Places is divided into 2 subcategories:
● Áak’w-&-T’aakú watersheds (Juneau area)
● Southeast Alaska biogeographic provinces.
You can also view the entire JuneauNature hierarchy at this site map.
The Nature, Culture and Tools sections of JuneauNature are ‘thematic,’ organized by topics and subtopics In contrast, the Places section is organized geographically; its map-heavy subdivisions are spatial rather than thematic.
Defining home: watersheds, biogeographic provinces
Nested geographic units, with largest on top. We employ two in Places, red-highlighted here.
As our name implies, this website is Juneau-centric (or more aptly, Áak’w-centric). But most who’ve lived here more than a few years gradually expand the region we consider home. For me, ‘home’ is Southeast Alaska, and I’ve made it my goal to see as much of this magnificent archipelago as possible.
Because the CBJ is water-bound, the area accessed by our road system—from Daxanáak, between two points (Berners Bay) to Koosh, oozing sore (Thane)—makes a well-defined core area within Places. For that CBJ area, the logical framework is watersheds.
Watersheds have ‘personalities,’ deriving from their distinctive geology, microclimate, hydrology, aspect, vegetation, wildlife community, and human development. Scaling out to the broader context of Southeast Alaska, watershed becomes too fine a unit to deal with. At this scale the more appropriate spatial units are the 22 biogeographic provinces.
You’ll notice in this section especially that I’m seeking more meaningful names for our favorite places than the IWGNs (important white guy names) that litter our maps. My place names convention is explained on JuneauNature>Home.
For places a Juneau resident can drive or walk to, open Áak’w & T’aakú watersheds. For our larger home, go to Southeast Alaska biogeographic provinces.