Dan and Gretchen Bishop exploring Yindastuki Creek where raised neoglacial tidelands met the old clanhouse terrace.
Above: Aerial oblique upriver, about 1955, when runway surface was raised and lengthened. Materials were dredged from along runway, end of runway, and a gravel pit near utility access road. Surface rock was made from 5-mile Pit. ● Below: Landing in early 1989.
Proposed Haines Airport reconstruction
In October, 1988 and January, 1989, I joined Dan and his daughter Gretchen Bishop for a study of Yindastuki Creek and Sawmill Wetlands, on contract with ADOT. A new runway was planned outboard of the existing one, which would impact streamflow and replace wetlands. One thought was to plug Yindastuki into the head of Sawmill Slough, a former distributary of Chilkat River. So (oh darn!) . . .we had to study the whole danged complex of uplifting tidal marsh and encroaching moose willows.
We also needed to understand glacial rebound and river channel migrations as they’d impacted Yandeist’aḵyé, faraway stuff drifts ashore (old Yindastuki village). Just the project for a budding naturalist who’d spent the past decade puzzling over those same questions at Asx̱’ée, twisted tree (Eagle River), 57 miles southeast in Áak’w & T’aaḵú Aaní.
(Also around 1989, a cadre of conservation leaders and winter-jobless Alaska Discovery guides were gestating a novel idea; what if we formed a non-profit, bringing nature to the schools? Fall-winter-spring employment! We’d start with the women—Maier, Baxter, Homan, Campbell—who were already doing that, just tagging along til we got the hang of it. This idea became Discovery Southeast, the cross-fertilization of education and environmental research. Although Áak’w-centric, we soon launched a northern-Southeast dissemination in the Naturemobile. Gustavus naturalist Greg Streveler and I ferried to 5 communities bringing The Word. At Deishú, trail’s end (Haines) our 1992 workshop drew heavily from Environaid work in Sawmill Wetland, setting a precedent for Discovery’s unique blend of observation and outreach.)
See also our report for Haines Airport phase-2
