SOUTHWEST SEMINARS PRESENTS
TRAVELS WITH A SCHOLAR
NAVAJO COUNTRY & CULTURE
CANYON DE CHELLY & MONUMENT VALLEY
WITH SUNNY DOOLEY, DINE & DR. JOHN WARE
OCTOBER 15-18, 2025
JOIN SOUTHWEST SEMINARS, Diné storyteller Sunny Dooley and Anthropologist Dr. John Ware on an old-school excursion into two of the most stunning sites in the Southwest, Canyon de Chelly National Monument and Monument Valley. Learn about the world view of the Diné people and their relationship with their surroundings from Sunny. Learn about Pueblo and Navajo interactions and the ancestral Pueblo in Canyon de Chelly from John.
Known for its thousand-foot high sandstone cliffs, Canyon de Chelly is also known for the numerous ancient Pueblo cliff dwellings built a thousand years ago. You will be traveling into one of the most exciting cultural areas in the U.S., home to traditional Navajo families today, but once the home of the Ancestral Puebloan peoples. Abandoned by Pueblo farmers in the late AD 1200s, the area was farmed by the Hopis in the 1700s. Fascinating petroglyphs and pictographs throughout Canyon de Chelly and Canyon del Muerto tell the cultural stories of each of these periods of habitation, including clan markings, hunting parties, and other historic events. Some of the most riveting stories include military campaigns and slaving raids.
While the legendary military campaign led by Kit Carson against the Navajo in Canyon de Chelly is well known, earlier Spanish raids against the Navajo are less well-known. One such raid in 1805 resulted in the deaths of over a hundred Navajo women and children who had taken refuge in a cave a thousand feet above the valley floor. Known today as Massacre Cave, the story of this fateful encounter will be related by our Navajo guides as we journey through Canyon del Muerto (the Canyon of death).
Mother Nature carved these deep and stunning canyons and cliffs over long periods of geological time. The canyon was carved by Chinle Wash whose seasonal flow provides shade from willows and cottonwoods and water for the fruit trees, corn fields, and sheep herds of local Navajo families. Canyon de Chelly remains one of the most hypnotic locations you will ever visit!
Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park is one of most majestic – and most photographed – places on earth. Boasting sandstone buttes and mesas that tower 400 to 1,000 feet above the valley floor, Monument Valley is often framed by scenic clouds casting shadows that gracefully roam the desert floor. The landscape overwhelms, not just by its beauty but also by its size. The fragile pinnacles of rock are surrounded by miles of mesas and buttes, shrubs and trees, and windblown sand comprising the magnificent colors of the valley.
WE JOURNEY west in a modern coach where we meet Sunny Dooley in Gallup on Wednesday. We travel to 
Window Rock visiting the Navajo Nation Veteran’s Memorial Park (& maybe a tribal policeman) before continuing onto historic Hubble Trading Post. We check into historic 1931 Thunderbird Lodge our home for two nights before dinner together. On Thursday we spend a day in the canyons visiting Spider Rock and White House Ruins in Canyon de Chelly and Antelope House, Mummy Cave, and Massacre Cave in Canyon Del Muerto. Travel will be in an open-air soft top Pinzgauer vehicles, a later version of the original shake-n-bake. Time permitting we’ll include a Rim Drive in our comfy coach for a different perspective before dinner together. On Friday we travel into Monument Valley for a Mystery Valley tour exploring Ancestral Pueblo Ruins, rock art panels, and hidden arches in open air vehicles. We will once again shake-n-bake, followed by a cookout before checking into historic Gouldings Lodge in the late afternoon and our dinner together. On Saturday we journey home with planned stops at The Navajo Code Talkers Museum in Gallup, historic Richardson Trading Post…and of course…a meal at historic Earl’s before returning to Santa Fe.
SUNNY DOOLEY is a Diné storyteller, folklorist and cultural consultant – collecting, learning and retelling oral tradition. She has shared Diné Hozhoji Hané (Navajo Blessingway stories) for the past 30 years and has retold these stories in Navajo and English to elementary school students and also for organizations such as the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian, Denver Art Museum, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture and Southwest Seminars. Sunny was the Olive B. O’Conner Visiting Professor of Literature and Storyteller-in-Residence at Colgate University and one of nine women and the only Native storyteller to be included in the Women’s Chautauqua Institute in 2006. Sunny received the Navajos Making a Difference Award at the annual Navajo Studies conference, has been featured in numerous television documentaries and is a former Miss Navajo Nation in a pageant that celebrates women and tradition.
JOHN WARE is a former director of the Laboratory of Anthropology/Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe and former Executive Director of the Amerind Foundation in Dragoon Arizona. The author of “A Pueblo Social History: Kinship, Sodality and Community in the Northern Southwest” (SAR Press 2014). John’s recent research focuses on the evolution of Pueblo Indian social, ceremonial and political organization.
This is an old-school-style trip that honors Diné culture and history featuring historic trading posts, historic hotels, historic restaurants and old school shake-n-bake excursions into Indian County but also modern comfy coaches for the interstate. Alan, John and I havebeen bringing folks into Indian Country for a long time, so I guess we are old-school/historic as well! This four-day, three-night trip includes three nights lodging, transportation in a motorcoach, open-air day tours into Canyon De Chelly and Monument Valley, all meals and admission, honorarium for our scholars, special presenters and fee for our service.
DOUBLE OCCUPANCY $2250 PP SINGLE OCCUPANCY $2450
TO REGISTER: CONTACT SOUTHWESTSEMINAR@AOL.COM
SOUTHWEST SEMINARS IS A 501C3 EDUCATIONAL NON-PROFIT
SOUTHWEST SEMINARS, 219 OJO DE LA VACA, SANTA FE NEW MEXICO 87508
PHONE: 505 466-277 E-MAIL: SOUTHWESTSEMINAR@AOL.COM WEBSITE: SOUTHWESTSEMINARS.ORG
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