At Juneau, marine sediments dating to 13,000 BP have been found at 750 feet above sea level. Considering world sea level was more than 300 feet lower at that time, this represents more than 1000 feet of land depression under heavy ice.
Landmark Tree stand on Peterson Creek, Douglas Island. At 200 feet, this is one of the tallest known trees in the CBJ.
As you might expect, our highest-scoring Landmark Tree stands are on the central and southern Tongass. But we’ve measured 10 sites within the City and Borough of Juneau. One, on Cowee Creek, ranks 31st of 71 Tongass stands; others rank 52 through 71, in the bottom quarter of the pool. Northeast of the blue line on the map below, most alluvial Landmark Tree forests have tall but relatively young trees. Stands are almost pure spruce, with dominants roughly the same age. Where the Little Ice Age was most pronounced, increased flood frequency and severity apparently removed the all-aged alluvial stands with stronger hemlock/blueberry component that we find more commonly to the south.
71 Landmark Tree sites color-coded for substrate type. Dot sizes are scaled to overall stand score. CBJ’s largest trees are smaller than those of the central and southern Tongass.
The Landmark Trees stand score is an ‘index of majesty’ that may have little to do with ecological value. What most alluvial spruce forests share—regardless of tree size—are berries and salmon who attract bears and myriad other visitors. Forested salmon streams export annual surplus to neighboring terrestrial and marine habitats. We call this streamside forest the heart of the Tongass.
People on the land, yesterday, today and tomorrow.
In early 2013, Goldbelt Heritage Foundation (GHF), asked if I (RC) was interested in a class on Investigating Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) for Juneau high school students. I fondly remembered the GHF summer academy in 2010, and our course manual What would Raven see? . One of our longer-term goals in 2010 had been to extend those learning opportunities—piloted in summer immersion courses—to the rest of the school year. Now, with support from UAS School of Education, these objectives were in sight.
Especially exciting was the essential question for this course—“Why do we live here?” This theme was selected by Dionne Cadiente-Laiti (GHF), Barbara Cadiente-Nelson (JSD), and Kate Jensen, Education & Curriculum Specialist (9-12) for GHF, who taught and coordinated the course. Their idea was to investigate—with guidance from elders, culture-bearers, scientists and naturalists—the potential factors for choosing winter village sites and summer resource camps.
I’ve explored the Southeast woods and waters for almost 40 years. Goldbelt Heritage’s essential question has become, increasingly, a personal quest for me. How did people use this country? How has that use evolved (or devolved) over time? What do the ancestors—and their light-footed traces on raised beaches, salt lagoons, and pitch trees—teach us about sustainable lifeways?
Still more ‘essential’ are questions about the future. If they could speak, what story and practice would those ancestors prescribe, for the challenging centuries to come?
Kate Jensen’s curriculum for the course Why do we live here? can be downloaded from the GHF website. I also created a course manual that includes a journal-style retrospective, as well as a more systematic exploration of factors in village site selection. This manual, and 4 narrated slideshows I created to explore the question Why do we live here are too large for easy download but can be obtained from Goldbelt Heritage on a flash drive with course materials.