Red Rocks - Southwest trip, 2012
HUBBEL TRADING POST,
National Historic Site, Arizona
On the Big Rez For the trip from Winslow to Chinle we drove on what the map said was a "secondary road". But since on the entire drive we saw maybe twenty other vehicles (school bus or pickup trucks) this did not slow us down. Shortly after winslow, one enters the territory of the Navajo Nation, generally referred to as the "Big Rez" because it is the larges reservation. Through accident or ignorance, the rez actually does have a few mineral deposits which had not been stolen from the Indians. But only a few. As was the accepted practice during the first 200 years relations between Indians and the "Great White Father" were basically conducted according to the motto: "the only good Indian is a dead Indian". Treaties were signed (generally under duress) which promised the tribes varioous benefits. However, these treaties were then either ignored or abrogated when white settlers or commercial interests wanted the land. therefore it is hardly surprising that the Big Rez largely consists of desert. And that's how it looks - fascinating scenery - like you can see on the picture on the right, |
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| but the abject poverty becomes obvious as soon as one sees a few houses; then it become pretty clear how desperately poor people here are. Of course today there is a new source of income - Casinos. Ever since Indians were permitted to decide (on their so-called "sovereign nation" territories) if and where they want to permit gambling, the busses have been coming. Of course, that has brought with it a new set of issues - who gets to be called Indian and where are the reservations. This subject, however, is too complicated for this little travelogue. | |
| On our way from Winslow to Chinle we stopped at the Hubbel Trading Post, the oldest trading post on the Navajo reservation. | |||
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| Der Laden heute und damals - auf dem Bild unten | |||
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Juan Lorenzo Hubbel (left picture) established this trading post on the Navajo Reservation (today known as the "Big Rez") in 1878, after the Najavo had been permitted to return to their land after four years in exile in New Mexico. The Hubbel family operated the trading post until 1967, when it was sold to the National Park Service including the furniture and most of the decorative items of the homestead. As a result, it is possible to visit the Hubbel homestead and get a very good idea of how life was lived when the Hubbel family resided here. |
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The above pictures show the trading post in its heyday.While it is true that the "Big Rez" lies in a desert, it is a high desert and as a result, it not only gets cold in the winter, but there will be some snow, as can be seen in the picture on the right. We timed our trip rather carefully to tour the area after the snows ended (in Utah's Bryce Canyon it snowed the week before we came!) and before the heat and forest fires started - about three weeks after we left. |
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