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

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

On May 25th, 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 T’áa Shuyee, board squared at end (Mendenhall Valley). 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.

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.

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

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

In this section

Riverbend historical series

History from the air Georeferencing old and recent vertical air photos in ArcMap makes it easy to export exactly scaled-&-aligned…

2021 | Richard Carstensen | 11 pages

Sít’ Eetí Shaanáx historical series

History from the air Georeferencing old and recent vertical air photos in ArcMap makes it easy to export exactly scaled-&-aligned…

2021 | Richard Carstensen | 15 pages

Mendenhall River School historical series

History from the air Georeferencing old and recent vertical air photos in ArcMap makes it easy to export exactly scaled-&-aligned…

2021 | Richard Carstensen | 18 pages

Ice caves, goats & white-tailed ptarmigan

When the lake freezes 20170205  Remarkable diversity of photo- and video-opportunities on this February walk to the terminus. Ice caves…

2017 | Richard Carstensen | 2 minute slideshow

Discovery off-trail

Tracking & navigation workshop, upper Áak’w Táak (M-word Valley) Discovery Southeast has a strong relationship with the Forest Service’s Glacier…

2024 (& 2017) | Richard Carstensen | 4- & 2-minute slideshows, 17MB journal

Drones for habitat mapping

Flying Taashuyee-Chookan.aani For their 2024 February Watershed Workshop, SAWC (Southeast Alaska Watershed Coalition) asked me for some thoughts on drones…

2024 | Richard Carstensen | 16 minute narrated slideshow

Duck Creek mouth, then and now

Mapping and observations in 1995 In June, 1995, I mapped lower ‘Duck Creek triangle,’ a sliver of fenced-off remnant tidelands…

1995, updated 2024 | Richard Carstensen | 16 pages

Armstrong-Gordon birds of Mendenhall Wetlands

Checklist for our frontyard birds In 2002, as several of us embarked upon a year-long study of the birds of…

2018 | Richard Carstensen | 1 page

Dodging nature’s tantrums

Visualization tools for ‘gravity-events’ What do snow avalanches, mudslides and glacial outburst floods have in common? I guess they’re all…

2023 | Richard Carstensen | 50-second video; pdf downloads

Accretion on Taashuyee (Mendenhall wetlands)

Vegetation-&-rebound study for Southeast Alaska Land Trust (SEALT) In 2003, Discovery Southeast mapped tidal and supratidal habitats on the Refuge…

2004, update 2023 | Richard Carstensen | 39 pages

Bay&Valley day: marine&glacial landforms

Morning: In the morning we visited coastal sites at Aanchg̱altsóow, nexus town (Auke Rec) and K’aan Héenak’u, porpoise little bay…

2022 | Richard Carstensen | Landforms class archives

Second SEALT-Discovery walk

Traversing the 2014 wetlands conservation parcel On July 16th, about 25 bushwackers assembled in the parking area at end of…

2022 | Richard Carstensen | 11 minute slideshow

Bishop, Armstrong & Carstensen 1987 Juneau Airport

Environmental analysis of lower Jordan Creek From March through July, 1987, I assisted Dan Bishop and Bob Armstrong with an…

1987 | Bishop, Armstrong & Carstensen | 40 pages

Pocket wildlands: forests and ponds of Áak’w Táak

Fifty friends on backloop moraines On a sunny July 17th, 2021, Discovery Southeast and the Southeast Alaska Land Trust hosted…

2021 | Richard Carstensen | 8 minute slideshow

SEALT & Discovery Southeast groupwalk

Touring lands on Back Loop Road Discovery Southeast and the Southeast Alaska Land Trust (SEALT) have similar missions. Discovery works…

Teachers’ outings, 2021

Year-3: Estuaries & steep places Two kinds of landforms & habitats have consumed my attention this winter and spring—estuaries and…

2021 | Richard Carstensen | 60 page journal & course manual

Wetlands Month features Mendenhall Wetlands

Frontyard wetlands in StoryMaps Every May is American Wetlands Month, and this year, it’s especially interesting for residents of Áak’w…

American Wetlands Month features Taashuyee

Our frontyard wetlands in StoryMaps For several years I’ve been wanting to dive into ArcGIS StoryMaps, cartography for one and…

2021 | USFWS | ArcGIS StoryMap

Northbound through Áak’w Aaní

Zonotrichia passage through the Highlands May 3rd, 2022. Golden-&-white-crowned sparrows are flooding through our neighborhood’s garden rows and brush borders.…

2021&22 | Richard Carstensen | short captioned videos

Forests after logging or glaciers

Effects of age and succession type on forest overstory and understory In 1991 I assisted highschool students Joey Bosworth and…

1991 | Joey Bosworth & Erika O'Sullivan | 1 page poster