Welcome to a new season of TTCD updates!
We are making a few changes to our newsletter format in an effort to bring more regular, timely, and engaging news from around the district, and help keep our community connected to the work happening across Tyonek.
It has been a busy summer growing and harvesting in the Tyonek Garden & getting out on the land and water with our youth and Habitat Monitoring and Restoration teams. We have been working across the district learning more about our watersheds, supporting salmon habitat, and spending plenty of time outside.
Photo of district wetlands provided by John Hermus, TTCD Staff
Field Notes: Updates from the TTCD Habitat Monitoring & Restoration Team
We kicked off the season with spring pike camp in Beluga, where the HMR team spent the month of June removing invasive pike from multiple lakes across the District, focusing on Three Mile Lake, Chuitbuna, and Rollercoaster Lakes. We are continuing to build on our pike suppression efforts by using new net mesh sizes to target younger pike and further crash the populations. This fall, crews are also adding targeted netting to capture pike born this year before they have the opportunity to mature and spawn. Both Rollercoaster Lake and Chuitbuna are nearing eradication, with only 10 pike removed from Chuitbuna this year and many empty nets!
This year marked our first year of a Tyonek-based pike crew! Brian and Naomi continued suppression efforts in Second Lake to reduce pike predation in the Indian Creek watershed.
HMR also spent time this field season accessing remote sections of the Chuitna River watershed by helicopter to conduct minnow trapping and electrofishing surveys for juvenile salmon in areas where they have not previously been documented. These efforts have helped us nominate approximately 9.2 new river miles to the Anadromous Waters Catalog (AWC) so far this year, helping provide important statutory protections for habitat.
We have also been busy collecting eDNA samples throughout the District to better understand the southern extent of Northern Pike on the west side of Cook Inlet, including targeted sampling in the Chuitna River and Nikolai watersheds to determine whether pike are present.
HMR also completed construction of a bridge over the upper section of Tyonek Creek! This project marks the completion of 3 fish passage restoration projects within the Tyonek Creek watershed, opening well over 60 miles of salmon habitat!
Good Things Growing: Updates from Tyonek Grown & Tyonek Gather
The Tyonek Community Garden had a wonderful summer! We had beautiful harvests, great farmers markets, and plenty of food making its way into our community.
This summer, the garden employed 7 local youth, giving young people hands-on experience growing food and caring for the garden. We are sad to see the growing season come to an end, but feeling grateful for another summer of growing and sharing food with the community.
We had an especially impressive garlic harvest this year and are already looking ahead to next summer. Additionally, after three years of patiently letting it establish, the asparagus will finally be ready for its first harvest.
Another big milestone this season was the completion of the yurt, which will give us a dedicated space for education, community garden events, canning workshops, and more.
We are also very excited to celebrate Naomi Jones’ promotion to Field and Farm Technician!
Youth Stewardship: Updates from Community & School Events
Tyonek Grown has transitioned to our indoor growing systems for the fall and winter!
Earlier this month, TTCD with the help of the Tebughna school students, set up the hydroponic grow towers in the school multipurpose room. We look forward to seeing a lettuce harvest in the coming weeks.
This summer brought some exciting news from the Indian Creek Weir!
At our end-of-season community gathering, we shared updates from the summer, answered questions about the health of the watershed, and celebrated a pretty big discovery: our weir helped document a new species in Indian Creek, sockeye salmon!
We also got to send some of our young stewards home with a very important piece of field gear: Xtratuf boots! We believe that getting your boots muddy and learning to love the places around you is a pretty good way to grow future caretakers of Tyonek.
Chiqnik, Chin’an!
Questions about any content in this newsletter? Email Beks: brumley@ttcd.org