The best views of the birds are from posted turnoffs between Mile 18 and Mile 22, where spotting scopes, interpretive displays, and viewing platforms have been set up along the river. Haines Highway, which extends 146 miles north to the Alaska Highway at Haines Junction, skirts the preserve and provides visitors a paved route to the eagles. The river "flats" of the Chilkat River, located between miles 18 and 24 of the Haines Highway, are the main viewing areas for eagle watchers and are considered critical habitat in the preserve. This combination of open water and plentiful food brings large concentrations of eagles into the Chilkat Valley from October through February. The salmon die shortly after spawning and their carcasses provide large quantities of food for the eagles. The salmon runs begin in the summer and continue on through late fall or early winter. By the time the fall migration begins in October, the resident eagles are done raising their young, but immature eagles will often stay nearby for a year or more.įive species of salmon spawn in these and other nearby streams and tributaries. The Chilkat Valley is the year-round home for between 200 and 400 eagles, and more than 80 nests have been observed in the preserve itself. WildlifeĮven during the summer, the preserve is one of the best places to see eagles in the Inside Passage. The most popular activity at the festival is venturing out to the Chilkat River on 'expedition buses' with noted naturalists onboard to view one of the largest concentrations of eagles in the world. The event attracts hundreds of visitors from around the country for five days of speakers, presentations, and special exhibits at the Sheldon Museum and the American Bald Eagle Foundation Center. The town of Haines celebrates the gathering of bald eagles in November at the Bald Eagle Festival. Visitors can also take in the sights from a boardwalk viewing platform and the 2-mile-long Riverside Trail.ĭuring the summer, a number of outfitters in Haines offer tours in vans or in rafts and jet boats on the Chilkat River to view eagles and other wildlife in the preserve. The preserve has several pullouts along the highway with spotting scopes that offer the great vantage points. The best time to view the eagles is late fall and early winter, though they can be seen in the area year-round. Things to DoĪs the name suggests, viewing bald eagles is the top thing to do at the preserve. Every portion of this preserve is used by eagles at some time during the year, and from October to February, more than 3,000 eagles congregate here to feed on spawning chum salmon. It's a remarkable sight - hundreds of birds sitting in the bare trees lining the river, often six or more birds to a branch. The original weavers were also a small community of women of the Chilkat tribe and much of the original process was lost with their passing in the mid 20 th Century.Observe the impressive gathering of hundreds of bald eagles just outside of Haines in the Inside Passage. The result is that not many Chilkat blankets were produced, even at the height of production. A single blanket may take up to two years of periodic work to complete. Despite being made for sale, the blankets are immensely difficult and time-consuming to create. With increased tourism to Alaska, weavers noticed an opportunity to sell the blankets to a larger market, and the Chilkat became inseparably associated with these blankets to the point that the blankets themselves are now erroneously called Chilkats. Why exactly this transition occurred is not well-understood, but the design was adopted into Chilkat culture. During the middle of the 19 th Century, the Tsimshian slowly stopped weaving these blankets, but imparted their knowledge to Chilkat weavers. Per the oral tradition of the Chilkat Tlingit, the blankets were first produced by Tsimshian tribe of the Northwest Coast. This post explores one such Chilkat blanket in the Bowers Museum’s collections, looking at the history, craft, and provenance of the blanket. Originally worn at feasts and other prestigious occasions, weavers began to make Chilkat blankets to sell at these outposts. Right around when the state was purchased, the Chilkat Tlingit had begun to weave incredibly intricate blankets from a cedar bark weft and wool. Small outposts and forts dotted the Alaskan coast, mostly stops on the pilgrimage gold-minded miners took to get to the Klondike. Less than fifty years prior the state had been purchased from Russia in what is now considered the wisest folly related to U.S. Mountain goat’s wool with cedar bark warp strands and pigment 54 × 74 × 1 in.Īt the turn of the 20 th Century the Chilkat Tlingit lived along the painfully stark and beautiful riverbeds of the similarly named Alaskan Chilkat River. Maggie Kadanaha (Chilkat Tlingit, 1873-1959) Alaska, Northwest Coast, United States of America
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