Star Trails Navajo: A Different Way To Look At The Night Sky

by Don Childrey

STAR TRAILS Navajo offers you a different way to look at the night sky, through Native American eyes. The Dine, or Navajo people of the American Southwest, have their own set of star figures and legends to describe the sparkling lights we see on Father Sky. Come explore the stars from a new perspective. Included are star maps, revised planet visibility charts, references to other cultures' star lore, and tips for enjoyable viewing.

130 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Don Childrey grew up in Burlington, North Carolina, but spent many nights in remote backcountry campsites in the Uwharrie and Appalachian Mountains with fellow Boy Scouts and other friends. Since then he has been fortunate enough to spend nights under the stars in many remote locations, including the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the Sierra Nevada Mountains of southern California, on Mount Rainier in Washington State, and in the Brooks Range in Alaska.

After earning a Civil Engineering degree at North Carolina State University and a Professional Engineer’s license, he worked for the NC Department of Transportation and later for the NC Office of the State Controller. In his free time, Don combined his curiosity and a desire to create with his organizational skills to write a trail guide book for the Uwharrie Lakes Region in central NC.

donchildrey.com is the webspace for DTC Publishing, a sales business for his various book, map and tool projects.

The business was started in 1998 to support sales of the first book – Uwharrie Lakes Region Trail Guide, which was published by Bill Webster and Earthbound Sports. Bill handles most of the wholesale distribution to outdoor stores and bookshops for this book. Don sells a few signed copies through DTC Publishing.

In 2004, Don self-published a second book – Star Trails Navajo. This book is a field guide to the Navajo constellations and star stories. He thought it was fascinating to see the night sky through a different perspective. Constellations based primarily on ancient Greek mythology are interesting, but to learn how other peoples in North America have tied their lives and cultures into the patterns of stars we see in the sky is a lot more interesting to me.

In 2009, he self-published an updated second edition of Star Trails Navajo using the print-on-demand services of Createspace. He also began updating trail data for the Uwharrie Lakes Region Trail Guide.

In early 2014, he published a Kindle version of Star Trails Navajo. In August of the same year, the Second Edition of Uwharrie Lakes Region Trail Guide was published, again by Earthbound Sports.

He always has numerous project ideas floating around in his head. There are several more books in there, quite a few map projects, and who knows what else. He has enough research material for a Star Trails – Pawnee book. He’s working through the outline for a book on Adventure Race Navigation. He’d love to compile stories of some of his trekking, paddling, racing, or motorbike touring adventures into a book or two. He also has a growing collection of GPS files for various trails in the region and is working out a way to publish customized maps.

Somewhere in between working on all of these projects, he also has a day job and family to attend to. With your feedback and support of his current offerings, he’ll be able to bring more of these ideas to reality for all to enjoy!

Reviews

[Nicole]

Nothing gained

This did not give me the stories/background I was hoping to find. I did not find references to New Mexico or Arizona skies where the Navajo Reservation spans.

[Leta Hawk]

At the moment, I'm really into the legends behind the constellations, so this book jumped out at me. I enjoyed reading about star legends from a different perspective than we usually learn about in school. The author added to the mythological aspect by including more scientific data about the stars and other celestial phenomena that make up the constellation. The one drawback, at least for me, and maybe it's because I have an older Kindle, was that I really could not make out the illustrations of the constellations.

If you're looking for a little bit of constellation lore, this is an enjoyable read.