AKE your choice. A first introduction to Navajoland can occur many ways. Perhaps at a local tribal fair such as Window Rock or Shiprock where tribal members appear traditionally dressed, dazzling in a treasury of turquoise jewellery.

Maybe at one of Crown Point, New Mexico's rug auctions on what natives label "the checkerboard reservation". Some first encounter it driving north after a Grand Canyon visit, stopping at Cameron Trading Post on the way to Monument Valley and points north.

What they find at Cameron will be interesting historically and architecturally, since the picturesque post and early motel date back to 1916. But sadly today, much of what you see on its shelves is made in China.

To us, there's always been something special and unique about a genuine trading post. In the old days they served as a sort of banker loaning money to those pawning jewellery, selling everything imaginable, buying locally made rugs (unfortunately often at very undervalued prices). Really a sort of store-pawnbroker.

Many of our favourite, very colourful trading posts are gone. Today's Navajos have opportunities that didn't exist several decades ago. They can now sell jewellery, rugs and other crafts directly to visitors at fairer prices.

Ownership of pickup trucks has given them a freedom unknown during their horse and buggy days of our youth, when only the rare adventure traveller penetrated their remote land.

If your route takes you to Tuba City, make a point of visiting the fascinating octagon-shaped Tuba City Trading Post built in 1870 and 1920. Now owned by the Navajo tribe, it was formerly a Babbitt property when we spent many happy hours during our youth trying on pawned jewellery in their vault while our parents combed through their treasured rug piles.

Dutch settlers who bought New York for handfuls of trinkets had nothing on former US Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt's family, who bought a vast stretch of Navajo land in a similar way. It's a purchase that has been contested in Arizona's Supreme Court.

father was certainly right in those early days of travel there when he told Navajos we knew to send their children to law school if they wanted to protect themselves from covetous outsiders, including the government.

And, happily, they are beginning to buy back some of those sites, such as Tuba City, and develop a number of high-quality shops featuring the genuine article made by their own people. Be on the lookout for shops bearing the name Navajo Arts & Crafts Enterprise.

One of their most impressive is the super-sized one at Window Rock, tribal headquarters, also location of a comfortable Nation-owned motel and restaurant. Others are at Kayenta, Chinle, Alamo, Cameron and Navajo National Monument.

There are also two standout supply stores in Gallup. ? Thunderbird Supply Company and Indian Jewellers Supply Company, where jewellery makers shop for supplies . . . everything from sterling silver ring bases to tempting stones, all sizes and colours. We've spent many an hour there shopping.

To see what a genuine trading post was like, you'll want to linger at Hubbell Trading Post, now a National Historic Site. Oldest continuously operated post in the Navajo Nation, it dates back to 1876. John Lorenzo Hubbell's 160-acre farm homestead includes the post, family home, barn, blacksmith shop and visitor centre. We never miss a visit there and a picnic in its cottonwood grove is a special pleasure.

In the old days, rugs my parents bought were unique. The weaver raised her own sheep, sheared them, carded the wool, coloured it with natural dyes brewed from local plants collected in the area, then wove it into a rug beautiful as any piece of art.

Sadly rug-making is becoming a disappearing art. Yarn now purchased at stores is often coloured with modern bright aniline dyes, although some rare weavers follow the old way. They're a treasure, understandably expensive because of the time involved creating them.

Hubbell has some especially attractive ones for sale, as do all the Navajo Tribal Enterprise shops.

I still remember being with my mother when she bought one directly from a Navajo-speaking woman working on a loom outside her hogan. When my mother asked for recommendations about its care, the very young English-speaking son said: "We use a vacuum cleaner." There was no electricity within 100 miles and definitely no vacuum!

Although there have been many changes on the 'Res', propelling it into this century, there are still many areas off on our favourite unpaved roads without electricity, and residents haul water from artisan wells in their pickup trucks. Some traditional tribal members still prefer their old ways and visitors should respect the privacy and solitude they prefer.

Among not to be missed wonders is Canyon de Chelly National Monument in the eastern part of the Res, a location so dramatic you've certainly seen it on television in automotive ads showing a car or SUV perched atop one of its lofty red rock spires (probably Spider Woman).

in the late Fifties, my father hired a bilingual driver and Jeep to penetrate its awesome canyons. Officially, it's said there are quicksand areas necessitating need for a guide . . . but one can understand why those who live deep in the canyon prefer some sort of regulation or intruders would be peering uninvited into their hogans with cameras.

Travellers will want to tour both the canyon floor, dramatic Anasazi cliff dwelling and then drive around the upper rim in your rental car.

Our first trip had been preceded by an article appearing in magazine and my mother had it with her. It covered the canyon's history and focused on Philip Dodge and his wife who lived amid all this beauty and grew peaches.

Deep in the canyon we encountered a broken-down pickup truck with two elderly passengers. From the magazine illustrations, mother immediately recognised the Dodges.

Our Navajo driver-guide did not want to stop but my father, who was very good at absolutely anything mechanical, insisted on offering assistance. Turns out the vehicle needed a new starter and we offered to take his wife with us to the trading post where the Dodges traded. The husband wanted to stay with his truck.

Again, the driver protested. Perhaps their clans were in dispute or there was jealously about the Dodges' hard-working success. It's often said people can stand anything in you but success and this might have been it. But my father insisted and off we went.

Back in Chinle near the canyon's entrance, my father gave the trader information on the part needed. Mrs. Dodge entered the post and was told she could wait outside. So Dad then drove her to park ranger headquarters. They couldn't have been less interested. Father offered to take her back to her husband, but she insisted on waiting at the post because it would give her an opportunity to meet someone she would know coming out from the canyon.

We later learned the part had to be ordered from Gallup, it was a weekend, and the trader left the elderly woman sitting outside on the steps in front of the post during all that time. It was only one of many stories we heard about that trader whose post is now gone, replaced by a Holiday Inn. And so is he . . . a victim of a deadly crash in his private plane and apparently very much unlamented.

There are comfortable motels at Chinle and an informative National Park Centre. We always spend time there on each return trip, even if only driving along the rim and gazing down at the canyon's beauty.

Two years ago a surprise invitation arrived from the Res. Cormack Antram is a Franciscan we had met years ago at Kayenta near Monument Valley. When we learned of his work helping the aged, ill and disadvantaged, we began donating to that work. He speaks Navajo and his radio programme reaches all corners of that vast land.

Turns out this event was to celebrate 50 years of his helping Navajos. He looks so young it was hard to imagine he'd been working there that long. So we flew out to be a part of it. Picking up a rental car in Albuquerque, next stop was Gallup where we overnighted before festivities scheduled in Houck, Arizona.

And therein was an interesting piece of history. The celebration site at Houck was an impressive boarding school and chapel dating to the late 1800s. A beautiful site, quite remarkable architecturally, it had a surprising past.

Francis Anthony Drexel was an extraordinarily wealthy Philadelphia banker who formed a partnership with J.P. Morgan. On a trip to a Dakota Sioux reservation with her father, daughter Katherine was stunned by poor conditions and a total lack of education facilities.

Drexel had instilled in his children the belief "their wealth was simply loaned to them and was to be shared with others". So on a later trip to Rome, now an heiress to her father's great fortune, Katherine mentioned to Pope Leo XIII something should be done to help Indians and African- Americans. His response was: "That is something for you to do, Katherine."

she did . . . financing and building 60 schools such as the one at Houck for Indians in the west and African-Americans in the south. The cost was $20 million, at a time when a million really meant something. She also built New Orleans' Xavier University and started an order of teaching nuns. Pope John Paul II canonised her a saint.

The day of the celebration was incredible. Great numbers of Navajos drove in hundreds of miles from all regions of this enormous Nation. Part of the celebration was in Navajo, along with traditional chanting, drums beating and a grand buffet . . . all as thanks for a life's work.

We sat outside where one can look off to the horizon and visited with Navajos who had come to express appreciation of his work to improve conditions. It's one of those rare moments in life when one must seize the moment when such an opportunity presents itself . . . and go! We would have very much regretted missing this gathering of people. I teased him, saying we couldn't possibly bypass an opportunity to visit the Res. And, of course, we did. In fact, we have been back twice since and are planning yet another encore at the moment.

, it will include personal favourites . . . a detour to historic Shonto Trading Post from Navajo National Monument after making inquiry about road conditions, then over to Page where we watched Glen Canyon Dam being built and Lake Powell's creation. Certainly on to Monument Valley with its wealth of incomparable scenery for the umpteenth time.

Up to Mexican Hat on the San Juan River, a detour in Bluff, Utah to its fabulous Twin Rocks Trading Post with museum quality crafts. Legendary Shiprock, probably another visit to Hovenweep National Monument, a stop at Wupatki Sunset Crater Volcano again en route down to Flagstaff.

It will be impossible to resist the challenge and beauty of descending into Paiute Canyon once again, as well as heading down some favourite truly remote roads we'd be nervous about sending readers exploring.

It's all there, sparsely populated miles of mountains, canyons, desert land, mesas, bluffs. There's much, much more and we'll be back with an encore roundup another time.

If it sounds tempting but you're hesitant, consider a one-day Scenic Airlines flight over from Las Vegas. It lands close by Monument Valley, drives travellers down into that magical place for a close-up look, then back to Vegas glitter. So you can have it all.

After just that brief glimpse you may decide it's a place and culture you'd like to explore in more depth. Then again, you might not. No, it's not for everyone . . . but as you can see, those who fall under its spell become hypnotised by the mesmerising spell of the place.

l East Coast destination with a difference