Outdoors with teachers
Yadaa.at Kalé means beautifully adorned face, of slopes rising northeast from the highschool named for them (JDH). On thurs-fri-sat, Oct 13-15, for STEAM-2022, Discovery naturalist Steve Merli and I held back-to-back outings for our heroines and heroes, educators from this and surrounding school districts. It’s been a long time since I asked these most precious public servants to sit through yet another indoor presentation—however dear, or ‘seated’ the subject might seem to me. As a servant-to-servants, I love watching those first deep breaths they take, leaving the building, for 90 minutes playing with giant trees, mountain goats, and Dzanti’ki Héeni tideflats.
Above: Nanny lefthorn, ~1,500 feet. Just returned to winter range from summering near Granite Basin. Two of my lefthorn females had kids this year, but this one(?) lost hers by late-July. Below: ‘Goating’ from Gym-entry alcove, an all-weather observation station.
Those, ostensibly, were subjects of our ‘outings.’ Sure, we could call em something more staid and less like recess: classes, workshops, or seminars. But since about March, 2020, when much of the ‘fun’ was drained from ‘learning,’ it’s felt to me like education needs more fresh air than formality. Those side-doors of Yadaa.at Kalé are escape-hatches, not only from but to.
For those wanting to pursue trees, goats and Seawalk in greater depth, we passed around signup sheets for followup resource-links. My lists below may also serve to elucidate the sitemap hierarchy of JuneauNature. Note that because most links are to ‘free-floating’ non-hierarchical ‘content pages,’ you can actually drill down to them through several different pathways: content (NATURE, CULTURE), geography (PLACES), technology (TOOLS), institution (SCHOOLS), or Media types. Paths shown here demonstrate those alternate routes.
Giant trees of Áak’w Aaní
Beginning with a ‘cookie’ from J-town’s currently most famous tree, who smashed houses on Gastineau Avenue, Sept-26, we sloshed up a dissolving access road to an immeasurably old, balding yán (western hemlock) with chʼáakʼ hít, eaglenest, in its crown. We also admired 160-foot tall Brave Outlier, shéiyi (Sitka spruce), a Nettleslide ‘bowling pin’ that 300 years of avalanches from Shaa Tlaax̱, moldy top (Mt J-word) have failed to topple.
● SCHOOLS>of Aakw&Taaku>Harborview>Special trees in Nettleslide Eagle-eye orbits.
● NATURE>Geology>Surficial-geology>Mass-wasting>Avalanche mapping Releases in Nettleslide (Behrends path)
● TOOLS>Landmark Trees As with other category pages, scroll down from In this section to see many more related resources.
● NATURE>Habitats>Terrestrial>Forests>Tree hunting manual Tips for finding, measuring, and documenting our most magnificent forests.
● PLACES>Aakw&TaakuWatersheds>AngooxaYe>Digital Fish Creek. Hydrology in the point cloud; a new way to look at forests.
Mountain goats of Áak’w Aaní
Mom with her 4.5-month-old on Saturday. Quite large, so probably a male. Amazing how fast those kids grow! He(?) weighed around 7 pounds when born on June 1st, give or take a week or two.
Thanks to many eyes, we found goats even in Thursday’s low-ceiling downpour. And on Friday, clearing skies revealed quite a few. As for post-outing supplementary resources, JuneauNature probably has more on Jánwu and Goatlandia than for any other subject:
● NATURE>Critters>Mammals>Hooved>Mountain goat. Scroll below In this section for more
● TOOLS>Photography>Motioncam>108 days on mtn-goat winter range. One of our most popular videos.
● ADFG page on goat identification. Includes a fun quiz
● NATURE>Habitats>Terrestrial>Steep-places>Autumn in Goatlandia. The period when Jánwu is closely observable from downtown schools coincides almost exactly with the school year. It begins with the rut and ends with birth of ~7-pound kids.
Seawalk for educators
For many downtown residents, Seawalk has given us back our waterfront—barricaded behind Egan Expressway from mid-1970s to 2018. But so far it’s been underutilized by city schools, and at Discovery, we’re hoping to change that. Friday morning, Steve and I fomented yet another breakout, from the 3rd-floor overpass escape hatch, through harbor backchannels to The Whale, thence down onto the flats. Who needs bus-or-carpool?
● PLACES>Aakw&TaakuWatersheds>Dzanti’ki Héeni category page for our Downtown-schools’ watershed.
● CULTURE>Enter the Europeans>Blackwell City-walk info packet inspired by Discovery friend & benefactor Mike Blackwell.
● NATURE>Habitats>Coastal>Seawalk-series ‘pageflippers’ and stereopairs for Dzanti’ki Héeni outlet. Created for the City during Seawalk construction. And just to make the point, same link by another path: SCHOOLS>Aakw&TaakuAani>Yadaa.atKale> . . . and scroll below In this section for the Dzanti’ki Héeni delta series page.
