Tuohehonyaiaga or Quottenhonyaiga Wetland
.jpg)
The Tuohehonyaiaga or Quottenhonyaiga (depending on the tribe) Creek Wetland area (18 Mile Creek) extends from the bridge over NYS Rt. 18 to the Burt dam, several miles upstream. As a historic flyway for migrating birds the wetland is a wonderful ringside seat for observing all kinds of birds, geese, swans, eagles, turkey buzzards, owls, fox, deer and more!
The creek also serves a salmon release/return habitat as well as the breeding ground for several types of waterfowl and birds.
The creek also offers excellent kayaking opportunities going up creek to the Burt Dam. With little boat traffic in the upper creek, the paddle is sheltered and a wonderful view of our wetland.
The Burt Dam area provides some exciting fishing opportunities for anglers. In the fall the salmon return to the creek for lots of action.
We are fortunate to have an awesome overview of the wetland from our western bank on the creek!
Creek History
There is a long history of Indigenous occupation for thousand of years. By using typology of the type of arrowheads that have been found along they creek, the earlest that has been found have been what they call Lamoka points dating 6,000 to 5,000 years old. also Brewerton and meadow head points dating 2,000 to 1,000 these are noted as the archaic age hunter gather's. there has at this point been found a village sight along the creek, I have found one pottery site that probably dates 500 to 800 years old, as the type of point found was a madison point, and that was not to far from the mouth of the creek, the population throught the thousands of years was probably pretty high, the creek would have been pristine and the woods being old growth trees so big that there was no undergrowth, woodland bison and woodland elk besides bear wolves, deer etc. was prevalant. I found in the 70's a vertebrae during the construction of of the sewer main on the west beach, at 4' depth UB labled it a woodland elk or woodland bision. The Seneca spelling for the creek is "Quottenhonyaiga" I tried to translate through a friend of mine Jamie Jacobs who speaks the language, but he said it was an old style spelling, but said it might mean it runs through it, but not sure about that. We excavated a fishing site at Keg Creek years ago, over 300 line sinkers were found in a pile, the net of course long gone, also a fire pit that contained deer and bear bone, the pottery was a Huron design, probably very unsual, they may have been adopted or kept as a slave or prisoner, as the Huron were from the north shore of Ontario area, and were basically wiped out by the Seneca and Mohawk people.
The above, many thanks to our friend Geoff Harding