Coffee for the Soul: Within the rock

The "White House" down in the canyon.

We visited the White House ruins. No, we didn't go to Washington DC, and as far as I know the residence of the U.S. President is in good condition. This somewhat less famous White House is situated in Arizona, near the town of Chinle, on Navajo lands and on the floor of a canyon. The canyon is called Tséyi, "A place within the rock", and the name that appears on white people's maps is Canyon de Chelly.

It is probably not as famous a canyon as the Grand Canyon, at least among Finnish tourists. For me, however, it was one of the most impressive places I've ever visited. Grand Canyon, of course, was that as well, but I learned that there are many kinds of canyons.

The floor of the canyon is covered in lush vegetation, but the rims are a dry desert.

The shape of Canyon de Chelly is very different from Grand Canyon, the latter follows the Colorado river for a long distance, whereas the former looks, on a map, like a gigantic dinosaur's footprint. It is winding, with many branches. The landscape in Canyon de Chelly is completely different from Grand Canyon or the sandstone formations in Zion National Park.

Canyon de Chelly is remarkable not only for its natural history, but also human history. It contains traces of human habitation as old as 4000 years. The first people to make the canyon their home, ancestors of today's pueblo peoples of Arizona and New Mexico, are sometimes called the anasazi. The pueblo peoples of today may dislike that name, because in the Navajo language, anaasází means "ancient enemy". The Hopi, who today live west from Canyon de Chelly, call their ancestors hisatsinom, "the ancient ones": archeologists usually call them "ancestral puebloans". They seem to have left the canyon before first contact with Europeans, and the area was settled by the Navajo. The battle of Canyon de Chelly in 1864 was the last time that the Navajos took up arms to resist the military power of the United States.

Cultivated fields on the floor of Canyon de Chelly.

Today Canyon de Chelly is a National Monument, administered by the Federal government and the Navajo Nation in co-operation. In addition, it is farmland. There are fields and pastures of many Navajo farmers on the floor of the canyon. Farming in a rugged canyon, in the hot and arid Arizona climate, must be difficult and hard work.

Panorama of the Spider Rock lookout. Full-sized picture can be seen here.

A good road follows the canyon rim, and there are several viewpoints. Landscape is beautiful everywhere, but I found Spider Rock most impressive. It is a sandstone pillar, rising 240 meter (almost 800 feet) above the canyon floor. According to an old Navajo legend, it is home of the Spider Woman who taught the Navajo to weave cotton cloth.

Spider Rock.

However, the best thing about Canyon de Chelly is that the floor can be reached relatively easily. Most of the canyon is off-limits without an official guide, but there's one hiking route, the White House Trail, open for everyone. Even completely unathletic middle-aged couch potatoes like us survived with little difficulty. It probably was a smart thing to wait until late afternoon, so that the walls of the canyon created shade on the path. The heat of the noon might have been unbearable. Anyway, do carry plenty of water.