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Not Just a Bunch of Stakes in the Ground

Nearly everyone who works in the Tongass gets excited about fish. What the Heritage program really gets excited about is not just fish, but ancient fish traps!

In the spring of 2004, as part of on-going monitoring and inventory and in response to a Forest Service proposed thinning project, Myra Gilliam and I were at the location of an important village site near Yakutat, Alaska. After several weeks of dry sunny weather, the water level was especially low allowing for good visibility of a set of wooden stakes that are near this well documented site. Back in 1987 radiocarbon dates obtained from these stakes dated it to approximately 130 years old. But the trap had never been mapped.

With a tape and compass we began to map the stakes. What happened next was the discovery of some very special gifts from the ancestors of the Yakutat Tlingit. A spruce root basket, a wooden adze handle, a portion of a basket trap and a stone artifact were all exposed and on the surface of the streambed, no excavation required!

The first artifact to reveal itself was a portion of a possible basket trap. The exposed portion of this artifact measured approximately 40cm X 15cm. There were six weft bands exposed with 12 warp staves attached with (root?) lashing. The size of this basket trap is unknown because much of it was well buried and we made the difficult decision to leave the trap in place. The artifact was photographed and was added to the mapping effort but was not collected.

As the mapping effort continued, a worked stone artifact was located on the surface of the stream bank not far from the previously mentioned basket. This artifact is possibly the business end of a hammer used to pound the stakes into the streambed 130 years ago.

As if these artifacts weren’t enough, the stream also offered an almost complete woven spruce root basket lying just barely in the mud of the creek bed. This basket was also included in the map, photographed, and collected.

Close to these wonderful creations was a complete wooden “adze” handle clearly displayed on the bottom of the creek bed. The entire piece is made from a single piece of wood. The handle is 63cm long; the head is 22cm x 6.3cm. The head is carved from the knot of a tree and the handle is the branch that naturally extends from that knot. However, there are no apparent grooves where an adze blade made of stone or iron would have been hafted.

At the same time we were working, The Yakutat Salmon Board was collaborating with ADF&G on a coded wire tagging project. A local Yakutat employee, Anthony Schmidt, was canoeing up the same creek further north. While trapping smolt he found some fish weir stakes and a carved wooden bow. He collected the bow and contacted us.

Eventually the Forest Service, the State Historic Preservation Office and the Yakutat Tlingit Tribe agreed to have the spruce root basket, the adze handle, and the wooden bow brought to Juneau and stabilized in Polyethylene Glycol (PEG) under the supervision of Alaska State Museum curator Scott Carlee.

For more information about the history and prehistory of Yakutat you could start by finding yourself a copy of Under Mount St. Elias: The History and Culture of the Yakutat Tlingit by Frederica de Laguna, or Through Spanish Eyes by Wallace M. Olson just to name a few. Or, if you are lucky enough to be in Yakutat a wealth of knowledge could be right there in the person standing next to you in the store.

By Nicole Lantz, Heritage Program, Admiralty National Monument, Juneau and Yakutat Ranger Districts

USDA Forest Service - Tongass National Forest
Last Modified: April 03, 2006