Tides, toads & topography: Natural & cultural history of big valley
Left to right: Brittany Lehnhart, Jill Carlile, Leigh Miller, Claire Geldof, Lyndsey Kelly, Gabrielle Vance Below, Canada gees by Brittany Lehnhart
In 2003 I had the privilege of directing a semester booklet project with 6 amazing Alder House students from Dzantik’i Héeni Middle School. But what’s the point in me describing it? After all, it was a writing project:
“Our publication on the geologic, natural and human history of Shaanáx̱ Tlein, big valley (Lemon Creek watershed) has been a unique learning experience for us. The creation of the publication involved art and g
raphics, field trips, interviews and writing. Past student booklets and poster projects dealt with smaller local streams while this one describes the entire watershed.” Leigh Miller
Download booklet here: 
8MB
Here’s another selection. In 2003 I hadn’t yet adopted my placenames convention of Lingít>translation>(colonial-name), but in this re-issue, I updated accordingly, something I feel sure all 6 authors will be pleased to see:
Sít’ḵú Héen (Lemon Creek) Gabrielle Vance
Sít’ḵú Héen flows through dense forests and meanders across tidal wetlands to Séet ka, canyon channel (Gastineau Channel). The creek shares its name with the Lemon Creek Glacier, both named not for any surfeit of citruses but for explorer John Lemon.
Alluvial deposits of gravel in and around Lemon Creek have been heavily mined, as became apparent to us on a field trip to Hidden Valley. Having exhausted most of the higher quality gravel deposits, extractors had resorted to less economic techniques like blasting shotrock from bedrock outcrops.
The Lemon Creek watershed is widely considered CBJ’s “sacrifice area” for gravel, a better choice than the less developed Asx̱’ée-L’ux̱ (Eagle-Herbert) valleys. It is closer to the center of where gravel is needed, and environmental impacts of gravel extraction would be even more pronounced at Asx̱’ée-L’ux̱ or Woosh eel’óox̱’u héen (Mendenhall) watersheds.
Some believe that gravel extraction in Lemon Creek’s middle reaches has choked the lower stream with sediment and turned it into an aggrading stream (one that floods often and builds up its floodplain).Unlike Switzer and Vanderbilt, Lemon Creek is a glacial stream. The flow of glacial streams peaks in late summer at the time of greatest glacialmelting, then declines to its lowest flow in midwinter. The flow of nonglacial streams has two peaks, in spring (from snowmelt) and in October (Southeast Alaska’s rainiest month). It is natural for glacial streams to be silt-filled and as a result unsuited to spawning salmon except in side-channels. Switzer and Vanderbilt Creeks usually have much clearer water than Lemon Creek.”
