Xunaa Stewardship of the Lands and Water

photo essay

Xunaa Stewardship of the Lands and Water

By Jillian Schuyler
& Phillip Sharclane
| Photography by Ian Johnson
| August 15, 2021

The Hoonah Native Forest Partnership leads youth stewards in a summer land restoration program

Hoonah is the largest Tlingit community in Alaska. Supporting Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian representation in land management is integral as the Indigenous peoples of Southeastern Alaska have a deep reciprocal relationship with the landscape that extends over 10,000 years. Alaskan Youth Stewards (AYS), implemented in 2018, employs Hoonah youth for a summer season, focusing on natural resource management and career readiness. The Hoonah Native Forest Partnership (HNFP), founded in 2015, includes Hoonah locals employed with the Tribal government to improve Hoonah’s natural resources through environmental stewardship, land restoration, resource mapping, land monitoring, and more.

The HNFP and AYS were launched through the Sustainable Southeast Partnership, a diverse network of people and organizations from Southeast communities working together to build cultural, ecological, and economic resilience across the region. An important goal of these particular workforce development initiatives in Hoonah is to increase local leadership in the management of the lands and waters that sustain them.

Phillip Sharclane is a returning Hoonah Native Forest Partnership crew member and the current program lead. Sharclane explains the relationship between stewardship and Hoonah’s reliance on hunting and harvesting, saying, “Taking care of the land, thinning [dense ‘second growth trees’ that grow after a clearcut] opens up the canopy for berries underneath. When second growth occurs, the trees are too close and it doesn’t let in any light or water. Enhancements are important for keeping a close relationship with the land and in various areas, you’ll see that we improved access and quality of [local] resource(s).”

As a local who benefits from the enriched environment, Sharclane highlights the relational value between the health of the land and those who thrive. “It’s pretty awesome to be able to be out there and to have a positive impact on our natural resources for salmon berries and salmon.” In the past summers, the HNFP has guided the AYS program for a week to work on beneficial land management for Hoonah. “The future is going to be for kids and it’s going to be for their kids too. I hope to make the health of local lands and waters better for them all,” says Sharclane.

Hoonah residents can be found searching for and harvesting from the land spruce tips, beach asparagus, Hudson Bay tea, fireweed, berries, and more. Hunting and fishing are crucial for families to pack their freezers with deer and fish for the dark winters. When prompted for his favorite Alaskan resource, Sharclane exclaims, “It’s so hard to choose a favorite one from the land! Smoked deer meat is really good and we’ve improved a lot of deer habitat out there.”

The Alaskan Youth Stewards (AYS) crew joins the Hoonah Native Forest Partnership during geomorphology surveys at the Spasski watershed with the U.S. Forest Service. These surveys allow HNFP members to gauge the effectiveness of their restoration work, which intends to help salmon streams recover from past clearcut timber harvests. Facilitating the exchange of skills and knowledge through generations is a critical component to workforce development. Pictured, HNFP crewmember Phillip Sharclane explains river hydrology to Dylan Johnson, an AYS crew member.

AYS crew members spend time harvesting and processing beach asparagus, Hudson Bay tea, fireweed, and blueberries for the Hoonah Traditional Food Fair. During the summer of 2020, with COVID canceling the annual food fair, the processed goods were dispersed to the Hoonah elder community. Every season the youth become harvesting professionals, gaining knowledge of and respect for harvesting from Tlingit lands and learning how to disperse their newfound skills to their fellow peers while sharing their vibrant fireweed jelly and savory pickled asparagus.

The Hoonah Indian Association (HIA) has employed Hoonah youth through AYS since 2018. In partnership with the HIA, the AYS group received hands-on opportunities to explore multiple perspectives within natural resource management—through snorkel surveys, geomorphology, shellfish biomass, stream restoration, harvesting local foods, and more. Shellfish are a delicacy and favored food from the sea. By monitoring shellfish biomass and paralytic shellfish poisoning, it is possible to track the health of this resource for safe community consumption.

Photo 1: A deer visits the Hoonah Native Forest Partnership (HNFP) work crew during a day in the field. To date, the HNFP has worked on the 205,000-acre project area owned by the City of Hoonah, Sealaska, Huna Totem, and the U.S. Forest Service to improve accessibility to and mobility of wildlife through past clearcut timber stands. Sitka black-tailed deer make up a large part of the local diet. By enhancing deer habitat, the HNFP works to ensure that generations to come will be able to savor foods like smoked deer meat.

Photo 2: As working hands on working lands, the HNFP crew has completed several stream restorations. These restorations seek to repair systems impacted by logging and road building. This is an important part of HNFP’s workforce development initiatives. While they don’t result in food in hand, they increase the resiliency of the landscape to produce fish and resources to meet community harvest needs. Loss of spawning habitat causes decline in local salmon populations and heavily affects Hoonah’s dependency on fisheries for jobs and local subsistence.