Some of the ski and hiking trails in Talkeetna Lakes Park will soon have new names and new signage to go with it.
Chuti Yits’a Bena – That translates to “Beaver Water Ridge Lake” in the Athabascan Dena’ina language. The Dena’ina people were early inhabitants of the Upper Cook Inlet Territory which encompasses the Upper Susitna Valley. Shem Pete was a colorful, cultural icon who lived and traveled in the area until his death in 1989. His stories and Dena’ina place names were captured and published in the book, “Shem Pete’s Alaska.”
Talkeetna Lakes Park, in Talkeetna, hosts recreational lakes and trails. The main hiking trail, a three mile loop around X Lake, has never had a formal name.
Nordic ski trails were added to the park around 2011, built in part by the Upper Susitna Soil and Water Conservation District’s Youth Conservation Corp (YCC). Laura Hoffman, leader of the YCC at that time, explains that after the designers and heavy equipment moved out, there was plenty of work for the local teens.
“The tractors left a lot of humps and lumps and holes and debris behind. Getting all of that out, the smoothing out of the trails, and then grading; and then finally they seeded the trails with native grass seeds. We worked probably two years or more.”
The final stage in building the ski trails was deciding on names for the trails. Hoffman recalls how the YCC chose trail names to present to the Talkeetna Parks Advisory Committee (TPAC).
“YCC members were the ones that came up with the idea of the names. They wanted a theme, so the theme ended up being the animals.”
The ski trails were christened Otter, Marten, Mink and Ermine. But in the years after the ski trails were finished, visitors to the area sometimes found themselves lost in the network. Roger Robinson, current Chair of TPAC, says the group discussed the issue at one of their meetings in 2019.
“We’ve had people that have called for help, but they don’t know what trail they’re on. Because of search and rescue or looking for somebody, it was felt it would be better to keep the name of the lakes that the trails go around, rather than going with the animal names.”
TPAC decided that trails that encircle specific lakes should be re-named for the lakes they surround. For example, Tigger Lake Trail will now be the name for the loop around Tigger Lake, and Z Lake Trail for the loop around Z Lake. This will potentially aid skiers and hikers who get lost.
But during the discussion about the trail names, TPAC member, Karl Swanson spoke up.
“Karl remembered in Shem Pete’s book, that the Talkeetna Lakes had a name. Shem Pete basically said Chuti Yits’a is below Talkeetna Village about a mile and extends off Bald Mountain. So from Christiansen Lake all the way down through all the Lakes Park was called Chuti Yits’a Bena, Beaver Water Ridge Lake.”
The committee sought the aid of the Knik Tribal Council and Dena’ina linguist, Marilyn Belluta. After receiving approval from them and the Mat-Su Borough, the walking trail around X Lake will finally receive a formal name, the Chuti Yits’a Trail.
“We would have probably named it the X Lake Trail, but we definitely had a reason to change it because when you get to this overlook that looks out over the stream, that’s the stream that’s mentioned in Beaver Stream Ridge. ”
Two small loops in the Park don’t have specific landmarks nearby. Those loops are Mink and Ermine. TPAC decided the keep those names, the names the YCC had provided. But new signage for the trails, will also include the Dena’ina names for those animals. New signs will also provide cultural information about the Dena’ina people.
Those new signs should be visible at Talkeetna Lakes Park, or Chuti Yits’a Bena, before the first nordic skis hit the snowy trails in early winter.
