As is often the case, we stumbled across some unexpected things that turned out to be very interesting.
The first surprise was the unexpected geography on part of the trip westward on highway 264. Although most of the trip until now had been desert, this route took us through a region of mountain forest. This was part of the Navajo National Forest. I did not even know such a place existed!
The second pleasant surprise was Hubbell Trading Post in Ganado, AZ. I had stumbled across the existence of this site, maintained by the National Park Service, when surveying various virtual geocaches along our route. There are almost no geocaches within the Navajo nation, but I did see one here. We did not seek the cache, but it made me aware of this site. It turned out to be a very interesting stop.
The Hubbell Trading Post is still an active trading post. Started in 1878 by John Lorenzo Hubbell and later maintained by his children, it is the oldest active trading post in the Navajo nation. The trading post was a place to which native Americans would travel sometimes over substantial distances. They would bring their families and sometimes stay for multiple days. They brought weaving and crafts to the trading post and traded them for the items they needed for their everyday life since they did not have money. They would also trade for sheep, horses, etc. The current trading post includes a "general store" section, a jewelry room, the rug room, corral for horses, grazing area for sheep, a chicken coop with chickens and turkeys, multiple irrigated fields and the Hubbell home with original furnishings. The home is a museum and the animals are mostly for show, but the trading post still functions selling items to the local population as well as a place for others to buy native-made rugs and jewelry.
John Hubbell, worked closely with the native Americans, even going so far as to suggest patterns and colors of rugs (he encouraged the making of rugs rather than blankets) that would bring the highest prices at market. The red color often identified with Navajo rugs is called "Ganado red" and was one of the colors he strongly encouraged since it sold well to outsiders. Hubbell built a trading empire with more than 30 trading posts as far west as California. The native American goods were taken overland to Gallup, where they were shipped on the train to some of his other locations for sale. Although I have not found it documented anywhere, I think the ranger told us the California sights included Hollywood (perhaps among others). The Hubbell trading post in Winslow, AZ, is now the Chamber of Commerce/Winslow Visitor's Center.
For the Navajo, rug making was (and still is) sheep to rug, with all of the steps in between. A Navajo woman was weaving a rug as a demonstration in the visitors' center. Although we did not take her picture, here is a picture from their website. She had just completed a rug which is now for sale in the rug room of the trading post. We looked at the rugs in the rug room. They were beautiful, but out of our price range. All of any size were multi-thousand dollars, some were more than $15K.
We had done some exploration, but were about to leave since we did not want to wait around until the scheduled ranger tour of the Hubbell home several hours later. (To visit the home, which is filled with period furniture, you must be on a ranger tour.) The ranger, one of the most enthusiastic I had seen in some time, saw that we were leaving and insisted we go into the home with him. He gave us a mini-tour of the home and gave us a lot of background on the history. It was fantastic. I am so glad we stopped here and I am most appreciative of the very friendly ranger.
We were off again, headed north to Chinle.
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