Another great idea from Mike
2019: Cathy Connor and I (Richard Carstensen) have inherited a tradition spearheaded by our friend Mike Blackwell, who began leading ‘geo-history’ tours of the downtown area as fundraisers for the City Museum. Mike was long active in the Friends of JDCM, and envisioned these strolls as a way to share Juneau’s history with residents, and build a strong base of support for this historical institution. To honor Mike’s ideas and energy, and his dedication to the Museum, we’re continuing the Blackwell City Walk this summer, 2019.
PS 2024: The Blackwell walks continue! I’m adding a few new mapping resources for those who want to continue exploring on their own.
Participants in the last Blackwell City Walk of 2019—August, 21. Photo by Suzanne Sauerteig
There are many historical resources—published and otherwise—for what Áak’w Kwáan called Dzantik’i Héeni, little flounders creek. Early Europeans—with atypical abstinence from the IWGN (important white guy name) tradition, rechristened it Gold Creek. Mike assembled some of those resources into a packet that we used when conducting this walk together. Printed on laminated 11×17-inch paper, the packet allows us to examine maps and historical photos in the field with small groups. The digital version is linked below. You can download it—and other related resources—to your phone before your next stroll.
Working with museums, one soon becomes appreciative of proper citation. We’ve tried to find and credit sources for the images in Mike’s original packet, but there are a few of as-yet unestablished provenance, as indicated by “photo source unknown.” Apologies for gaps and errors! RC & CC
Download 6 MB pdf here:
PS, summer’s end, 20190822: Cathy and I have thoroughly enjoyed these monthly excursions with some of J-town’s most knowledgeable and history-steeped residents. It’s always heart-warming (and a little intimidating!) to see who shows up. We typically learn as much as we share on the Blackwell City Walk, and hope to continue the tradition. In addition to this Blackwell-packet, here’s some other resources for Dzantik’i Héeni and the downtown area:
● Seawalk scoping document
● Video from climb of Shaa Tlaax (Mt Juneau)
● Geopdfs for navigation in Avenza are available at two scales:
For best detail of just the downtown area, download the pair of Citywalk geopdfs
For broader explorations, back into the watershed, download the Gold geology geopdfs.
