Living on Thin Ice. Steven C. Dinero
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in Mason 1924: 12, meaning “strong people”] of the Chandalar region were Athabascan Indians who had hunted the muskeg and scrubby forests of the Yukon Flats northward toward the snowcapped Brooks Range, and traveled northeastward toward the Yukon Territory for trade with the coastal Eskimos [i.e., the Inupiat] for more than a thousand years. They didn’t own much, only what they could carry on the hunt—a knife, some baskets, snowshoes, warm skin clothing, and until white traders came, only bows, arrows and spears to hunt with … The skins of caribou and moose provided almost everything else they needed.
The environment made the Nets’aii Gwich’in people who they were in ways large and small. In turn, the Gwich’in made and remade their environment over the millennia, shaping it to conform to their needs while also responding to its strength that would ultimately, along with other social forces determine their fates.
The region that the Alaskan Gwich’in call “home” is comprised of nearly 37,000 square miles of land (Andrews 1977:103) located in the interior region of northeast Alaska known as the Northern Plateaus Province (Wahrhaftig 1965: 22). The area has historically experienced extreme temperatures—90 degrees Fahrenheit is possible in summer and –50 degrees or lower in winter. Summers are typically more moderate, however, usually in the 60s and brief in duration. Sunlight is plentiful (Illustrations 1.1 and 1.2), as are a variety of species of voracious mosquitoes. Winter lasts from mid-September, when the first snows fall, until breakup in mid-June. In reality, it can snow virtually any day of the year. Much of the winter is also enshrouded in a blue haze, not so much dark as lacking in actual direct sunlight (see Illustrations 8.1 and 8.2). The region varies from marshy lowland valleys to flats that stretch for miles beyond the Yukon River’s banks to foothills of the Brooks Range. These hills generally reach summits no higher than 1,500 to 2,500 feet. Boreal forest covers the land (Slobodin 1981: 514) comprised of permafrost. Flora is limited to lichens, conifers, and the like; fauna includes bear, moose, caribou, and small furbearers (Wahrhaftig 1965: 23).
Historically, the Nets’aii Gwich’in (also referred to in the literature as “Chandalar Kutchin”; see Slobodin 1981) were seminomadic hunters, gatherers, and fishers, structured in small groups and bands known as “restricted wanderers” (Hosley 1966: 52) whose community pattern “adapted to scattered or seasonably available food resources” (VanStone 1974: 38). Thus, the region’s severe geography dictated the lifestyle and behavior of the people. While larger mammals served as the primary food source, smaller mammals (beaver, ground squirrel, Arctic hare) were used for clothing and trade (Slobodin 1981: 515).
It is uncertain exactly when the Nets’aii Gwich’in of northeast Alaska were first contacted by Europeans. While some argue that first contact occurred in 1847, with the establishment of Hudson’s Bay Company at Fort Yukon (Hadleigh-West 1963: 21; Nelson 1986: 13; Slobodin 1981: 529), others indicate a later period, the 1860s (Caulfield 1983: 88), when the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England began sending missionaries to the region (see chapter 2). Either way, interaction occurred with those of both French and English origin beginning in the latter part of the nineteenth century. As will be seen in greater detail (chapters 2 and 3), the colonization process was rapid and thorough, and would ultimately have a long-lasting impact on the Nets’aii Gwich’in with permanent outcomes and ramifications.
Map 1.1 Arctic Village and neighboring Gwich’in villages in the Yukon Flats.
The village was founded in 1908 (Caulfield 1983; Hadleigh-West 1963) or 1909 (Lonner and Beard 1982) and named Vashr’aii K’oo, meaning “Creek with Steep Bank” (Mishler 1995: 434). The origins of the name “Arctic Village” are unknown (Hadleigh-West 1963:17). Chief Christian (1878–1947) was, in effect, the founder of the village when he built the first cabin for him and his wife, Rachel (Peter 1966; Nickelson 1969b; I. Tritt 1987a). The building of a cabin was itself an innovation; only with the introduction of the axe was log cabin construction a possibility, and the poor ventilation of the buildings, heated by wood stoves, often led to various health difficulties. Thus, more than a decade later, a few skin houses still existed in the community alongside the small log cabins (Mason 1924: 27).
Although some have reported that settlement was fostered in part by the purported murder of a White man by unknown Nets’aii Gwich’in assailants (see Stern 2005: 34), little evidence exists to substantiate this conspiratorial claim. Rather, as the more commonly known story goes, the Nets’aii Gwich’in people came to settle at the confluence of the Vashr’aii K’oo Creek and the East Fork of the Chandalar River for very rational reasons related to the access of wild food resources. The village is ideally located in the direct migration path of the Porcupine caribou herd, which is central to the tribe’s social and economic survival. Similarly, there is a wealth of fish in the area, though numerous creeks similar to the Vashr’aii K’oo that also teem with fish intersect the Chandalar. As one elder related to Mishler (1995: 457) some years ago:
There was no village [yet] but they used to gather there [at the creek] during spring break-up. So they all gathered there until break-up and also for fish. So that’s what they did. We were living there, fishing. Chief Christian was there. We really depended on him. He was not having hard times and had no children. He helped people a lot.
It was at this point that the community determined to settle in one place and to follow a single leader who would run the political and economic affairs of the community:
So that’s what they did. They told everybody what they had planned. They all thought that was a good idea. So everybody got together. In those days there was hardly any money. Our main thing was getting food to eat. So they elected Chief Christian for their leader at Arctic Village. People all helped one another. They helped one another with wood, food, and other things. They all worked hard to do this.
So that’s how Arctic Village became a village. The kids used to pack water for each household. And they did the same with wood. There used to be wood piled up in front of the houses. Those were happy times. (459)
While this version of events is certainly compelling, settlement not only hinged upon food availability, which presumably had always been a concern from time immemorial, but was also further incentivized by two social institutions imposed by the outside, namely the church and the school. The missionaries had come to the area beginning in the 1860s (Caulfield 1983: 88). Formal education was introduced thereafter, designed to teach the Nets’aii Gwich’in Western cultural values (Hosley 1966: 231) and how to follow Christian social mores (VanStone 1974: 87). As I have noted previously, “the creation of schools and the requirement that all children attend them played a direct role in the settlement process of the community” (Dinero 2003b: 143).
Integration into the regional economy via the fur trade also helped in fostering permanent settlement at Arctic Village (Hosley 1966: 153). In the early days, furs were traded at the local store for basic provisions, but in time cash became an increasing part of the village economy as villagers made the 17-to-23-day round-trip journey to Fort Yukon to acquire more specialized commodities such as ammunition and tea (Peter 1966). Since the early 1840s, during the Russian-American era, Gwich’in trappers had traveled regularly to the fort to conduct commerce, especially with coastal Alaska Natives (Inupiat) and other local peoples (Bockstoce 2009: 212–16). The cyclical dynamic of introducing fur trapping to the Nets’aii Gwich’in subsistence culture, selling furs for cash, and subsequently using cash in commercial establishments to purchase non-Native food, clothing, and other fabricated goods including firearms (Bockstoce 2009: 212; Mason 1924: 25) was a major social and economic development that would permanently alter the course of Nets’aii Gwich’in society.
The village was slow to grow to a significant size of permanent settlers. Those who settled at Arctic Village then—or even now—should be recognized as the most committed and determined of Native villagers. It is, in effect, one of Alaska’s furthermost outposts, far from other Gwich’in settlements