7 Áak’w Táak (Mendenhall Valley) Archives

Bold red line surrounds the greater Áak’w Táak watershed. Thinner lines delineate what we began to call “subsheds” during 2014 wetland surveys for the City.

Áakw Táak, inland from little lake (greater Mendenhall Valley)

For this gigantic, 99.3-squaremile watershed, I’ve settled on rather unconventional subdivisions. More social than hydrologic, my 4 unit names reflect the way we use em, rather than according to patterns of waterflow. Moving upvalley, the units are: 1) Flats, 2) Homes, 3) Rec, 4) Ice.

Only a few mountaineers have spent more than an hour or two trekking over that austere upper unit. But it’s important to have at least a visual image of the sea of ice that feeds Áak’w Táak Sít’i, glacier of little-lake valley. So here’s a 90-second digital flyover.

In 2025, for our annual end-of-school-year teacher seminar, we walked pretty much the entirety of Woosh eel’óox̱’u héen, river that’s murky together (M-word R.). This covered all but the 4th, glacial subunit of the watershed. Proceeding downriver (units, 3, 2 and 1, respectively) over 3 successive days, we chose themes for each segment: where we play, ● where we live ● what feeds us. My 2025 class journal explores those themes of recreation, residence and sustenance. It also, of course, addresses the liabilities of playing, living and foraging below an ice-margin impoundment.

Discovery is taking on larger roles in The Valley. Due in part to our presence at the glacier visitor center, we’ve been well positioned to help fill the void of federal losses. We’re collaborating with Tlingit-Haida cultural ambassadors to host visitors and enhance their experience. We will also be assisting the Southeast Alaska Watershed Coalition (SAWC) as they, in turn, help the City grapple with multitudinal consequences of annual outburst flooding.

No consultant’s crystal ball can tell us how best to respond to this unique and unprecedented situation. Even the floods of 2023 and 2024 were quite different. It will take all of us—specialists & generalists, doers & thinkers—to iteratively figure out, and survive, this glacio-fluvial roller coaster ride.

SW over lower the flats to Áak’w Tá, little lake bay (Auke Bay). On the right, willow-alder wetlands advance onto raised tideland. In left mid-distance, Widgeon Ponds sit on compacted silt. ● On May 25th, 2018, to celebrate school’s end, Discovery Naturalists Steve Merli, John Hudson and I accompanied 50 teachers and staff from Dzantik’i Héeni Middle School across tidal flats at the bottom of Taashuyee, river, tide, or mudflats (M-word wetlants). We started at the end of Peninsula Road and got picked up at Industrial Boulevard. The walk traversed lovely salt marsh and uplift meadows at peak of spring migration. Here’s a slideshow summary.

East over mouth of Steep Creek to the Visitor Center, April, 2002. Not surprisingly, we have no Lingít place names for these features that were ice covered until the mid-1900s.

Three geopdfs for Áak’w Táak: 1) the ‘greater’ watershed, from IfSAR; 2) & 3) more detail for upper and lower inhabited portions.

For navigation, I’ve prepared many geopdfs that you can load to the app Avenza, described in TOOLS>Field navigation Basemaps are mostly high-res bare earth from 2013 CBJ LiDAR, and coarser 5-m pixel hillshade from IfSAR.

PS 2025: The GIS community continues to receive updated air photography and LiDAR, so keep checking for new geopdfs for your favorite hiking and bushwacking destinations, linked from this category page (In this section, below), or under Media types>Maps.