Painted on location at Canyon de Chelly on the Navajo Reservation in Northern Arizona. Painted on Wednesday, September 23, 2009,9am-1pm.

The cliff in the center of this painting is famous as being the place where the last of the Navajo held out against Kit Carson, who was sent into Canyon de Chelly in 1864. The army decided that it was time for the Diné to surrender once and for all. This rock fortress was the place the last Navajo holdouts chose to make their stand. According to the story told, the holdouts reached the top of this rock face by using notched tree trunk ladders, which they pulled up behind them. Unfortunately for the natives, Carson simply waited them out until, starving, the final Navajo simply gave up. In the spring of 1864, when the ordeal for the Diné should have been over, another was about to begin. The Long Walk, as it's known to the Navajo, took all the captives from Canyon de Chelly to their new place of exile in Fort Sumner in New Mexico. It was known as the Long Walk because only the sick, the very oldest and youngest of the captives rode. Once at Fort Sumner, the conditions were beyond horrible. The Navajo were one of the few tribes to negotiate with the government to get at least some of their native lands back and eventually were able to return, where they have lived to this day.