Navigation

Main Page

Our People


Our People

Table of Contents
The People and Culture of Stevens Village

(Click title to go directly to subject)
Maintaining Land and Wildlife along the Yukon
The Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge
Important sites along the Yukon River
Down river from the Yukon Crossing
Up river from the Yukon Crossing
Stevens Village
Northwest of the Yukon Crossing

The People and Culture of Stevens Village

We are the Indigenous Peoples of the Alaskan Interior, the Native Koyukon Athabascans. We are the people whose traditional cultures and lands lie in this flat river heartland and extend north and west through Canada. We are on the edge of one of the last pristine boreal forest frontiers in the world. The Koyukon Athabascans have many cultural similarities with the peoples of the Alaskan Northern Slope and the Canadian Yukon. Our language is similar to the Navajo, or the Dine’ people, in the Southwest United States. In our language, we call ourselves the People. Our culture has been intricately linked with this land and the salmon fish for millennia. Our families are made of clans.

One must be a descendant or a traditional inhabitant of the Yukon River drainage to be recognized as a Koyukon Athabascan Indian. Sometimes non-Native people are confused by the great range of Indigenous Peoples in Alaska – the Inuit, consisting of the Inupiat and Yupik of mostly the north and western coastal region, and the Natives of the Interior. They are also confused by the wide range and variety of Indigenous people, from the traditional hunter and trapper to the Natural Resources Manager or the lawyer; from the speaker of traditional languages to the radio announcer who speaks perfect English.

Even the term Athabascan is not a simple definition. This word refers to a wide range of cultures that vary depending on the part of the land we live on and the resources most available there. The Athabascan people stretch east to Canada and south to the Copper River and west down the Yukon River and there are many differences among us (1). We hope that the lesson learned from this is that we should not stereotype people; that people are diverse regardless of race and that we should not try to define any group in a narrow way.

Our rights in land are hereditary and are shaped by complex social processes based on traditions and practices. Primarily we have a deep relationship with the land. In the past we enjoyed the right to live off the resources of the land. However, in recent decades our rights have been increasingly limited. So much so, that our traditional way of life was endangered. This pattern of lost rights has been experienced by many Indigenous peoples in places around the world. However, recently we have begun to work more closely with the U.S. government, private industry, and within our own community to regain our rights and preserve our lands and culture.

Our community is governed by an elected council, by our elders, and through agreements with federal agencies. Our land tenure systems are based on various migration patterns, primarily based on hunting ungulates (mammals with hooves) such as moose and fishing salmon. Each of us are born with the rights and responsibilities of caring for our lands.

Men, women and children share in the collection of food and hunting. Traditionally, food was distributed among extended families and through “potlatches” which are social and ceremonial gatherings where food and other goods are given away to the community as a whole. A potlatch is given to honor someone, or to celebrate the first kill of small or large game. Potlatches are also given to show respect for a loved one who has passed on, or in remembrance of a family member. Potlatches generally last about 3 days. Food, dancing, singing and visiting are all a part of the potlatch ceremony. On the third day gifts are given to the local people who were close to the deceased or who helped with the funeral arrangements and to the visiting guests who traveled from the surrounding villages as well as elsewhere.

Families traveled the land during the year, harvesting the resources of the land and the river, and looking after special sites for which they had responsibility. Traditional foods such as moose, caribou, showshoe hare, fish, ducks, muskrat, and wild berries are just a few important foods. These foods are on important part of our diet and the elders prefer them to western food. The access to and decline of food resources due to land loss and the resulting habitat destruction led toward dependence on outside (European and/or American) food. All families supplement their traditional resources with groceries imported from elsewhere.

Today, the people of Stevens Village are involved in many aspects of the wider Alaskan economy. In areas where land rights are being returned (at least partially) to their owners, our people have been able to use their land base to develop economic activities such as tourism and oil spill response work related to the Alaskan pipeline.

Maintaining Land and Wildlife along the Yukon

The Yukon Flats are about 100 miles north of Fairbanks – the most northerly point reached by the Yukon River. Here the river breaks free in a braided manner (a series of small river channels rather than one solid stream) spreading for 200 miles through a vast basin.

In the spring millions of migrating birds converge on the Yukon Flats before ice moves from the river. The migrating birds come from four continents to raise their young. The Yukon Flats hosts more than two million ducks and geese which fly into the migration routes (flyways) of North America. These migrating waterfowl fly to the northern most points of the American continent to take advantage of the short, but plentiful summer season. It is here that their young are nourished and cared for until they are able to begin the long flight south for the winter.

Salmon from the Bering Sea ascend the Yukon River to spawn in the freshwater streams of their birth (some salmon travel nearly 2,000 miles into Canada). Runs of king, silver, and chum salmon pass through and spawn in the Yukon Flats each summer – the longest salmon run in the United States. Mammals on the Refuge include moose, caribou, wolves, black and grizzly bears.

The “Interior” of Alaska, where the Yukon area is, is unique in many ways. In the summer, we experience “White Nights” or practically 24 hours a day of sunlight. In the winter, we experience the Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis, which is nature’s own gigantic light-show. The Northern Lights occur when the particles from the sun are being thrown against the earth by the solar wind. When the particles collide with the earth’s atmosphere, the energy of the particles are turned into light, the Northern Lights.

Koyukon Athabascan people have always taken care of this land. We have lived in harmony with the elements of nature and in return, we have made sure that no unsustainable development, pollution, and other exploitations of the land have taken place. Our lifestyle has always been one of subsistence, which does not mean poverty in the western sense. It means a balanced life, using resources as needed but not too much. Putting back into the land what is also needed. For example, the Athabascan people have always been hunters. Mukluks, moccasins, mittens and hats are made out of the skins and furs from the animals that we trap and hunt. When we kill an animal, none of it goes to waste. This way of taking care of the land and wildlife along the Yukon River is sustainable. This is our responsibility. This balanced approach to managing resources can protect and preserve the land for the future.

Stevens Village has a Natural Resources Management Office which is guided by the Village Council. Stevens Village has consistently developed a land-use plan for wildlife and ecosystems conservation. The Village works with many other villages in the northern part of Alaska to preserve the larger bio-region. We also work directly with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and other departments of the state and federal governments.

Dinyee Corporation also has a contract with Stevens Village Natural Resource Department to manage corporation lands and to monitor and address all environmental concerns and impacts. As a native corporation, Dinyee’s position has always been to be good stewards of and to protect the land for the present and future generations.

The Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge

Stevens Village’s traditional land encompasses 2,000 square miles of rivers, streams, forests, and tundra surrounding the village. Today the village consists of about 50 people and is located within the boundaries of the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge which is managed by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USF&W). Since 1939 the Village has sought to gain control of the area but has encountered many problems over the years.

Unlike tribes in the lower 48 states, Native villages and tribes in Alaska are not reservations and therefore do not get the same benefits of those that occupy a reservation. Instead, Stevens Village lands have been placed under corporate ownership under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 (ANCSA). ANCSA divested the lands from tribal ownership into a fragmented ownership pattern with the federally-owned Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge, the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM), owned Utility Corridor (where the Dalton Highway lies), Doyon Ltd. (the regional Native corporation in the Interior), and Dinyee Corporation (the ANCSA Village Corporation for Stevens Village). This provides for many different views and disagreements for the management of these lands. There is a need for a partnership, in order for the cooperation and proper management of the area. The Stevens Village Council and its Natural Resources Department are working with the U.S. and state governments to develop a more cooperative management arrangement.

The Koyukon Athabascan people of Stevens Village depend on the land along the Yukon River for their subsistence. This subsistence lifestyle is based primarily on hunting, trapping and fishing. The Stevens Village Council’s main objective is to protect the land and to maintain the subsistence-based lifestyle. When outside hunters and fishers use this area the food sources are threatened. All of the ecological niches are filled in the area, leaving no room for outsiders to come in and still have surplus fish and wildlife for local people to harvest. In our opinion, many publications about the Yukon Flats, such as government Visitor Guides provide misinformation about the area and a false view of public hunting and fishing. Through these publications, it appears that hunting is allowed everywhere on this land. Sport hunting is not allowed on Dinyee lands and is discouraged on Steven Village’s ancestral lands. This causes conflict when outsiders come onto the land for consumptive purposes. In some cases, small aircraft have been used to illegally hunt game in the refuge. Stream tributaries that run into the Yukon River, such as the Ray River and the Dall River, have been overfished by outsiders. The Village Elders have watched with concern over the past few decades as some areas have virtually dried up as fishing spots.

There is a need for regulations to preserve the wildlife and the traditional Athabascan way of life. The Stevens Village Council continues to believe that restriction and regulation of members and non-members can be accomplished through the development of a co-management regime with the state and federal governments.

Important sites along the Yukon River

Along the Yukon River are many sites that are important to Koyukon Athabascans. This boreal forest bioregion is full of river channels, ponds, lakes, wildlife, birds, and fish. The area is rich in biological diversity. As the mighty Yukon flows westward to the ocean it enters a series of canyon lands, such as along the area of the Yukon Crossing. As the river rushes through the narrow canyons the currents form unique systems that are good for fishing, especially in eddies, where water reverses and temporarily flows back up the river, and salmon gather to rest in their swim up the river. During the winter of 1998-1999 some village elders were interviewed to determine which sites are of the most historical and cultural importance.

The Bridge

The Yukon River Bridge is the only bridge over the Yukon River in Alaska. Built in 1975, the bridge was originally built as part of the haul road serving Prudhoe Bay oil development. Commercial fishermen meet their buyers at the Bridge. Its construction drastically increased the number of fishermen coming into the area, as well as trucks, cars, buses, business people and travelers heading to northern Alaska. While most of the road is still unpaved, thousands of semi-trailers, tour buses, and cars travel this road each year. It is the only road to northern Alaska.

Family Fish Camps

In the spring, usually around mid-May, the frozen Yukon River begins to melt and a “break-up” of the ice occurs. The break-up is truly an amazing phenomenon, as one can hear the cracking ice and witness enormous ice boulders flowing down the river – sometimes bashing the canyons and river edges. It can be a dangerous time of year. Each year we try to guess the exact date of the break-up.

While most of our people spend the winter in Stevens Village, or working along their trap lines, in the summer everyone heads to their fish camps. Along the Yukon River, especially near entry points of other smaller rivers like the Big Salt River, or Tlaa Ts’oonesh Denh, are popular places to fish and where many family fish camps are located. These camps are crucial to the subsistence living practiced by local people. Fishing at such a camp is done in a manner that produces very little waste; traditionally, every part of the animal harvested is used. These sites demonstrate how people have lived off the land for generations without exhausting natural resources. Families often seek out special natural places, such as an eddy, that provide a resting place for fish. This makes it an excellent place to throw down a net. Several generations of family members fish together. Young people learn from their parents and elders how to catch, cut up, and smoke the salmon to preserve it for the winter.

Down river from the Yukon Crossing:

Ray River

The Ray River is a tributary of the Yukon River flowing in two miles down river from the Yukon Crossing. It is known in Koyukon Athabascan as Tseet’o No,’ meaning “beneath Tsse.” Near the headwaters, about 40 miles from the Yukon River, are the hot springs. People from the Yukon and Koyukuk areas used to have potlatches here. Potlatches are social and ceremonial gatherings that are described later on. During Gold Rush times some people tried to establish gardens and raise farm animals there to feed the miners in the village of Rampart (down river from the Crossing) but it was too far away to freight the produce and animals. The hot springs site is abandoned now, partly because it is so difficult to access. The Ray River, like much of the tributaries in the area, also faces the negative impact of over-use by people who do not know how to protect the land.

Bluffs below Ray River

This area is known in Koyukon Athabascan as Tseet’ot. The river current is deep and fast here. People from Stevens Village set their nets along the bank below the bluffs. Everyone watches for Peregrine falcons that may nest on the bluffs. Springtime is the best time to view them.

Hess Creek

Hess Creek, or Yegutl No’ is a tributary of the Yukon River. Its Koyukon Athabascan name means “place where meat is cooked on a stick” referring to the good hunting in the area. Hess Creek got its modern name from the man who used to run a coal mine at its mouth on the Yukon River where he sold coal for fuel for the stern wheelers. The Hess Creek valley was a trail for the Natives on the Yukon to travel to the White Mountains to hunt for Dall sheep, moose and caribou. It has one of the only burying places considered to be a family graveyard on the river. There is a stop-over cabin at Yegutl No’ built after the wood cutting died down. The view from this site is unusual for this part of the Yukon: one can see for fifteen miles straight (normally the river is too curvy). This site is a testimony to some of the changes that have occurred since contact with non-Native settlers. It used to be good hunting grounds, but since contact with Euro-Americans, the number of animals there have diminished. Now days, elders say they are lonely when they go to these areas because many of the animals are gone.

Up river from the Yukon Crossing:

The Woodyard Camp

The Woodyard Camp is a place known in Koyukon Athabascan as El Noo Taal Denh, or “flat place where spruce boughs are found.” This was an important older settlement. It is the point of origin for a historic trapping and hunting trail that extends back into the hills and is still used extensively by the tribal members of Stevens Village for our subsistence activities. This area was used for “dipnet” or dipping the nets. According to village elder, Kilbourne George, the Native people “made a dipnet with a sinew dipnet and babiche. This was the first village the Native people had. We call it Woodyard.”

This small delta area is one of the few places in this canyon part of the Yukon where trees can grow in large numbers. The Camp is located on the North Bank of the Yukon River 6 miles upriver from the Yukon Crossing and was an important source of income before a fire there burned the forest of spruce trees. Local people used to cut wood at the camp for the stern wheelers. Unsuccessful gold hunters and local Natives resorted to cutting and selling wood from the area during the Alaskan Gold Rush in the late 1890’s to 1910. People could get $8 per cord of wood in those days. They would haul the wood down the bank by dog team and then load it on the boats with a hand cart. A stop-over cabin at the site provided a place for travelers to stay if they ran into bad weather.

In 1992, Yukon River Tours constructed a cultural center at a fish camp at the Woodyard Camp, six miles upriver of the Yukon Cross (which today is no longer in business). A smoke house, camp kitchen, and several tents are also part of this site. The camp is similar to the numerous family fish camps operated along the river. King salmon, silver salmon, chum salmon and white fish are caught at these camps. Chum salmon is known as “dog fish” because it is the main winter food source for sled dogs. The chum salmon are caught in nets or fish wheels and dried to feed the sled dogs over the winter.

Waldron Creek

Waldron Creek, or Diel Deyoodzee No’, runs through a Native Allotment owned by the family of the late Henry Moses of Stevens Village. The creek runs into the Yukon about 13 miles upriver from the Yukon Crossing (where the pipeline road, also known as the Dalton Highway, goes over the Yukon River). An old trail cuts off from the creek and connects it to Hess Creek. This trail was used to save time going to Rampart and beyond. A Russian trapper name Frank Reinowski lived at this site after the historical fire at the Woodyard Camp in 1923. Reinowski made a living by cutting wood to fuel the stern wheeler boats that ruled the Yukon River during the first half of the century.

Fort Hamlin

Fort Hamlin (built near the turn of the century during the time of the Gold Rush) is located about 18 miles upriver from the Yukon Crossing. Known in Koyukon Athabascan as Hotomen, this site was at one time a trading post for the Northern Commercial Company. When Stevens Village was washed out by a flood in 1860, many people moved to the site where the trading post was eventually built. They were unable to sustain a community there: “Too much birch, too much mountain” (-- Kilbourne George). The trading post was later built by soldiers who had gotten caught in cold weather and were on the verge of freezing to death. They employed Native people to cut wood for the trading post. Furs and other goods were eventually traded there and local people were able to acquire wool clothing for the first time. This historical site is abandoned today and overgrown with vegetation.

Denyeet

Denyeet is the area on the Yukon River where the river flows out of the Yukon Flats. Denh designates “high ground” and yeet means “in”, thus “in the high ground.” The names describes the area as being a cut in the ground, according to Father Jette, the pioneer ethnogeographer who came up the Yukon River in the early 1900’s.

The Dall River

The mouth of the Dall river, or the Ch’edohuno, is the center of the traditional lands of Stevens Village. Its name means “river that saves people from starvation, that sustains life.” Historically, this was one of the most significant places to our ancient Denyeet ancestors. This is where trappers and their families gathered in the fall prior to moving up the river to their winter camps. In 1860 a cabin was built by Old Steven, the first elected Chief, near the mouth of the river. Later on the Denyeet people from that area moved to a more permanent settlement six miles up the Yukon River where Stevens Village is now located. The people from Stevens Village are called Denyeet people because they are from the area known as Denyeet, where the Yukon River flows out of the flats and into the canyon area. The village was once called Six-Mile Village. A pioneer ethnographer, Father Jette, who wrote about the Yukon River during the early part of the century, describes the Dall River as the favorite hunting grounds of the Native people living in the vicinity of Fort Hamlin. During this time period, stern wheelers would over-winter in the Dall River to avoid getting caught by the ice during breakup of the Yukon River in the spring.

Stern wheelers are the large, wood-burning paddle boats which were popularly used around the turn of the century. They were a main form of transportation for settlers and businesses looking to carry out bulk items – furs, timber, gold, etc. from the Yukon and other rivers in Alaska. The stern wheelers also brought in people, equipment, and other items needed to operate there. Stern wheelers no longer operate.

Stevens Village

Stevens Village is located ninety miles north of Fairbanks on the Yukon River. Its name has changed since native people first settled here. Originally it was referred to according to the area it was located in, Denyeet. The people of Stevens Village are therefore called Denyeet Hot’Anna, the “Canyon People.” The name Stevens Village comes from Old Steven, a former chief of the village.

Stevens Village today has a population of about fifty people. It is such an isolated place that it is only accessible by boat about five months out of the year. During the rest of the year only dog sled teams, snow-shoers and snow mobiles can navigate the frozen river and snowy land. It is one of the oldest settlements in the region, dating to the early 1900s. Stevens Village is comprised of approximately 50 residents while another 200 to 300 people live away from the village. These tribal members, however, remain linked to the village through seasonal subsistence activities.

The village has always been a traditional community. Unlike many other communities, Stevens Village did not succumb to the boom-town mentality during the planning and construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. In fact, Stevens Village filed a lawsuit to protect its traditional lands. This action, along with that of other Alaskan Native groups at the time, led to the creation of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA).

Bounded in the south by the Tanana-Yukon Uplands, the ancestral territory of the Koyukon Athabascan extends to the crest of the Brooks Range. Today, Stevens Villagers are primarily concerned with management issues and concerns prompted by development impact. These issues and concerns are central to the future of Stevens Village and to the immediate region. The village has played a leadership role in calling attention to impacts associated with the pipeline haul road (Dalton Highway). Stevens Village remains an advocate for thoughtful, inclusive planning regarding land use planning along the road corridor.

The Yukon Crossing is a critical geo-political location. The confluence of the bridge, the road and the river have created a cultural and commercial nexus. Management decisions made here will affect the Dalton Highway corridor and future development of northern Alaska. This is particularly true for sensitive lands such as Gates of the Arctic National Park, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Yukon crossing. In order to full assess planning and development options, the village’s traditional perspective must be solicited.

Much has changed for the people of Stevens Village since the natural resources of the area became commodities. The early gold prospects and fur trade, the building of the pipeline, and the denial of traditional land rights have resulted in a change in lifestyle and a loss of traditional knowledge among the Koyukon Athabascan people. In Stevens Village, this struggle has given way to a new tradition of taking action against unwelcome “progress”: against unwise land distribution and against unsustainable development. In a world where effective subsistence living in a pristine environment is almost non-existent, we have a duty as well as a right to continue our efforts to preserve and protect the land.

Hickel Highway

This was the winter road which went through Stevens Village. It was authorized in the early 1970’s by then governor, Wally Hickel. The road was constructed to move people and supplies from Fairbanks to the oil fields on the North Slope. Unfortunately the road was hastily built, without any permits from the federal government or the Stevens Village Council, to speed development of the Alaska pipeline. The road was built where Native people had already “broken trail.” The new winter road destroyed these old Indian trails and ran over the traps and trap lines of trappers from Stevens Village.

Winter roads are normally built on top of the frozen snow and ice and the ground underneath remains frozen. If the snow and ice are packed down to make a proper ice road, the land beneath will remain unharmed by the traffic. In the spring the ice and snow melt naturally with no resulting damage to the land. During the building of the Hickel Highway, construction equipment was brought to clear the area by simply scraping off the snow cover, baring the land, and causing the permafrost to melt underneath. This left a muddy scar across the country. It is a gross example of the dominant society completely running over Indigenous Peoples in their rush to exploit a non-renewable resource.

Kings Slough

Kings Slough is about 60 miles up river from Stevens Village. A trading post was established there after the turn of the century. In the 1920’s and 1930’s tuberculosis and influenza epidemics brought into the area by trappers, miners, and missionaries caused death to over half of the Native population. Most notable was the loss of most of the Native elders that held within themselves the Traditional and Spiritual Wisdom of the Indigenous Peoples of the area. The loss of oral traditions, cultural behavior, and spiritual relationships with the surrounding environment was devastating to the younger decedents. Even today, the Stevens Village descendants are working to recover their spiritual, cultural, and traditional identity.

Northwest of the Yukon Crossing:

Kanuti Flats

This area is known for its numerous small lakes and bodies of water with no timber, terrain that makes an ideal habitat for waterfowl. Natives from Stevens Village used to camp at the Flats and hunt caribou, ducks and geese that would land there in the spring. There is a local story about a young Koyukon Athabascan man from the village named Young Steven who shot three horses at this site to put them out of their misery. The horses had been abandoned by cattle drivers and could not survive in the wild alone. The cattle were barged up the Yukon and driven from the Woodyard campsite to Wiseman (a mining town) to feed starving miners in the Koyukuk Gold Country. The Native people do not like to see animals abused or left to die and this story continues to be passed down. It illustrates traditional values Native people have for taking care of animals.

Works Cited

(1) Campbell, Diana. “Native is Not a Catch-all Definition.” Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. June 13, 1999, Heartland Magazine.