Guest Bloggers – SEAK25: On the third and final day in Angoon, we split into two groups. One climbed Hood Bay Mountain to extract high-elevation mountain hemlock cores, the other kayaked to Turn Point, searching for and coring culturally modified trees (CMTs).
The CMTs at Turn Point are Sitka Spruce that have distinct scars with hack marks, evidence of previous Tlingit generations harvesting sap and fire starter. These CMTs are of heightened interest because a new hydroelectric power plant is soon to be built, and its road will require the removal of many trees in Turn Point. High school students in Angoon have already worked to preserve the CMTs by creating photogrammetric renderings. This work will prevent the information from there valuable trees, which connect locals to their lineage, from being lost altogether. We hoped to contribute to the effort by extracting cores to investigate their growth and date the scars using tree rings.
A map showing Turn Point in relation to Angoon. Turn Point will be the site of a hydroelectric plant for power generation for Angoon, which is now powered by a diesel generator.
We embarked on this mission in the morning, leaving from the seaplane dock on kayaks. We had