Donjek

Donjek lies in the southwestern Yukon, on the country around the Donjek River. The river is fed by the Donjek Glacier on the eastern flank of the Saint Elias Mountains and runs north across upland valleys toward the White River. Centuries ago the glacier dammed the valley and formed a lake, one of the ice-dammed waters whose sudden release could send floods down the river. Black and white spruce grow thinly under a subarctic climate of long winters and short summers. The Northern Tutchone hunted and fished in the White and Donjek drainages, and the Upper Tanana people ranged west from the river into Alaska.