Located in northeast Arizona, this national park lies within the boundaries of the Four Corners region of the Navajo Nation. This park preserves the ruins of the indigenous tribes who lived in the area, from the Anasazi (or Ancient Puebloans) to the Navajo (who call themselves the Diné), the later occupying the area some time shortly prior to when the Spanish arrived in the 1540′s and long after the ancient Puebloan .

The park encompasses the floors and rims of three major canyons: de Chelly, del Muerto, and Monument. All three canyons have their head waters in the Chuska Mountains a short ways east of the canyons. Although the visitors center is managed by the park service, none of the park land is federally owned.

No entrance fee is charged to enter the park, apart from any charges imposed by tour companies.

All services and business established within the park are run by the Navajo. Private Navajo-owned companies offer tours of the canyon floor by horseback, hiking or four-wheel drive vehicle, which companies can be contacted directly for prices and arrangements. Some forty Navajo families live in the park.

Access to the canyon floor is restricted, and visitors are allowed to travel in the canyons only when accompanied by a park ranger or an authorized Navajo guide. The only exception to this rule is the White House Ruin Trail.

Most park visitors arrive by automobile and view Canyon de Chelly from the rim on the North Rim Drive or South Rim Drive or both where the ruins and structures are visible at a distance at view points on these routes.

The Chelly (pronounced Shay) is the Spanish-English corruption of Tséyi′, which is the Navajo word for Rock Canyon.

On the floor of the canyon, the Navajo farms still reveal traditional farming patterns even though the steel hoes and plows have replaced their digging sticks, and pick-up trucks now outnumber the horses being used.

These Navajo farms produce crops for the individual families who live on the canyon floor and often little is left over for sale.

This marginal life style, that is the productions of crops for food remains threatened by late spring and early fall frosts, sandstorms, summer droughts and even at times a torrential rainstorm.

Spider Woman is an important deity in Navajo mythology and it was she who taught the People how to weave. This place is sacred to the Navajo and they believe there is purity and strength here. Too, they look at this as a place strong in the oneness of earth and sky and all things.

Navajo Song of the Earth: I am indeed the child. Absolutely, I am earth′s child.