The first thing people ask me when they see my dog is, “What is she?” I tell them, “She’s a Navajo.” She’s very cute and goes almost everywhere with me. She is very well behaved, and people always notice her. When my husband and I took her to Mexico, everyone kept saying, “ que bonita, que bonita. “ Just today, driving through the smoke shop on the Apache Rez, the lady working asked me, “What is she?” She has the eyes of a bull dog, tail of a corgi, face shape of a pit bull and coat of a husky. All Rez dogs have a little wild dog in them. Coyote, wolf. So I just always tell people, “She’s a Navajo.”
I spent nine months working on the Navajo Reservation in the four corners area, fifty miles north of Chinle, AZ, seventy miles from Durango, CO and 80 miles from Farmington, NM in a tiny hamlet called Rock Point (Navajo: Tsé Nitsaa Deezʼáhí). I loved the starkness, the harshness, the bareness, the sandstone, the wind, the solitude, the beauty and the people, the Diné, I could have stayed there forever and been content if it wasn’t for the animal problem.
The Navajo Nation (Navajo: Naabeehó Bináhásdzo) is a semi-autonomous Native American-governed territory covering 27,425 square miles (71,000 km2), occupying all of northeastern Arizona, the southeastern portion of Utah, and northwestern New Mexico. It is the largest land area assigned primarily to a Native American jurisdiction within the United States.
Navajo Nation
Naabeehó Bináhásdzo
(Diné Bikéyah)
I can see the San Fransisco Peaks from my house and except for a few miles the whole way to Flagstaff. The Peaks can be seen 50 to a hundred miles away any direction you approach from. They are sacred to all the Native people in the area. It was my first mental trip marker.

The San Francisco Peaks are a volcanic mountain range located in north central Arizona, just north of Flagstaff. The highest summit in the range, Humphreys Peak, is the highest point in the state of Arizona at 12,633 feet (3,851 m) in elevation. The San Francisco Peaks are the remains of an eroded stratovolcano.[1] An aquifer within the caldera supplies much of Flagstaff's water while the mountain itself is located within the Coconino National Forest and is a popular site for outdoor recreation. The Arizona Snowbowl ski area is located on the western slopes of Humphreys Peak.[2]
The San Francisco Peaks have considerable religious significance to thirteen local American Indian tribes (including the Havasupai, Navajo, Hopi, and Zuni.) In particular, the peaks form the Navajo sacred mountain of the west, called the Dook'o'oosłííd. The peaks are associated with the color yellow, and they are said to contain abalone inside, to be secured to the ground with a sunbeam, and to be covered with yellow clouds and evening twilight. They are gendered female.[3]
For the Hopi people, the San Francisco Peaks (Hopi: Nuvatukya’ovi) are associated with the cardinal direction southwest, constitute ritually pure sacred spaces, and are used as sources for ceremonial objects.[4] The alignment of the sunset from the Peaks to Hopi villages on Black Mesa is used to calculate the winter solstice, signifying "the beginning of a new year, with a new planting season and new life."
78.23 miles from Flagstaff, AZ to Tuba City north on 89A.
Cameron Trading Postis about half way to Tuba. It is on the corner of the East entrance to the Grand Canyon on Hwy 89A. I would stop to get coffee. They have good coffee, and it has always been one of my favorite places to stop when I head this way.

Hidden away on the edge of a Navajo Indian reservation, this trading post is an authentic jewel of the Grand Canyon crossroads. Founded in 1916, the place combines old world charm with modern convenience. A hotel, restaurant, and store welcome visitors to the land of enchantment with its colorful canyon vistas and rich Native American culture. The grounds are quiet and lovely, with views of the Little Colorado River gorge. The Grand Canyon is a short, scenic drive from the Post.
There are a lot of trading posts on the reservation. They serve as stores, post offices and places where the Native Americans can bring their traditional crafts, jewelry, pottery, baskets, kachina carvings, flutes and rugs to sell.

I turn right off 89A, the road to Lake Powell, and on to US 160. US 160 is one of the major routes crossing the Navajo Nation and in Arizona, does not leave Navajo Nation. You can see hogans everywhere once you turn onto 160 and all around Tuba City.
The Navajos used to make their houses, called hogans, of wooden poles, tree bark and mud. The doorway of each hogan opened to the east so they could get the morning sun as well as good blessings. Today, many Navajo families still live in hogans, although the modern version can be much nicer.
About twenty miles east of Tuba City at Tonalea, I would see the next of my mental road markers Elephant Feet, two gray white, brown and red pillars that resemble elephant feet, giving them their name.
Kayenta is the next town down the road, the gateway to Monument Valley. You can see some of the memorable bluffs and mesas from the road. Monument Valley is about 25 miles north of Kayenta. Kayenta also has a Navajo Code Talkers Exhibit at Burger King, where I would stop and get a drink. There are only Burger Kings on the Rez, unless they’ve built some McDonald’s lately. It has something to do with how the Rez makes contracts with businesses and what they have to do to be able to open there.
Monument Valley (Navajo: Tsé Biiʼ Ndzisgaii, meaning valley of the rocks) is a region of the Colorado Plateau characterized by a cluster of vast sandstone buttes, the largest reaching 1,000 ft (300 m) above the valley floor. It is located on the northern border of Arizona with southern Utah (around 36°59′N 110°6′W), near the Four Corners area. The valley lies within the range of the Navajo Nation Reservation, and is accessible from U.S. Highway 163.
Once out of Kayenta I drove about fifty miles east to Hwy 191 where I turned south, and US 160 turns northeast to go to the Four Corners and enters New Mexico. If I drove a little further up 160,
Shiprockwould soon come into sight and can be seen for a long distance from all four states in the four corners. It is another sacred symbol to the Tribes in the area including the Utes, who have a reservation close by.
The Navajo name Tsé Bitʼaʼí, "rock with wings" or "winged rock", for the peak refers to the legend of the great bird that brought them from the north to their present lands.[6
Shiprock is a rock formation rising nearly 1,583 feet (482.5 m) above the high-desert plain on the Navajo Nation in San Juan County, New Mexico, USA. It has a peak elevation of 7,177 feet (2,187.5 m) above the sea level. in the Four Corners region and plays a significant role in Navajo religion, mythology and tradition. It is located in the center of the Ancient Pueblo People or Ancestral Puebloan civilization, a prehistoric Native American culture of the Southwest United States often referred to as the Anasazi. It is the most prominent landmark in northwestern New Mexico.
It is the erosional remnant of the throat of a volcano, and the volcanic breccia formed in a diatreme. The exposed rock probably was originally formed 2,500–3000 feet (750-1,000 meters) below the Earth's surface, but it was exposed after millions of years of erosion.. Radiometric age determinations of the minette establish that these volcanic rocks solidified about 27 million years ago. Shiprock is in the northeastern part of the Navajo Volcanic Field; the field includes intrusions and flows of minette and other unusual igneous rocks that formed about 25 million years ago. Agathla, also called El Capitan, is another prominent volcanic neck of this field.[9]
I then drove another thirty miles south to Rock Point, ending a 280 mile trip from Rimrock to Rock Point. I could do it in under four hours. Fifty miles south of Rock Point is
Canyon de Chelly. Skip and I would go there several times while I lived on the Rez. People often compare its beauty to the Grand Canyon. It is the legendary place where
Kit Carson burned all the peach trees, and the Navajo began their “
long walk”, during which many of them died.
Since the American occupations in 1846, six treaties had been negotiated with the Navajos and all were promptly broken. The new strategy given to Carson called for destruction of the tribe's hogans and crops and capture of their livestock.
Kit's military force, scouring western New Mexico and eastern Arizona in the dead of winter, obliged Navajos by the thousands to surrender and accept removal to the Pecos.
In January 1864, Col. Carson ordered his subordinate Capt. Asa B. Carey to invade the deep and isolated Canyon de Chelly in Arizona and bring out the Indians who had taken refuge there. He was also instructed to destroy dwellings and the peach orchards.
The name chelly (or Chelley) is a Spanish borrowing of the Navajo word Tséyiʼ, which means "canyon" (literally "inside the rock" < tsé "rock" + -yiʼ "inside of, within"). The Navajo pronunciation is [tséɣiʔ]. The Spanish pronunciation of de Chelly [deˈtʃeʎi] was adapted into English, apparently through modelling after a French-like spelling pronunciation, and now English pronunciation: dəˈʃeɪ də·shā′
Rock Pointconsists of a HS, elementary scool, the original school (no longer used), Chapter house (where the local Navajo meet to conduct their governmental business), Trading post and a small neighborhood of duplexes. Sorry about the fuzzy pictures. I took photos when I lived there, but all my film got ruined. I always wondered about that. The Navajo do not like to be photographed and you must ask their permission before you do. The same is true for the Hopi. Maybe there was a curse on my film.
As of the census[2] of 2000, there were 724 people, 168 households, and 150 families residing in the CDP. The population density was 52.5 people per square mile (20.3/km²). There were 229 housing units at an average density of 16.6/sq mi (6.4/km²). The racial makeup of the CDP was 97.79% Native American, 1.66% White, 0.14% from other races, and 0.41% from two or more races. 0.14% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.
Part 2: My Little Navajo, Puppy in a Box