Definition of "cañon"

[…] we walked some little distance up the cañon on the frozen river […]

1879, Arthur Pendarves Vivian, Wanderings in the western land

He was only proving what the sage-riders had long said of this labyrinthine system of deceitful cañons and valleys—trails led down into Deception Pass, but no rider had ever followed them.

1912 January, Zane Grey, chapter 5, in Riders of the Purple Sage […], New York, N.Y., London: Harper & Brothers Publishers

the cañons and upland pine parks and snowy peaks and cliff dwellings round Flagstaff

2010, Agnes C Laut, Through Our Unknown Southwest (Illustrated Edition), page 100