Arizona: Navajo Nation – Monument Valley

When filmmaker John Ford arrived in what is now Monument Valley with a very young John Wayne to make the Western Classic little did he know that this dramatic landscape would become the backdrop to several of his movies and would also be adopted by other filmmakers.  Films that have been made in the Valley include “Stagecoach” with a very young John Wayne. After this Ford, and other filmmakers, made numerous Western films in and around the valley including such classics as “Fort Apache”, “The Searchers” and more recently “Back to the Future”. For me, having being bought up on a diet of John Wayne movies, this was somewhat of a pilgrimage.

It was extremely apt that we were staying on the Goulding’s RV park. Harry Goulding had moved to Monument with his new wife Leone, he called her “Mike” because, when he wrote her love letters before they were married, he had difficulty spelling her name. They set-up a trading post and began their long relationship with the local Navajo. Then the Great Depression hit and forced a lot of Goulding’s suppliers out of business. He heard that film director John Ford was looking for a location for a new Western movie and was looking at Flagstaff. With his last $60 Goulding set off to Hollywood with “Mike” to regale John Ford about the suitability of Monument Valley for his new film. Miraculously, by taking out his sleeping bag and threatening to sleep outside the Director’s door until he was let in, he got a meeting with Ford. 10 days later they were on set in Monument Valley making the film “Stagecoach”. The rest is history!

Monument Valley is located on the Utah / Arizona State borders and is set in the Navajo land. Whilst there is a loop road that goes around the valley, it is a dirt track and we decided not to risk our old lady of a Jeep on it. Instead, we booked ourselves on a 3 ½ hour escorted tour. Our chariot was an open-backed 4 wheel drive truck; we were sitting in the back of the truck bed on some very uncomfortable seats. As we were boarding the skies looked very threatening and there were even a couple of claps of thunder. Undeterred we head for our first stop, a Hogan, along with our fellow travellers; two grandparents and their grandchild from the Netherlands, a German couple and two couples from the US. The Hogan is the traditional dwelling of the Navajo Indians. They are round buildings with a wooden frame structure and covered in mud. This works in the dry deserts of Arizona but would not be suitable for damper climates like the Northwest of the USA or the UK. Waiting inside the Hogan was a Navajo lady who was demonstrating weaving and other crafts, which we watched for several minutes. She demonstrates the traditional method of tying the Navajo ladies long hair in a bun on a young lady from New York with greasy hair!