MONUMENT VALLEY: THE GOULDINGS

If you were a newlywed, would you spend two-and-a-half years in a tent on the desert frontier...with your only contact being the local Navajo that came calling?

This couple did.  They are real American pioneers of the twentieth century and this is their story.

Harry Goulding was a rugged cowboy and the son of a sheep herder from Silverton, CO.  He had seen Monument Valley where the buttes jutted straight up to the sky and he fell headlong in love with that country.

He was also in love with this lovely lady named Leone (whose name he couldn't spell, so he just renamed her "Mike").  The best thing about Mike was that she bought into his dream of living in Monument Valley.  They married in 1923; she was 12 days past her 18th birthday and he was 26.

They put big tires on their 1922 soft-top Buick (because the roads were not paved), took their Graham Brothers ton-and-a-half truck (Graham Brothers was later bought by Dodge), and headed overland for the Arizona/Utah border.

Their land was an outparcel which had belonged to the Paiute Indians.  It went up for sale when the government traded the Paiutes more "farmable" land to the north.  So the Gouldings were able to buy one square mile of land ($320 for 640 acres) which lay next to the huge 29,816 acre Navajo reservation.

They pitched their tent 180 miles from the nearest railroad station, learned the Navajo language, and began trading with the Indians.  It wasn't exactly "cash and carry".  The Navajo traded handmade rugs and blankets and jewelry for coffee, sugar, and flour.  The Goulding's other source of income was raising cattle and sheep.

Every fall, Harry would take cattle and sheep out of Monument Valley to the railroad station in Farmington, NM.  It was a 38 day trip and he would take several Navajo with him.  Sometimes he also took them with him to Durango to stock up on flour and staples.  The Navajo called Harry "Tall Sheep".

Once the Navajo asked the Gouldings when they were going to leave the valley.  Harry said "not until my hair turns the white of that tent over there".

This is the trading post Harry and Mike built and lived above.  The view out that balcony across the street to the reservation is not too shabby.

When they had been married 15 years, drought teamed up with the Depression and lamb/wool prices plummeted.  The Gouldings were down to their last $60 and the Indians were starving before Harry got a bright idea.  He thought Hollywood would be interested in Monument Valley for making movies.

In 1938, he and Mike got in the car with their remaining dollars and a portfolio of 8x10 black-and-white pictures of the valley.  They stayed with Mike's brother in Hollywood, who thought they were crazy to think they could "get in" at the studios without an appointment.

A secretary at United Artists turned Harry down as predicted.  He pulled out a bedroll and told them he wasn't leaving until someone looked at his pictures.  Security was called, but before they arrived the location manager for John Ford's next movie (STAGECOACH) happened to walk by. The next thing Harry knew, he was pitching his valley to John Ford.

Within weeks the whole cast/crew of STAGECOACH (over 100 people) showed up in Monument Valley.  John Ford stayed in the Goulding's spare room and John Wayne stayed in a tent.  There was no indoor plumbing.  

Hundreds of Navajo were recruited as extras and Harry got them Union wage ($5 a day/$8 if on horseback).  He was a good negotiator with the Indians since he spoke their language and could explain what John Ford wanted in a scene.  

There was a Navajo medicine man who was supposedly good at delivering the weather that they needed for shooting, so he was hired as an official consultant.  One day he fell in disfavor when the weather wasn't as predicted.  Leaving he was heard to mumble his radio was broken that day and he couldn't listen to the forecast.

For years afterward, film crews came and provided more and more jobs.  Tourists began coming to the valley and it helped the economy.

The Gouldings opened a lodge and ranch in the 50's in addition to their trading post.  They stayed until Harry retired at 65 and they moved to Page, AZ, returning often for visits.  After Harry died in 1981, Mike was kindly invited by the family who bought Goulding's to come back and live there until her death in 1992.  

The trading post is now a museum, but the personal items belonging to the Gouldings are all upstairs, just as they were.  There are pictures on all the walls of the Gouldings with famous people (Harry, Mike, and Barry Goldwater...Harry, Mike, and all the actors).  The furniture is the same and all of Mike's beautiful Indian jewelry is on display.

Harry and Mike Goulding were such interesting people.  His need to get away from civilization seemed in direct conflict with promoting valley tourism.  Perhaps he was pragmatic and determined to make things work.  Certainly Harry picked the right mate who could also enjoy that solitary, independent life.  The Gouldings did not have children.

Someone wrote about Harry Goulding: "Harry believed that someday people from all over the world would be visiting Monument Valley to see its wonders.  And when they came, he wanted to be there to show it to them."  Harry was right; half a million people come to Monument Valley yearly.

MONUMENT VALLEY: THE MOVIES

John Ford, John Wayne, and Monument Valley...all three are icons of the American West which came together in 1938 when Harry Goulding introduced John Ford to the valley in Ford's making of STAGECOACH.

Harry and Mike Goulding's trip to Hollywood was a success.  They had a $5,000 advance and instructions to get ready for the coming movie crew.  Tent cities were set up and the street was named "Hollywood and Vine".  Just getting the big trucks in was no small accomplishment because the roads were dirt and although they only get 8" of rain a year, when it does rain everything is a mess.  When it doesn't rain, the sand is loose.

John Ford went on to make more movies in Monument Valley such as THE SEARCHERS,  CHEYENE AUTUMN, FORT APACHE, SHE WORE A YELLOW RIBBON, MY DARLING CLEMENTINE, SERGEANT RUTLEDGE and RIO GRANDE.

Mike and I spent two nights in Monument Valley and both nights rented Westerns...STAGECOACH and THE SEARCHERS.  I have to confess that I think highly of myself to be able to "figure things out" in movies...but in THE SEARCHERS, I couldn't get what John Wayne's character's angst was all about.  We watched it and gave it a "ho hum".  Then we found the DVD option of Peter Bogdanovich explaining the subplot and camera angles.  That was fascinating and the movie made sense!  Loved seeing a teenage Natalie Wood and her real little sister Lana, who played Natalie as a girl in the movie.

Monument Valley then became a familiar backdrop for many movies that weren't just Westerns.  FORREST GUMP turned around in Monument Valley, THELMA AND LOUISE drove through, Tom Cruise began MISSION IMPOSSIBLE on a mesa in the valley, and many an anvil was dropped off of a mesa onto the Road Runner. 

On the Cruses' visit, we got to see Optimus Prime (above) shooting his new TRANSFORMERS FOUR. 

                                                                                                                                                                           

In July, the remake of THE LONE RANGER will be out.  Here is Johnny Depp on set, shaking hands with the president of the Navajo nation.

What in the world has Depp done to Tonto?

If this man looks unapproachable, that was his reputation.  Director John Ford's personality was known to be irascible and intimidating, but his movies were also the model for many other directors.  When Orson Welles was asked his favorite director, he answered "John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford."

Mr. Ford must have had some need to "take down" actors (men and women) so that he could get a performance from them.  Know who John Ford was the most ruthless with?  The Duke.  It was said that he berated John Wayne in front of the crew regularly and mercilessly.

This is what the Navajo have called "John Ford Point"...because the director would go out and sit to think about how to put together his storyboards.  The Indian rides out every day in full regalia and when he gets back from the point, visitors can pay him to have their picture made beside him or on his horse.

Perhaps it all was win-win.  John Ford made John Wayne a star, the movies won John Ford six Oscars, and Monument Valley became one of America's favorite destinations.

                                                                                                                                                                               

MONUMENT VALLEY: THE NAVAJO

The Mittens are two buttes which welcome visitors into the Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park.  The Navajo say they are the hands of a deity.

Proud, independent, self-governing, the Navajo nation is a country inside a country.  They have their own police and governing council and President.  There are only a few federal laws that would supersede Navajo law.

This beautiful new hotel on the right as you enter the park just blends into the hills.  It is appropriately named "The View".  

The Navajo have every right to be proud of The View.  It was built by Navajo and is staffed by Navajo.  The view from every room is amazing and the restaurant is five star.  Navajo fry bread!  They have a high end gift shop with beautiful jewelry...as well as a Museum below. 

How do the Navajo make money?

They receive oil and gas lease proceeds, casino dollars, they have a thriving handmade goods business, and they are shepherds and cattle ranchers.

Are the Navajo native to Monument Valley?

Historians can trace the Anasazi in the valley back before the 1300's.  But those Pueblo people disappeared and the Navajo came to the valley sometime after 1500.

The Navajo are thought to have migrated from Canada because there is an Indian tribe in Canada whose language is similar.  The Navajo language is very complex.  Just ask anyone who has tried to learn it (like Harry and Mike Goulding)...or like the enemy in WW2 who tried to break these Navajo Code Talkers'  language.

Has our government treated the Navajo badly?

1.  In 1863 when settlers to the West came into conflict with the Indians, the government stepped in to bring peace to the area by removing every man, woman, and child to a reservation 350 miles away.  

That march to Ft. Sumner, New Mexico (also called Bosque Redondo) was called "The Long Walk".  It was @gunpoint and in harsh winter weather.  Over 200 died along the way and more died in what was described as a "barren" reservation.  Brackish water made them sick, flour had bugs, and there was not enough food.  They shared space with their enemy, the Apache.

Four years later, the government reversed its position and a treaty was signed. The Navajo went home and their line was ten miles long.  They were initially given 3.5 million acres and over the years, it has increased to over 16 million acres.


2.  The Navajo counts his wealth in the number of sheep or horses and considers his livestock to be sacred like family.  When the government initiated a "scorched earth" policy against the Indians in 1863 (before they were marched away to Ft. Sumner), all their livestock was slaughtered.  

Then during the 1930's Dustbowl, it happened again when the Bureau of Indian Affairs ordered a "Navajo Livestock Reduction".

The Navajo are good shepherds and their livestock flourished on their return from Ft. Sumner.  That success led to overgrazing.  It was thought that 2/3 of the Navajo range was destroyed, followed by soil erosion.  The Bureau ordered the livestock numbers dramatically reduced (80%) and a quarter of a million animals were killed.



3.  From 1944 to 1986, there was a demand for atomic power.  This Four Corners area of the Colorado Plateau is rich in radioactive ore (uranium),  and almost 4 million tons of uranium was extracted from Navajo lands under leases with the Navajo Nation.

Today the mines are closed but the uranium contamination remains.  There are over 500 abandoned mines which polluted water supplies, causing bone cancer and impaired kidney function.  Indians constructed their hogans from the mine tailings and it is easy to imagine how the sun would bake in that contamination, causing a 15x greater incidence of stomach cancer on the reservation.

After a blast, Indians were sent in while dust was swirling..while the white men were allowed to wait.  That inhalation of radioactive particles caused lung cancer, but the Navajo were never told of the hazards or radiation effects.  They did not have a word for it in their language.  Many did not speak English and trusted the uranium companies to have their interests in mind.  In addition, they were unfairly paid below-minimum wage and also paid less than miners from off the reservation.

Finally, in October 2007, the EPA, a House Committee on Oversight/Government Reform, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Department of Energy, the Indian Health Service, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission...all coordinated a Five Year Plan to address the contamination in the Navajo Nation.  Hopefully this will bring some justice to a beleaguered people.  We certainly betrayed and took advantage of the Navajo.

   

CANYONLANDS!

 The Colorado Plateau is found in the "four corners" area of Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico.


The plateau is a raised area (130,000 square miles) which lifted when tectonic plates shifted.  Scientists offer their best guesses at its age and why it happened.

An alternate view is that the Creator God spoke it into being in the blink of an eye.  As Mike and I surveyed the mountains and chasms of the Colorado Plateau, we decided He really pushed the "enhance" button when He made this Western eye candy.

Here's the satellite view of the Colorado Plateau.  To the top left is the Great Salt Lake, on the right are the green Rockies (with snow-capped peaks), the canyonlands in the middle are easy to spot by their color, and the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River is on the left (below the middle).

Kodak can't do justice to these red-rocked canyons and words can't express them...yet they paint an undeniable picture of "vast" and "timeless" and "majestic", much like the Designer Himself.

Since our canyonlands visit, Mike and I have ricocheted between gratitude (for realizing something that has been on our bucket list for years) and awe (as each beauty-trigger drew our hearts upward).  My fun was watching Mike drink it all in; my husband LOVES the West.  And truly, Americans have been given a gorgeous place to call home.  Here are just some random thoughts:

Bryce Canyon

*Our path led through Flagstaff's Walnut Canyon, Sedona, AZ, Grand Canyon, Zion and Bryce Canyon, and Monument Valley.  Each had high places and
valley floors, but each was a bit unique and "Ooooh!" inspiring.

*We rubbed elbows with people from all around the world.  Perhaps because it was May and Americans aren't traveling yet, but we heard more foreign tongues than English spoken.  Mike's comment was "THIS is our best foreign policy".  Our anecdotal survey found the majority to be Germans (who seem fascinated with the American West)...followed by Japanese, French, Dutch, and Canadians.

Grand Canyon

*It's good to find something that our government does well.  We consider the military and our National Parks to be in that category.

Grand Canyon National Park receives MANY visitors with great functionality.  On the south rim, free natural gas buses (handicap accessible) run constantly and the nine scenic overlook stops allow travelers to get on and off at will.  There are free places to fill water bottles (a necessity) and the bathrooms are up-to-date with slot machines for wet hands.  Mike likes to say our best ever $10 investment was the park pass (available after age 62).  That little plastic card has gotten us into lots of national parks and presidential libraries for free.

Sedona, AZ

*We wondered if the scenery being perpetually gorgeous would cause us to glaze over after a while.  Would we lose our appreciation (as in, "bleh, another canyon")?  It helped to hold a thought in mind from this year's Genesis study.  With infinite creativity, the Almighty thought up and made what we were seeing.  Then just as surely, one day He will destroy the earth by fire and restore the original splendor of the Garden of Eden.  With those thoughts in mind, we wondered what possibly could be coming that would be more beautiful than what we were seeing.

*After 40 years in Little Rock at 335 feet, we considered Fayetteville's 1,400 feet to be high sky.

But when you're in 8,000 feet regularly (and the highest place at Bryce is Rainbow Point at 9,100 feet)...not only do you long for a full, satisfying breath, but your skin turns to white powder, the unopened chip sacks swell, and the ballpoint pen cartridges burst.

Here are just a few notes from some of our stops:

@WALNUT CANYON.  The Anasazi ("ancient ones") carved their existence from these rocks.  Can you see the caves where they lived in the side of these mountains?  Mike hiked down to see the remains of their cliff dwellings.  Imagine raising children in such an area!

Then one day, just like the ancient Pueblo people of Mesa Verde, the Walnut Canyonites just left their pots and disappeared.

@SEDONA.  We saw this canyon first and it tied with Bryce as my favorite.  It would be a real treat to spend some days in Sedona, waking up to these red rocks.

Leaving Flagstaff and driving less than an hour south, we dropped 2,000 feet down into Sedona's  sanctuary.  The walls of this "outdoor room" are all painted iron oxide (claypot).  No wonder the rich and famous have homes here!  We smiled at a bumper sticker that said "God made the Grand Canyon, but He lives in Sedona".

@GRAND CANYON (South Rim).  Think 217 miles one way, ten miles from the north to the south rim, and some places a mile deep.  When we looked down there was an immediate speck effect.  Isn't it good to be humbled by something larger than self?  The vastness brings Psalm 95:4 to mind.  "In one hand He holds the deep caves and caverns, in the other hand grasps the high mountains."

The firsthand canyon experience is dazzling, but just outside the park an Imax theatre puts the canyon in context historically.  It was amazing to think of those first explorers who had no idea what rapids were ahead when they fearlessly plunged ahead in a rowboat.  The actual boat is on display at the park Visitor Center, and the replica used for making the Imax movie was on display as you exited the theatre.  One of my "take-away" thoughts from the film narration was "the canyon has no need of man".  Neither does God, the Self-Existent One...but He still taps you on the shoulder at the Grand Canyon.

@GRAND CANYON (Hermit's Rest).

The most western stop on the south rim was where we found one of only two Bible verses in the whole park.  The park ranger at Hermit's Rest explained that the plaque verse was there originally, someone complained and it was taken down, and then someone complained and it was put back up.  It is able to be displayed because it was original to the founding.  The verse is powerful as you looked out over the view.  "Sing to God, sing praises to His name; cast up a highway for Him who rides through the deserts, whose name is the Lord, and exult before Him."  Psalm 68:4

@GRAND CANYON (Desert View Watchtower).

This spot that is so high and lifted-up...was #3 on my list of favorites.  Built and designed in the 30's to have an ancient look, you find this site on the east end of the southern rim (about 30 minutes from the main entrance).

The watchtower is a 70 foot stone tower which offers a dizzying, 360 degree canyon view.

The inside walls are painted with Indian murals and reproduction petroglyphs.  The antique chairs were carved from a crotch of wood and had animal skin seats.  Even the lighting is cleverly hidden in Indian pottery.

On the backside of the tower, one level has a walkout patio which puts you on eye-level with ravens, which are prevalent in the area.  Ravens have a huge, glossy blue/black-patent body with beady little eyes and they make a cry like a child in distress.  Perhaps an old Hitchcock hangup caused me to be unnerved by this carrion-eater, but it was fun to watch the ravens glide on the wind currents.

@ZION CANYON.  As we headed into Utah's Zion National Park, the rocks seem poured out.  Tour buses were available in this canyon, too...they took visitors into areas where cars were not allowed.

Just as in the Grand Canyon, there were "discoverers" who came into this area and claimed it.  Think that discovery might have come as a surprise to the Indians who already lived there?

Next door (at the Grand Canyon) it was the Spanish who first discovered the area in the 1500's.  Then in the 1800's, it was re-discovered by Mormon missionaries.  They advised an American (the one-armed Major John Wesley Powell) who led the expeditionary team to map the Colorado River through the canyon.  The Imax theatre told that story.

Zion Canyon was settled by Mormons in the mid 1800's.  When Isaac Behunin (who lived in a log cabin close to where Zion Lodge is today) entered the canyon, he exclaimed "this is my Zion!"  Mormons named many of these mountains and these triplets (above) are "The Patriarchs" for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

@BRYCE CANYON.  Welcome to hoodoo land.  More than a million people come to Utah to see this National Park each year.

Each "hoodoo" (rock formation) has a soft sandstone lower level and a harder stone top which protects.  They are constantly changing as freezing and thawing makes cracks, which then shear off in the rain.  The differing minerals in the columns cause differing colors and it's fun to look for recognizable shapes.

Mike is looking at Natural Bridge in Bryce.

 

    

In the morning when the sun is behind these whiter hoodoos, they appear as porcelain.

 












Can you find the Totem Pole hoodoo?

We are in Utah, but we can see Arizona from here.

@MONUMENT VALLEY.

Everyone who has seen a John Wayne/John Ford movie knows about Monument Valley on the Utah and Arizona line.  This spot is named "John Ford Point" because he used to sit out on the point to get his storyboards in his head.  Ford was known for only keeping the movie path in his brain (nothing written down) and only wanting one "take".

Many movies were shot here, and the latest was shot on the day we were there ("Transformers 4").  They used the mesas for Tom Cruise's opening of "Mission Impossible", for a Chevy truck commercial, and for the new movie coming out in July ("Lone Ranger").  Forrest Gump turned around his cross-country run in this valley and the movie "Cars" called it "Ornament Valley".  RoadRunner cartoons were set here, "Thelma and Louise" drove through, it was in both "Easy Rider" and "Back to the Future", and there's no telling how many Westerns.  The two nights we spent in the campground, we checked out and watched the original 1938 "Stagecoach" and "The Searchers".

We loved hearing about the history of this valley and a blog is coming about Harry and "Mike" Goulding,  the original homesteaders who in the early 20's were able to buy a square mile of Monument Valley right next to the Navajo nation.

The video below was shot from the patio of a wonderful restaurant (and motel) built/run by the Navajo on their reservation.  What a view!

Thanks for persisting through this lengthy blog.  I couldn't stop myself!  Mike and I felt so full of awe for the towering rocks in the Canyonlands.  They mirror strength and immovability and eternality like their Maker.

But there are differences.  When the tectonic plates shifted, these huge mountains moved; God doesn't.  And while the canyons dazzle in their beauty, NOTHING is more beautiful than God's plan to redeem man in the incomparable willingness of the Son to take on our guilt.  The lyrics to "Be Thou My Vision" say that God is our best thought by day or by night.

The Canyonlands are a terrific prompt for those best thoughts.