Postcard from Window Rock

The Journey Continues:

As I left the Petrified Forest National Park, I continued east on I-40. But before I got to the New Mexico border, I took a left on Highway 191…my goal being the Canyon de Chelly National Monument, deep in the Navajo Nation Reservation. 

But before I got there, I decided to take a detour to a small community called Window Rock (In Navajo: Tségháhoodzání). This small city of 3,000 people serves as the seat of government and capital of the Navajo Nation, the largest territory of a sovereign Native American nation in North America.

Window Rock hosts the Navajo Nation governmental campus which contains the Navajo Nation Council, Navajo Nation Supreme Court, the offices of the Navajo Nation President and Vice President, and many Navajo government buildings.

Just north of the governmental buildings sits a beautiful city park at the base of the actual Window Rocks, as seen in the above photo. It is also known as the rock-with-a-hole-though-it, if you translate the Navajo name literally.

In the park you will also find World War 2 memorial dedicated to all the Navajo men who served in the US Military during the war. There is also a statue of a Navajo Code Talker, commemorating  the brave men who served in the marines in the Pacific war against the Japanese.

Briefly, these men facilitated battlefield communications by speaking in their own language (with some modifications since the Navajo language had no words for military terms). 420 Navajo men served as Code Talkers during the war…and the Japanese never broke the code. Their work was critical in the battle for the Pacific.

I took several photos of Windows Rock, hoping to catch a bird flying through it…and I did. I was very glad I took the detour to see this beautiful place and learn more about the Navajo Nation. But now it was time to get back on the road to my next destination…Canyon de Chelly.

To be continued…

(To see a larger version of this image, just click on it)

To see more of my work, both in photography and digital painting, please visit my website, www.corkrum.com…or visit my Flickr Page