona travel, Tucson attractions, USA travel Filed Under: North America Travel

Take The Highway That’s The Best To Flagstaff, Arizona

Route 66 mural in Flagstaff

by Rick Neal

I reach Flagstaff, Arizona beneath a twinkling canopy of stars. The drive from Phoenix only takes a little over two hours, but a missed plane connection in San Francisco and a credit card foul up at the car rental agency have delayed my arrival by several hours. At least the traffic is light, and the Northern Arizona sky is breathtaking.

My heart skips when I spot the familiar road sign that leads to my hotel, and not just because I’m relieved to finally be here. For the next few days I’ll be residing on the Main Street of America: Route 66. Spanning nearly 2,500 miles from Chicago to Santa Monica, California, this iconic roadway is one of America’s most revered highways. That night I sleep like a newborn, waking only once to the melancholic trill of a distant train whistle.

The next morning I wake up way too late for my hotel’s free continental breakfast, but that’s hardly a setback. Right across the road sits the legendary Galaxy Diner, one of the few remaining retro-style diners that once dominated Route 66 until the route was gradually superseded by freeways in the late fifties. With its red vinyl booths and photos of legendary movie stars that cover every inch of wall space, the Galaxy Diner evokes a bygone era.

Washed down with a steaming mug of robust coffee, my corned beef hash goes down “real good”. The service is excellent until a leather-clad French motorcycle club pulls up on their Hogs and occupies over half the restaurant. My server tells me that motorbike fanatics come from around the globe just to cruise the fabled Route 66.

After breakfast, I stroll over to Flagstaff’s historic downtown district. I gaze up at the San Francisco Peaks mountain range rising dramatically above this vibrant highland city. The mountains are cloaked in sweet-smelling ponderosa pines. Though it’s a balmy seventy five degrees Fahrenheit here in the city, the mountain tops are dusted with fresh snow.

Flagstaff vintage buildingIn fifteen minutes I reach the historic center, a memorable assortment of 19th century architecture that is perfect for exploring on foot. There are few specific tourist attractions here, but wandering the hodgepodge of 1890s-era redbrick buildings, many of which flaunt stone and stucco friezes, conjures up visions of the Old West. When the downtown area became rundown in the 1960s, city officials considered demolishing many of the worn structures to build carparks for the increasing numbers of tourists. Thankfully, they realized that if they tore down all the old buildings there would be little reason for tourists to visit.

Ongoing restoration efforts have breathed new life into the area, though the old fashioned diners and taverns now share building space with trendy brewpubs and hip espresso bars. Cowboys and Indians still walk the footpaths, but they now share the sidewalks with college students from nearby Northern Arizona University. It all combines to give this highland hub city an unassuming, offbeat vibe that is downright irresistible.

I wander onto Santa Fe Avenue, which is more or less the main drag, and which used to be Route 66 before it was re-routed. Next to the road is the line for the Santa Fe Railway, which has been chugging through the heart of Flagstaff since the 1880s. Now I know the source of the plaintive train whistle I heard last night.

Flagstaff vintage deliFrom Santa Fe I stroll along bustling Humphrey and Beaver Streets, passing a myriad of bars and eateries that pull in the local college crowd. Shops and galleries offer an impressive selection of handmade Native American arts and crafts, antiques, and New Age essentials like wind chimes and healing crystals. A handful of outdoor stores cater to the area’s numerous outdoor activities by selling fishing, hiking, skiing, and trekking gear.

On Leroux Street, the wraparound second storey veranda of the Weatherford Hotel makes it one of the downtown core’s most arresting brick structures. Open since New Year’s Day, 1900, its guest list has included President Teddy Roosevelt, famed lawman Wyatt Earp, and old west writer Zane Grey. The Zane Grey Ballroom contains beautiful stained glass windows and an antique Brunswick bar shipped from Tombstone. Employees and guests are said to have observed the ghost of a mysterious woman floating across the ballroom. Unfortunately, she seems to be on her day off when I pop my head in.

Hotel Monte VistaIf one haunted hotel isn’t enough, Flagstaff boasts two. The Hotel Monte Vista, a block east on San Francisco Street, oozes historic charm. For years after its opening in 1927, the brawny redbrick high-rise was the primo place to bed down in Flagstaff. Its celebrated guest list has run the gamut from Clark Gable to Jane Russell to Humphrey Bogart. According to local legend, the famous hotel room scene from Casablanca was shot here, though there’s no hard evidence to support this.

The neon sign hanging outside the main floor cocktail lounge calls to me, so I stop in for a cold one. My server informs me this was Flagstaff’s first speakeasy, and during prohibition the site of a successful bootlegging operation. Today its cool retro décor and live music make it one of the city’s hippest nightspots.

And yes, she tells me, the Monte Vista also has its share of poltergeists, including a pair of murdered prostitutes and a drunken bank robber. The most famous apparition is a bell boy who knocks on room doors and yells “room service,” only to vanish when the door is opened. Other guests have witnessed the bell boy standing outside Room 210. John Wayne supposedly saw the bell boy ghost when he stayed there in the 1950s. Reportedly, the Duke wasn’t at all bothered by the presence of the forthcoming specter.

When I head back outside I find the sun has almost disappeared behind the now muted outline of the San Francisco Peaks. I’m famished, so I belly up to the dark oak bar at nearby Maloney’s Tavern alongside the locals. The affable bartender says that today is Thursday, and Thursday is one big Happy Hour. For a ten dollar bill I get a tasty bacon cheeseburger and lip-smacking Alaskan Amber Ale served in a frosted mug the size of a flower vase. I strike up a conversation with some hipster dudes from Northern Arizona University who are majoring in Sustainable Housing. “Flagstaff is an awesome place to live,” they enthuse, “people here are totally open to non-traditional ways of thinking.” As far as I’m concerned, that’s just one more reason to love Flagstaff.

Somehow I manage to finish my mega-sized beer, and then venture out into the chill evening air for the trek back to my hotel. As I happily teeter down Route 66 beneath the jagged stars, I hear the wail of a nearby train whistle.


Full Day: Grand Canyon Complete Tour from Sedona or Flagstaff

If You Go:

GETTING THERE

Most visitors to Flagstaff arrive by car, as this is the best way to delve into the plethora of nearby attractions like the Lowell Observatory and the Grand Canyon, and to access great hiking trails in the many state parks. Many vacationers fly into Phoenix’s Sky Harbor Airport and head north along Highway I-17. The 150 mile drive takes a little over two hours. Once in Flagstaff Highway I-17 changes into Milton Road, which leads to Route 66 and the downtown center.

WHEN TO GO

Falgstaff’s 7000 ft. elevation means temperatures seldom exceed the 70s Fahrenheit, even in mid-summer, when the city often receives afternoon showers. Winter brings snow and freezing temperatures, which is great for the local ski hills. Spring days are typically clear and sunny though still a bit on the cool side. When I visited in early October daytime highs were a balmy 75 degrees Fahrenheit, with evening lows dipping into the 40s. No matter what time of year you go it’s always a good idea to pack a jacket or pullover.

PLACES TO STAY

Accommodations run the gamut from historic downtown hotels dripping in character to welcoming bed and breakfasts to chain hotels that offer the usual comforts. I stayed at the Day’s Inn (1000 W. Route 66 +1 928 774 5221). For CDN$74 per night I had clean, comfortable digs with a nice breakfast, and it’s an easy fifteen minute stroll to the downtown core. There are a lot of reasonably priced hotels on the outskirts, but it means having to drive downtown. No matter where you stay, book ahead for the best rates.

PLACES TO EAT

Flagstaff’s popularity as a tourist destination has brought a wealth of superb dining options, from European fine dining to vegan to Mexican and of course old fashioned American comfort food. The funkiest spots are found in the downtown core.

Brix Restaurant and Wine Bar (413 N. San Francisco St +1 928 213 1021) Brix is an intimate fine dining eatery that obtains ingredients from local farms. The menu offers a rotating variety of seasonal dishes that may include seared duck breast, cavatelli with sausage, and homemade ravioli.

Diablo Burger (120 N. Leroux St. +1 928 774 3274 ) Recognized by USA Today for serving the best burgers in Arizona, Diablo offers inventive burgers served on English muffins and made from grass-fed and 100% hormone free beef. Communal seating is conducive to socializing. For something different try the db house topped with homemade pesto and a fried egg, over easy.

Discover Flagstaff website

About the author:
Rick’s travel career began as a college student when he impulsively signed up for an international student exchange program and spent that summer working in Turkey. “Don’t go there!” the naysayers said, “it’s not safe!” Luckily, Rick ignored their advice and discovered that the outside world is a place of wonder worth exploring. Since then his wanderlust has taken him to Central and South America, England, Vietnam, Morocco, and China, where he spent an unforgettable year teaching English. Rick makes his home in East Vancouver, Canada, where he writes for various travel publications.

All photos by Rick Neal

Tagged With: Arizona travel, Flagstaff attractions, Route 66 Filed Under: North America Travel

Arizona: A Journey Into Navajoland

west mitten

by Victor A. Walsh 

In the winter silence, colossal shafts and spires and mesas of rock rise out of the early morning light as if they are giants glazed in mantles of stone. Their presence is daunting, otherworldly—something I feel implicitly but do not understand.

“The Navajo call Monument Valley Tsé Bií Ndzisgaíí. It means “The Clearing among the Rocks,” says Harry Nez, our soft-spoken, middle-aged guide from Navajo Spirit Tours.

Directly in front of us, towering above the snow-splattered dunes of red earth and patches of scrub are two imposing buttes called The Mittens.

Big Hogan“It looks like a place where the dinosaurs once roamed frozen in a time capsule of volcanic rock,” I gasp.

“Actually, the rocks are much older than the volcanoes,” says Harry. “Geologists say that they were formed from an ancient sea, but for us they represent the lives of the five-fingered people who came from the underworld.”

“On the left,” he says, pointing to the closer butte silhouetted black against the horizon, “you can see a man’s head frozen in stone. The long narrow column is his hand. On the right in the distance is East Mitten, which is the woman’s head and hand.”

“The bodies inside the earth,” he further explains, “are where the First People, the holy beings, came from. The hands are a reminder to us that the ancient ones will someday return.”

Totem PoleHarry continues driving along the route made famous in John Ford’s classic film Stagecoach (1939) through an eerie, snow-dusted landscape of gouged, red-brown hills and gullies cradled by massive buttes. It’s as if nothing has changed since that time. There are no paved roads, power lines, restaurants or public restrooms — just a few scattered Navajo hogans veiled in gray mist. But everything, including the Navajo’s traditional way of life, is changing.

The 27,000 square-mile reservation, the largest in the nation, is now in the throes of unprecedented crises: a two-decade long drought; an increasingly hotter and dryer climate, and waterways and wells polluted with radioactive waste from abandoned uranium mine tailings.

Rivers are flowing less often. Cottonwood and willow trees are vanishing. Shallow aquifers no longer have year-round water. Sacred springs and ceremonial and medicinal plants are disappearing along with eagles, cranes and bees. Raising sheep and other livestock, integral to traditional Navajo culture, has been declining for decades because of less forage and water. Since the late 1970s there has not been enough water from streams to grow crops.

Spearhead and Rain God mesasNavajo elders remember snows from the 1940s that were chest high on horses. They mention grass so thick and tall that sheep could get lost in it and soil that stayed damp through spring. It was a world they understood and identified with, but weather patterns now are extreme and unpredictable with no seasonal order. “The wind today is different,” says Janis Perry. “It is upset with us. You can see it in our sheep. They are constantly fatigued.”

There is less snow pact now, warmer spring months, and more wildfires, insects and dust storms. The latter bury everything, transforming once viable rangeland into desert expanses, especially in the arid southwestern part of the Nation. What is unprecedented and alarming is that the sand dunes and sheets, a typographical feature for thousands of years, are now moving because of sparse vegetation and stronger winds. As they grow and move, local ecosystems are destabilized and disappear, and opportunistic plants such as the rootless Russian thistle or tumbleweed move in.

Ear of the WindAll of this eludes me in winter’s cocoon at an elevation of 5,200’. In the afternoon light, the red-rock spires and mesas, sculpted in such a cacophony of shapes, rise above the dust-laden emptiness. They stand alone, as if haunted. North of Totem Pole, the wind hurls sand through twisted juniper trees and across the dusty road, gullies, dunes and knolls of fractured rock. As the sun fades, the horizon of misshapen rock formations looks eerily beautiful in the whirling wind.

Unlike at lower elevations, climate change manifests itself differently in Monument Valley. Even before the drought began in 1994, there was little if any snow pact on the mesa tops while the water level of the nearby San Juan River, a major tributary of the Colorado River, drops about two inches per decade due to declining snow melt.

But no one, as Garry Holiday, owner of Navajo Spirit Tours, reminds me, can accurately forecast weather patterns. This past winter the snowfall was surprisingly deep. Snow melt seeping through sandstone aquifers replenished countless springs through most of this summer, including the four surrounding Rain God Mesa that are used in Navajo healing and rain-making ceremonies

Monument ValleyTo the Navajo, Monument Valley, the first tribal park in the United States, is more than a park or nature preserve. It is one of the spiritual centers of their ancestral homeland, a living link to their culture and identity, quite separate from Ford’s mythic Westerns. Some visitors are drawn by the landscapes they remember from his movies, but Navajo guides instead share stories about the Holy Ones, healing ceremonies, rock art and their clans.

“When I am away from here for a long time and come back here, I always shed tears,” says Harry. “But they are tears of joy. It is my connection to who I am as a Navajo.”

Merrick butte“Monument Valley has an unusual power that anchors us,” Garry explains. “There is an inner harmony, beauty and peace. Navajo and non-Navajo, who come here, have been healed emotionally and physically. In our history, no invaders could come in and conquer it.” This included the brutal ‘Long Walk’ of 1863-1864 when the U.S. army under Colonel Kit Carson invaded and forcefully relocated thousands of Navajo people to a New Mexico wasteland called Bosque Redondo. Many of those who escaped capture found refuge in the valley.

What I felt earlier, I now begin to understand. Without these marvels of stone, no Navajo stories of creation, legends, songs or cultural memory would exist. They offer a sense of stability and permanence, even though in the scale of geologic time, I know that they are anything but. But that is not the point. It is their meaning to us that matters.

Looking at the sheer, red-rock faces, I feel a living presence with the past. It is embedded in the rock art of the ancient Anasazi, the fossils of plants and animals, and the aquifer-rock formations that channel water to sacred springs.

The Three SistersWith its hidden burial sites and surreal rock formations infused with gods and spirits and the Navajo presence, Monument Valley is unlike any other place that I have visited. This becomes clear to me later when Harry, Dick and I drive to Ear of the Wind, a tunnel-like vaulted rock arch that opens up to the sky, where echoes from the wind can be heard. In my mind, it resembles a cave where a giant once stayed to watch his kingdom.

Harry motions to us to sit a short distance away beneath another arch called Big Hogan. He tells us that giants long ago came here to talk to the coyotes, rabbits and other animals about what would be best for the world.

While listening, I stare up at the vaulted sandstone walls stained with black streams of water called desert varnish. The narrow vent or hole at the top, beaming like a lantern of white light, casts a golden glow across the rock.

The ThumbThen a long sonorous cry pierces the silence. Maybe fifty or sixty feet away, we see a young Navajo chanter sitting on a rock ledge. He breathes deeply and then leaning forward, rocks his body back and forth as his high-pitched voice echoes off the canyon walls.

I do not know what the chant in Navajo signifies, except that it is harrowing, full of sadness, perhaps about the ongoing drought, and then calming, soothing, perhaps reflecting his hope for rain to water the land again.

As I look up at the vaulted rock, the chanting softens as it drifts through the sky hole into the other world.

If You Go:

Getting There:

♦ Monument Valley is located within the Navajo Nation, 170 miles northeast of Flagstaff, AZ on the Arizona-Utah border. Farmington, NM and Flagstaff are the nearest municipal airports. Local airports exist at Monument Valley, Kayenta and Page, AZ; Cortez, CO and Moab, UT.

Getting Around:

♦ The best way to get to Monument Valley is by car. The park’s entrance is in Utah. From Flagstaff (178 miles) head east on I-40 to US-89 N and follow US-160 E to US-163 N. (Kayenta exit) to Monument Valley Rd. in Olijato Monument Valley. US-163 links to US-191 in Utah. From Farmington (156 miles), head west on W. Broadway, take US-64 W and US-160 W to Monument Valley Rd.

Attractions:

♦ Monument Valley is a magical place for photographers and other outdoor enthusiasts. Along with taking a half-day or full-day tour with a Navajo guide, visitors can stargaze, hike Wildcat Trail, visit the intriguing Valley of the Gods and Goosenecks State Park in San Juan County north of the valley, or drive the scenic section of US-163 to the historic town of Bluff, UT.

Accommodations:

♦ Overlooking the spectacular Oljato-Monument Valley, Goulding’s Lodge is an historic icon, famous for its association with director John Ford’s Old West movies. The museum, once Harry Goulding’s trading post, offers a glimpse into that bygone era. The lodge has a dining room, gift shop, cabins, campground and small theater where guests can watch Ford’s westerns.
♦ Adjacent to the park’s visitor’s center and Navajo-owned, The View Hotel provides breathtaking views of the valley floor, especially the Mitten Buttes. Along with a restaurant, campground and cabins, it has a trading post unlike any other that features Navajo jewelry, earthen pottery, woven baskets and one of the largest rug collections within the Four Corners.

For More Information:

♦ Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park has information on fees, camping, and tours.
♦ American Southwest provides information on the landscape, accommodations, and the valley’s 17-mile dirt-road scenic drive.
♦ Award-winning Navajo Spirit Tours features a beautiful photographic expose of the land, the Navajo guides and tours offered by the company.


Monument Valley and Navajo Indian Reservation

About the author:
Victor A. Walsh spends his time when he’s productively unemployed prowling forgotten or unusual destinations looking for stories that connect a place and its people to their remembered past. His historical essays and travel stories have appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, American History, Literary Traveler, California History, Journal of the West, Rosebud, Desert Leaf, among other publications.

Photos by Richard Miller (1-7), Scott Laws (8) and Richard Miller (9)
West Mitten (L), East Mitten in the foreground, and Merrick Butte (R)
The vaulted sandstone walls of Big Hogan
The spiral-sculpted monolith called Totem Pole
Spearhead and Rain God Mesas cradle the distant spires of Yhe Bi Chei and Totem Pole
Ear of the Wind
Monument Valley veiled in a mantel of morning fog
Merrick Butte (L) on the historic route used in John Ford’s film Stagecoach
The Three Sisters
The Thumb surrounded by wind-tossed sand dunes

Tagged With: Arizona travel, Navajo attractions Filed Under: North America Travel

Arizona: Exploring Ancient Phoenix

Pueblo Grande museum

by Donna Janke

In the midst of urban Phoenix, Arizona, surrounded by sounds of the freeway and planes from nearby Sky Harbor airport, I stepped back in time a thousand years. I was at Pueblo Grande Museum and Archaeological Park, walking through the ruins of an ancient Hohokam settlement.

Phoenix was first recognized as a city in 1868. Driving on freeways through the vast metropolitan area of Greater Phoenix or viewing the city stretched below as far as you can see from the vantage point of Dobbin’s Lookout on South Mountain, it is hard to imagine Phoenix as anything but a modern city, but history of human occupation in the area dates back thousands of years. The Hohokam people lived in the Phoenix Valley from AD 450 to AD 1450. They settled in communities, built sophisticated irrigation systems, and were skillful farmers and creative artisans.

Model of ancient cityI wound my way through the ruins on a trail which took me backward in time. Pueblo Grande began as a small settlement around AD 450 and grew to over fifteen hundred people. The mound village was one of the largest Hohokam settlements in the area. At one time there were over fifty mound villages in the Salt River Valley. They got their names from the platform mounds at their centre. The mounds were urban centres with large open plazas where ceremonies were likely performed and were built with trash or soil and then capped with caliche, a lime-rich soil found in the desert which makes a good plaster when mixed with water. Pueblo Grande also included residential “suburbs”, astronomical observation facilities, waste disposal facilities, and ball courts.

remains of ancient cityI walked past the remains of the platform mound, the ball court, special purpose rooms, and the Solstice Room. At summer solstice sunrise and winter solstice sunset, the sun’s rays passed through the corner door and onto another door in the middle of the south wall of the Solstice Room. Some researchers think the room may have been used as a calendar.

Inside the museum, Hohokam artefacts were on display – jewelry, pottery, tools, and cooking utensils, including a basalt mortar and pestle used to grind mesquite pods into flour. I read about Hohokam life and culture as pieced together by archaeologists as they uncovered ruins and studied relics.

native potteryPueblo Grande was built at the headwaters of a major canal system. The Hohokam cultivated many plant species, including maize, cotton, squash, amaranth, little barley, and beans. Unlike today, The Salt River ran year round during Hohokam days. But the arid desert environment did not produce enough rainfall to grow crops. The Hohokam built over one thousand miles of canals and engineered the largest and most sophisticated irrigation system in the Americas, no small feat considering the primitive tools they had.

ruins of temple moundMesa Grande Cultural Park contains the ruins of a temple mound built by the Hohokam between AD 1100 and AD 1400. At first glance, I was not impressed with the site. Just a mound of dirt and a ditch. The site became more interesting as I walked through it and viewed it in context of the historical information provided on sign posts. The Park of the Canals contains no mound village but displays the remains of over four thousand feet of Hohokam canals in three different sections. Also located with the Park is the Brinton Desert Botanical Garden, a small garden containing plants found within the desert environment.

Over five hundred miles of Hohokam canals have been recorded in the Salt River Valley. Some canals were more than twelve miles long, up to one hundred feet wide and fifteen feet deep. For four hundred years after the Hohokam disappeared there were no permanent settlements in the Salt River Valley. In the late 1800s, settlers to the area discovered the abandoned canals. They cleaned out, rebuilt, and re-used some of the canals to irrigate crops. Companies and individuals later built new canals and an agricultural community grew.

Phoenix canalCanals remain important to irrigation within the greater Phoenix area today with nine major canals and over nine hundred miles of “laterals”, ditches taking water from the canals to delivery points. Paths alongside the waterways are used for walking, running and biking. Scottsdale, one of the other cities in the greater Phoenix area, has turned a canal area into a modern meeting place and tourist draw. The banks of Scottsdale Waterfront, in a revitalized area of downtown Scottsdale, are lined with palm trees, public art, courtyards, fountains, and walking paths. The area contains restaurants, outdoor cafés, specialty shops, and high-rise residential buildings, and hosts music and art festivals. It feels worlds away from its ancient Hohokam roots.

What happened to the Hohokam? It remains a bit of a mystery. Although their descendants live on as members of the Tohono O’odham Nation, the Hohokam disappeared from the valley around AD 1450. Some archaeologists believe environmental catastrophes seriously affected agricultural production. Akimel O’odham oral histories indicate conflicts between groups may have contributed to the area’s abandonment. Or perhaps an influx of people to the area made population levels too hard to sustain. Whatever the reasons, their legacy lives on in the canal system and the ruins of mound villages. Their life and culture are what the Pueblo Grande Museum and Archaeological Park calls “the ancient heart of Phoenix.”


Private Sonoran Desert Hot Air Balloon Ride from Phoenix

If You Go:

♦ Pueblo Grande Museum and Archaeological Park is open daily. See the website for hours, rates, and directions.
♦ Mesa Grande Cultural Park is open Tuesdays through Sunday. See the website for hours, rates, and directions.
♦ Park of the Canals and Brinton Desert Botanical Garden are located in Mesa between Brown and McKellips on Horne on the west side of the street. Admission is free.
♦ Scottsdale Waterfront is located along the north and south banks of the Arizona Canal south of Camelback Road between Scottsdale Road and Goldwater Boulevard.

About the author:
Donna Janke is a Manitoba-based writer who has spent several winters in Arizona. She loves to explore history, culture, art and nature wherever she travels and to share the stories she finds through narrative, photos and personal reflection. She blogs at www.destinationsdetoursdreams.com.

All photos by Donna Janke

Tagged With: Arizona travel, Phoenix attractions, USA travel Filed Under: North America Travel

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