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
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
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
Discovery at Nugget Falls
Goat-watch at Áak’w Kwáan Sít’i (Áak’w people’s glacier) 20201203: Every other Friday, Discovery staff get together for a ‘distanced’ outing.…
2020 | Richard Carstensen | 2 page journal
Nature near the schools 1991: Mendenhall River powerpoint.
Materials from the Eisenhower Math and Science series In February, 1991, with Gustavus master-naturalist Greg Streveler, Discovery director Cinda Stanek…
1991 | Carstensen, Streveler, Stanek & Merli | workshop materials
Nature near the schools 1991: Glacier-Floyd powerpoints.
Materials from the Eisenhower Math and Science series In October, 1990, with Discovery director Cinda Stanek and naturalist Steve Merli,…
1990 | Carstensen, Stanek, Merli | workshop materials
History and future of the Refuge
Rebound, succession, fish&wildlife, and aviation on our frontyard wetlands In 2011, Jeff Sauer at Juneau Audubon asked for a presentation…
2011 | Richard Carstensen | 36-minute slideshow
Spring trumpeters
Northbound swans, Áak’w Táak, inland from little lake (M-word Valley) April 4th, 2020. For the past week or more, birders…
2020 | Richard Carstensen | 3-minute video