Canyon Song
This short film introduces viewers to the Draper family, a Navajo family descending from participants of the “Long Walk”—a systematic forcing of Navajo people off their land by US military in 1864—as they stay connected to their ancestral lands of Canyon de Chelly National Monument. Two young girls, Tonisha and Tonielle Draper, live typical “American lives” on the surface, but are active in the reclamation of their Navajo heritage, reconnecting with ancestors, and showing deep reverence to the land within the canyon walls. Though an uplifting, hopeful film about connection, Canyon Song urges viewers to acknowledge the ability of natural spaces to serve as powerful reminders of history and culture—and necessitates their preservation through its implication of the preservation of an entire community’s tradition.