Montezuma Castle

Story and photo

By Bill Wagner

If one was watching “House Hunting,” the verbiage might go something like: “Five story, mountainside retreat with majestic view of Beaver Creek. Peaceful. Nearest neighbors miles away. No utilities.”

Actually, no one is going to be moving in anytime soon, since Montezuma Castle is a national monument.

Actually, it’s one of the four original sites that received that status in 1906 as President Theodore Roosevelt took advantage of the newly passed Antiquities Act.

Nine hundred years ago, only the Sinagua tribe knew of its location. For reasons no historian or archaeologist has been able to determine, they abandoned the site in the 1400s.

Early settlers in the area presumed it to be of Aztec origin, giving it the name. For the record, it is not of Aztec origin and was abandoned nearly a century before the Aztec chief was born.

The national monument is located just off Interstate 17 about 50 miles south of Flagstaff and 80 miles north of Phoenix.

Despite Roosevelt’s good intentions, the historic declaration came years too late to protect the site from looters, who left the dwelling void of relics.

The structure is actually a five-story, 20-room dwelling built into a recess of a limestone cliff nearly 100 feet above ground. The prehistoric dwellers had to use ladders to climb to and from the residence. Nearby is yet another multistory residence.

The second structure, which today is a deteriorated ruin that is a shadow of its former self, had 45 rooms in six stories. 

For more than four decades, visitors were allowed to climb ladders and wander inside the cliff dwelling. In 1951, the ruins were closed to public access to prevent further deterioration.

They remain among the most accessible and best preserved examples of cliff ruins in the U.S.

Today, visitors look up in awe and wonder what life was like for the Sinagua (Spanish for ''without water'') when they moved into the area some 1000 years ago.

The village that included the Montezuma Castle probably finished growing around 1300 and was abandoned a century later when the Sinagua left the Verde Valley area, according to the National Park Service. 

In addition to the castle, Montezuma Well and Tuzigoot are nearby and part of the national monument. 

The well is 11 miles from the castle and is described by the park service as a limestone sink formed when a huge underground cavern collapsed centuries ago. The Sinaguans used its waters for irrigation.

Tuzigoot, the remnants of another Sinaugan village, is 30 miles to the northwest off U.S. Highway 89.

Thanks to its central location and the fact there is little else on I-17 between Phoenix and Flagstaff, the monument gets a steady stream of visitors. The monument is open year-round except on Christmas Day. In the summer, the areas are open from 8 until 7 p.m. Winter hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The entrance fee is $5 per person. 

For more information visit www.nps.gov/moca or www.nps.gov/tuzi. 

Millions of salmon call Alaska's scenic Stikine River home

By Bill Wagner

Most folks don’t give a second thought to where their Stikine River salmon comes from. They should.

Flowing more than 400 miles from its headwaters in British Columbia in Canada, the Stikine is the birthplace of millions of salmon each year.

All five salmon species of salmon — king, sockeye, Coho, humpback/pink and chum — call the river home.

“It’s a significant wild river in North America,” said Brenda Schwartz-Yeager, who, along with her husband John, operates Alaska Charters and Adventures (www.alaskaupclose.com), who shows tourists a river that is close to her heart. She’s one of several captains that offer tours. They also ferry in kayakers, backpackers and trout fishermen.

“The Stikine is one of the few navigable wild rivers that don’t have dams, bridges or cities. It doesn’t have a lot of human impact on it.”

And that’s what makes it special.

She grew up on the river, often traveling with her dad, Skip, who was a wildlife biologist. For the past 26 years she’s been sharing her love of the pristine wilderness.

Most recently she’s been using a custom designed and built jet boat that skims across the often shallow spots as the river gets ready to dump into the waters of the Zomovia Strait off the island of Wrangell in southwest Alaska.

Actually on this trip, I not only got to see the river from the jet boat but also took a closer look thanks to Earl Benitz and his aluminum skiff.

Earl and his wife, Mary, live year-round on Farm Island, which is about seven miles north of Wrangell. That’s seven miles on a map, but probably 14 miles or so by the time boaters make their way around the sandbars of the Stikine’s huge delta.

Farm Island was homesteaded decades ago and now those homesteads have been broken up into smaller parcels. Four months out of the year, Earl and Mary are iced in.

The low-lying delta is littered with the stripped and bleached remnants of one-proud 100-foot spruce tree along with hemlock and cottonwoods. Some have traveled hundreds of miles before beaching themselves on the sandbars.

Cruising the river and its many tributaries and offshoots, the banks are lined with trees dangling at differing angles, waiting to be claimed as the rushing waters eat away at the banks.

While much of the river is silt-covered, there are creeks that are crystal clear.

The scenery is spectacular. The sky is blue, the trees a brilliant green. Pristine. Stunning. Spectacular.

When the boat motor is off, one has to wonder if Simon & Garfunkel had the Stikine in mind when they collaborated on “Sounds of Silence.”

While we see coyote, moose and bear tracks, we don’t run into any wildlife.

Interestingly, while the river is loaded with fish, not much fishing goes on — at least folks with poles. Upriver some fly fishermen go after trout.

Most fish taken from the river itself fall victim to gill nets of subsistence fishermen. The Stikine is in an area designated for local residents to use the nets.

While most fishermen go after the salmon in saltwater, the migrating fish in the Stikine are still mighty tasty.

“The salmon have been genetically altered to adapt to the long journey home,” Schwartz-Yeager said.  They are loaded with the right kind of oils that makes them tastier, she added.

The river is lined with snow-capped peaks of the Coastal Range. Unlike the Rockies, which are sheer granite, these mountains are mostly covered with green trees. Only the very tops exposed thanks to the gale force winds that blow in the winter months.

If it’s Alaska, there’s bound to be a glacier nearby. For this part of the Stikine its Shakes Glacier, which creates Shakes Lake.

The Shakes Glacier melts off to create Shakes Lake which in turn empties into the Stikine. There’s plenty of ice in the lake from the calving glacier. On of the few good days in September, boats can get closer to the glacier than we did in mid-July.

Between the glacier and the Stikine delta, hot water from Chief Shakes Hot Springs bubbles to the surface. The U.S. Forest captures the steaming water in a couple of wooden hot tubs — one inside a screened hut with the other in the open. It might not be much of a treat in summer, but in the winter snowmobilers and those with hovercraft can drop in for a relaxing afternoon or evening.

In April, the river comes alive with eagles swooping down to feast on hooligan run. Like salmon, the tiny hooligan return to where they hatched.

For more information on other companies offering tours, hotels in Wrangell and the Stikine and Wrangell itself, visit www.wrangell.com