PAGE, Ariz. — With its vibrant red and orange wave-like walls and light beams, Antelope Canyon has become a mecca for photographers. People from all corners of the world visit to wander through one of nature’s masterpieces.
But at Antelope Canyon X, visitors often leave with more than an Instagram-worthy photo.
It is where the Antelope Canyon Wash begins and where Logan Tsinigine’s great-great-grandfather — known as the Corn Pollen Man — hid his people in the 1860s during a painful chapter in Navajo history.
“This was a very remote place on the western agency of the Navajo Nation and it was a good place not to get captured,” Tsinigine said.
Tsinigine is the chief financial officer of Taadidiin Tours, the family-owned company with exclusive rights to give tours of neighboring Cardiac Canyon and Antelope Canyon X. The X in the canyon's name comes from rocks that form an “X” near the north canyon entrance.
The company opened in 2016 with five employees, two Chevy Suburbans and a card table on the side of Highway 98. Taadidiin Tours has since grown to 50 full-time employees and many more vehicles — they welcomed 130,000 tourists in 2023.
“We try to make our tour more than just picture taking,” Tsinigine said. “We like to share our history, our culture and the history of Antelope Canyon and the Tadidinii “Taddy Tin” family and how we got to this location.”
But to share that story, one must dig up a dark past.
The Navajo (Diné) people were rounded up and deported from their homelands in 1863 as the United States government expanded its territory and railroads west of the Mississippi.
An estimated 10,000 Navajo men, women and children were forced to walk up to 450 miles to Bosque Redondo in eastern New Mexico. Thousands of them died along the way and while living at the new reservation, the water was salty, meaning their plants couldn’t grow.
Tsinigine’s great-great-grandfather, Hastiin Tadidinii, evaded the United States government by hiding in the slot canyons.
“The Long Walk was between 1863 and 1866 and our family was here basically that whole time,” Tsinigine said. “The canyon for me is more like a safe space.”
More than 150 years later, Tsinigine’s family still occupies the land. Their slot canyon tours are limited to smaller, more intimate groups. Tours are usually booked to capacity, although staff do their best to accommodate people who show up without reservations.
Tickets this April sold out to the showing of “Bad Indian: Hiding in Antelope Canyon” during its premiere at the Phoenix Film Festival in April. The documentary film is based on Hastiin Tadidinii, his clan and the fight to uphold their cultural identity.
That fight continues today — many Navajo children do not speak the Navajo language, or know much about their ancestors, or their struggles, Tsinigine said.
It is why Taadidiin Tours created the first Corn Pollen Internship program. This summer’s inaugural class of Navajo teenagers are all blood relatives of Hastiin Tadidinii.
“Our children are starting to ask questions on who we are and where we came from,” Tsinigine said.
The interns learn more than just Navajo culture and language. They are given lessons on human resources, customer service, the tribal legal system, marketing, and business operations. At the end of the program, the teens serve as guides as tours. Their final project is designing a product for the gift shop. At the end of the program, each intern is given a $4,000 college scholarship.
Many of them have expressed interest in working for the tour company in the future.
“Customers don’t just come to see the canyon, they are actually coming to learn,” Tsinigine said. “When they leave, they feel like they got a piece of Navajo with them.”
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