About Us

Tribally-owned and established in 1995, Distant Drums RV Resort has made a positive impact on the Nation’s people. Programs created as a result of the resort properties have helped supply services to the elderly, provide educational opportunities, foster long-term economic development and much, much more. For information, please contact the Yavapai-Apache Nation at (928) 567-1006 or visit their website.

The Yavapai are Yuman-speaking people related to Hualapai, Supai, and other tribes southwards along the Colorado River. The Dilzhe’e Apache are Athapaskan-speaking people related linguistically to the Navajo to the north. The members of these tribes who survived the wars and diseases of the 19th century were officially merged under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 into the Yavapai-Apache Tribe, which became the Yavapai-Apache Nation in 1992.

The ancestors of both the Yavapai and Dilzhe’e Apache were hunting and gathering people who lived with a light foot and silent hand on the landscape, leaving barely a physical trace in the record for archaeologists to study. Ancestors of the Yavapai-Apache Nation moved in a seasonal rhythm determined by available resources, game and personal preference. Yavapai and Dilzhe’e Apaches believed in utilizing mostly perishable materials so that any evidence of a person’s life could return to the natural world. Their lifestyle and material culture (artifacts) relied heavily on wood, hides, furs, plant fibers, hair, and sinew; however, stone hand tools and arrow points were also used.

Comprised of the descendants of the Wipukyipai Yavapai) and the Dil zhee’ (Tonto Apache) peoples, the Yavapai-Apache Nation is a federally recognized sovereign Indian Nation. Both tribes have a long and ancient history tied to the Red Rock country around Sedona, Oak Creek Canyon, the mountains to the south and west, the White Chalk Hills of Camp Verde, and eastward to Clear and Fossil Creeks.

Today the Nation uses its trust lands for residential, commercial and agricultural purposes.