Áak’w-T’aaḵú watersheds (Juneau area) Archives

In April, 2010, City Trails Ranger Dale Gosnell and I visited all 10 interpreted trailheads with a cardboard mock-up, and I photographed him in our proposed locations for the 3-panel sign-clusters. This one’s at beginning of trail through meadows along Ch’eet’ Taayí, murrelet fat (Cowee Creek).

This section on Áak’w & T’aakú Aaní, home of Auk and Taku people (Juneau region) is organized roughly by watershed. Units below are based largely upon watersheds. Ten of these were assigned to Discovery by CBJ Parks & Recreation during an intensive trails-interpretation project. This culminated in ten 3-panel trailhead signs—red dots on map below—installed in 2010.

Open for a ‘clickable map.’ Trails interpreted during the CBJ Natural History Project are outlined in black. Trailhead interpretive sign locations in red. Numbered areas (watersheds roughly) are listed down the mainland from NW to SE, then counterclockwise across Sayéik (Douglas Island).

These 10 trails-&-watersheds are described in Natural history of Juneau trails (2013). For each of the trails-&-watersheds, you can also download entire contents of 3-panel signs as pdfs, and also digital versions of 4-fold trailguides. During this trails-interpretation project, which lasted about 4 years, I developed enormous ‘scoping documents,’ raw material for the eventual signs and publications. These are too large to post for download from JuneauNature, but are available on request, to those wishing to dive deep into the natural and cultural history of their favorite watersheds.

Other watershed category pages have been added here to fill in the gaps. For example: Daxanáak (Berners Bay), Asx’ée-L’ux (Eagle-Herbert) and Áak’w Táak, (greater Mendenhall Valley) were not part of our original contract with the City.

SCHOOLS As the school year began in fall, 2020, Discovery staff explored ways to support the district’s efforts to educate safely. In our world, that means get outside! To guide teachers, students and families to the wonderful environments within minutes from the door of each local school, I’m building a new section of JuneauNature, called SCHOOLS. Because it’s aimed at educators and upper-level students, the SCHOOLS section has become one of 5 ‘root topics’ (ALL-CAPS) featured on our green-bar header. To the degree its material is site-based, there’s obvious overlap between SCHOOLS and PLACES. But a search through links provided (In this section, bottom of each category page) will get you there, regardless of which way you drill down through JuneauNature’s hierarchy.

Expanding outward to full-Southeast scale in the next section, a more encompassing unit is required—the 22 biogeographic provinces extending from Yakutat to Hydaburgl

Here’s 14 watershed-based sub-categories of Áak’w & T’aakú Aaní. You can also view them on a clickable map.

1 Daxanáak (Berners)

2 Ch’eet’ Taayi (Cowee)

3 Asx‘ée-L’ux (Eagle-Herbert)

4 Eeyák’w (Amalga-Peterson)

5 Áak’w (bay & lake)

6 Kaxdigoowu Héen (Montana)

7 Áak’w Táak (Mendenhall)

8 Shaanáx Tlein (Lemon)

8.1 Til’héeni (Salmon)

9 Dzantik’i Héeni (Gold)

10 Chaas’héeni (Sheep Creek).

11 X’áat’ T’áak (Douglas-Treadwell)

12 Aangooxa Yé (Fish-Eaglecrest)

13 Kaalahéenak’u (Peterson-Outer)

Another resource for Áak’w & T’aakú Aaní is the collection of geoPDFs for popular hiking areas. For more background on geoPDFs, see Tools>Field navigation, and Media type>Maps.

Scattered throughout JuneauNature, you’ll find interactive maps created in ArcGIS Online. The map below delineates watershed units for the Juneau. A contour hillshade map is the default, but by clicking the 4-square basemap symbol, you can choose imagery or other options. Clicking within any of the subshed units launches a popup with more information. The box in upper right allows search for any feature on the base map. Try entering your street address, or a natural feature such as a stream or mountain.

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