Heart and edge: Biogeographic provinces of Língít-&-K’áyk’aanii
Cover and 2 sample pages from the introduction to Heart & edge
An atlas-in-perpetual-progress for the 22 biogeographic provinces of Lingít and Haida country. In its skeletal form, the full draft is 265 pages long (20241023), but hopefully will grow much larger. We might consider this the foundational ‘textbook’ for JuneauNature>PLACES>Southeast Alaska biogeographic provinces. In addition to the introductory overview, the download link below includes sample chapters for the first two provinces—Yakutat and Lituya—and a provisional list of placenames from all 22 provinces.
In early 2023, I’m updating previous excerpts in preparation for work with teachers and school districts throughout the archipelago. Since my last version, Lingít placenames and bedrock geology have significantly fortified. For some of the provinces where I’ve spent most time, I have enormous journals and ‘scoping’ documents—some already loaded to JuneauNature, & tons more in-the-wings—thus pointless to include in this more ‘egalitarian’ treatment of the full ecoregion. Those ‘additional resource’ provinces include, of course, my home: Áak’w & T’aaḵú Aaní, Here’s a sampling of resources from best-represented provinces, NW to SE:
11 East Xunaa
14 Xutsnoowú,
16 Central Islands and
20 North Tàan
In October, 2024, I’m revisiting parts of Heart & edge as part of atlasing work for the team who surveyed alpine ridges throughout the archipelago and mainland in 2010-to-2013. One of the more valuable sections of this biogeography, I feel, is the distillation of USGS bedrock geology into forms comprehensible to non-geologists. I had relegated 3 pages of rock-unit tables to the Appendices so they didn’t get included in the last excerpts package. This one restores the tables to the bedrock section, which you might find useful when studying, say karst maps of the damaged southern timberlands, and wondering what Sab stands for (the famous Heceta limestone of course! Silurian algal boundstone! )
