Reading the landscape of Southeast Alaska

For the 2022 UAS fall semester, Geologist Cathy Connor and I offered a field-intensive course, modeled after the little book we wrote together in 2013. This page list links to resources already on JuneauNature, plus new materials developed specifically for the class. As the course progressed, I moved materials from this Reading the landscape category page to archival content pages. Links below keep everything sequential.

Glacier day, 20220924. Photo by Bruce Simonson

First two classes: Getting used to maps & navigation

We kicked off the course with custom geopdfs, centered on Áak’w, little lake (Auke Lake), and University of Alaska Southeast campus, launchpad for our quest to understand the shape of Áak’w & T’aaḵú Aaní.

The Cruise! Glaciers, rocktypes & seafloor landforms in T’aaḵú Aaní

On Sunday Sept-11 we motored 53 miles SE through T’aakú Aaní, exploring landforms from the water. In Avenza, we used geopdfs showing bedrock geology, Lingít placenames, cultural sites, glacial position lines at fiord-head, and a hillshade bathymetry. S’awdáan resources are here.

Jilḵáat, to cache (Chilkat River), from our day-3 stop at 8.3-mile. Photo by Cassie Mox

Evening class-3: S’awdáan debrief: Jilḵáat intro

What an amazing trip! Even better than pure-blue skies, there were enough puffy clouds and mixed haze for lovely photography. Pre-trip Chilkat resources archived here.

Evening class-4: Jilḵáat debrief & roadtour prep

Our follow-up class to the Chilkat tour focused on the Beach Road Land Slide, and a free-ranging 3D investigation with Discovery’s stereoscopes. Then Cathy prepped us for the Saturday field visits to Áak’w Tá, little lake bay (Auke Bay) and Áak’w Táak, inland from little lake (M-word Valley) Chilkat stuff archived here.

Bay&Valley day: marine&glacial landforms

In the morning we visited coastal sites at Aanchg̱altsóow, nexus town (Auke Rec) and K’aan Héenak’u, porpoise little bay (Smuggler’s Cove). Then, in the afternoon, we turned upvalley, for a look at ancient deltaic landforms and much younger morainal features. Bay&Valley archives here.

Mass wasting finale

This page has resources for a downtown-centered day of geo-explorations. Morning on mainland, then afternoon across the bridge to Sandy Beach and Blueberry Hills. (Hey! there’s a pair of names I don’t have to feel guilty about using . . . . except of course, for all the toxic waste in that sand, and . . . dang! history’s sure stingy with stuff we invaders can be proud of.)   Geopdfs and historical stuff here.

Presentations day

Foliated tonalite walls, at the famous tiderip constriction, placid for our floatplane drop-in, August, 1994.

On oct_5th we heard impressive student investigations into topics of special interest. Reading the landscape was officially over, for fall, 2022. But a real landscape tracker never hangs up her/his handlens & soilprobe & avenza geopdfs. We’ve heard from several friends who weren’t aware this class was happening and would have loved to join. If you’re among them, let Cathy & me know. Maybe Discovery needs to start a Landformers club, for online and ‘actual’ geologizing & observation sharing.

For example, one spinoff from this class is an upcoming friends’-trip to Ford’s Terror. Last time I was there was 1994. Here’s what it looked like.a quarter century ago.

btw, I have uncountable old journals like these, from throughout Lingít Aaní, and Haida country southward. Some have been converted to this pdf format—searchable text and scanned 35mm slides with subsequent GIS—but most remain in handwritten fieldbooks. Learning that friends are planning adventures in those places is great incentive to package and upload these journals. So if you’re about to launch a kayak or logging-road expedition to some far corner of  the mainland or archipelago, let me know. Odds are good I’ll have something ‘historic’, for pretrip reading, or phone-flipping in your tent.

Thanks to all who participated, and those who smoothed the way!

RC & CC

In this section

History of cartography in northern Lingít Aaní

From theodolite to LiDAR Teaching geol-393—Reading the landscape of northern Lingít Aaní—with my friend Cathy Connor in fall 2022, I…

2022 | Richard Carstensen | 14 pages

Mass wasting finale

In class—our penultimate Wednesday—we reviewed Bay&Valley day, and then transitioned to the concluding Saturday field trip focusing on ‘serious-stuff-coming-downhill.’ For…

2022 | Richard Carstensen | Landforms class archives

Disco to Ford’s Terror, 1994

All in the timing   In days before accurate tide tables, this place would indeed have gotten your attention. The…

1996 | Richard Carstensen | 10 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

Evening class-4: Jilḵáat debrief & roadtour prep

Wow! these cross-fingers worked! What an amazing trip! Even better than pure-blue skies, there were enough puffy clouds and mixed…

2022 | Richard Carstensen | Landforms class archives

Evening class-3: S’awdáan debrief: Jilḵáat intro

Prep for the big one: Below is what I wrote before the tour . . .won’t bother to change future…

2022 | Richard Carstensen | Landforms class archives

The Cruise: landforms of T’aaḵú Aaní

On Sunday Sept-11 we motored 53 miles southeast from Áak’w into T’aakú Aaní, exploring landforms from the water. In Avenza,…

2022 | Richard Carstensen | geopdfs for T’aaḵú cruise

T’aaḵú X̱’aka.aan: mouth of the great Taku

Perfect location (except in an ice storm) In 2012, L’eeneidí historian Liana Wallace sent me a high-res scan of Waggoner…

2022 | Richard Carstensen | 22 pages

Getting started: orientation on campus

Custom geopdfs for Áak’w On our first class, we loaded the navigational app Avenza to our phones, and tested out…

2022 | Richard Carstensen | pair of geopdfs

Chilkat bedrock geology.

Rock-type units from USGS Here’s a geology map for field navigation in more accessible portions of the Greater Chilkat Watershed—US…

2022 | Richard Carstensen | geopdf—10MB—& 33-page draft chapters

Bedrock geology ArcGIS Online

Bedrock geology for Áak’w & T’aakú Aaní. Units based upon a shapefile by USGS, but color coded by 6 broad…

2015: update 2022 | Richard Carstensen |

Surficial geology, ArcGIS Online

View larger map To begin mapping surficial geology in 2015, I used landform types and color-scheme from R.D. Miller, USGS,…

2015: update 2022 | Richard Carstensen | Arc Online