6 “The Country Keeps Changing” Cultural and Historical Contexts of Ecosystem Changes in the Yukon Delta

The ANCSA legislation aimed to resolve long-standing disputes regarding land rights. In addition to a cash settlement, the legislation granted Alaska’s Indigenous people title to approximately 40 million acres of land, while also extinguishing all prior claims to Aboriginal title (Arnold 1978, 146). Section 14(h)(1) of the act allowed twelve newly created Alaska Native Regional Corporations to receive a portion of their acreage entitlement in the form of Native historical places and cemetery sites (see Pratt 2009b). This is the only part of the act that affords Alaska Natives the right to claim lands based specifically on their significance in cultural history and traditions. The term “cemetery sites” is self-explanatory; whereas “historical places” encompass former villages, camps, trails, legendary/spiritual sites, and the like.

While untold thousands of locales in Alaska could legitimately be called Native historical places or cemetery sites, only sites determined to be located on available federal lands at the time of application are potentially eligible for conveyance under ANCSA section 14(h)(1). Thus, of the nearly 4,000 applications originally filed by the regional corporations (39 percent of which were filed by Calista Corporation for sites in the Yukon-Kuskokwim region of Southwest Alaska), fewer than 2,300 were forwarded for investigation to the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), the agency charged with implementing the program (see Pratt 2009b, 9).¹ The BIA is required to verify the existence, physical location, and extent of each site; determine its significance in local Indigenous history; and produce a written report of the findings. On-ground work at each site included a reconnaissance-level archaeological survey, wherein identified cultural features are numbered, measured, and described. Detailed maps are then produced that show the location of all features relative to one another, as well as characteristics of the site environment (for example, vegetation, physical terrain, bodies of water) and the site boundaries. Photographs are taken of cultural features and the overall site, usually from both the ground and the air.

Site excavations are not performed on this program, and most sites also are not subjected to subsurface testing—since testing usually is not necessary to establish site significance under the ANCSA eligibility criteria. When it does occur, however, testing is often limited to a single shovel probe. While this practice may yield a radiometric date, chronological information about most sites is generally reliant on oral history (and written historical accounts, if available).

Each report of investigation includes a sketch of the given site’s history (Indigenous name, site type, seasonality of use, approximate dates of occupation and abandonment, affiliated families or settlements, etc.), the details of which are the basis for certifying whether or not the site satisfies the eligibility requirements for title conveyance to Alaska Natives. Barring selected land status conflicts (or legal appeals), sites certified eligible by the BIA are ultimately scheduled for US surveys and then conveyed to the applicant regional corporations.² Although it was originally anticipated to be completed within a period of just six years, the ANCSA 14(h)(1) Program has now been in operation for forty years, and indeed is ongoing (for context regarding this situation, see Pratt 2009b, 3–4).

The program has generated a massive, irreplaceable collection of data about Alaska Native history and culture (see O’Leary, Drozda, and Pratt 2009; Pratt 2009a). Its components include reports that describe and interpret the research findings on all 2,300 or so investigated sites. There are also about 2,000 tape recorded oral history interviews with Alaska Native elders, and notes on another 600 or so interviews that were not tape recorded. Other key components of the collection include roughly 50,000 photographs, 15,000 artifacts, 4,500 field notebooks, and 130 composite field maps.³ If one were to name a topic in Alaska Native cultural history, information about it would almost certainly be found in the ANCSA 14(h)(1) Collection—the question is where in the collection or within which component. In other words, a large amount of records processing still must be done in order to create finding aids to facilitate access to and use of the data in this collection.

For instance, oral history research with Alaska Native elders was essential to properly locate and document many of the sites described in ANCSA 14(h)(1) applications (see Drozda 1995; Pratt 2004).⁴ Since most of the elders interviewed spoke little or no English, however, the vast majority of oral history tape recordings are bilingual (see figure 6.3). It is very difficult and expensive to produce complete and accurate bilingual translations and transcriptions of such recordings. But even if money were no object, the main problem on this front is finding qualified people who can do the work, namely, fluent speakers of an Indigenous language who can also write in it. Such individuals are few and far between; most are either employed and too busy to commit the necessary time to the task, or are burned out from prior experiences doing this type of tedious and highly challenging work. Consequently, much of the oral history preserved on ANCSA tape recordings remains untranslated.

Named for the language they speak, the Yup’ik peoples in Alaska were traditionally organized in economically self-sufficient local groups, composed of one or more nuclear or extended families whose annual round revolved around a winter village and associated seasonal camps. Each group followed a subsistence lifestyle that, depending on resource availability, involved moving between two to five different residence localities over the course of the year (Pratt 2009c, 76). For about half of every calendar year the people affiliated with a given winter village were dispersed across the landscape in individual (nuclear or extended) family units. Virtually every family had camps to which it claimed ancestral use rights, often dating back for generations (see Andrews 1989; Fienup-Riordan 1982; Pratt 2009c; Wolfe 1979).

Traditionally, houses were semi-subterranean in design: pits were excavated then wall and roof framings of wood were put in place and covered on the exterior with sod. Most villages contained larger structures called qasgit (sing. qasgiq) that were constructed in the same manner and served as a men’s community house (among the Yup’ik, men were residentially divided from women and children). This sexual division of communities was not found in other Alaskan Native societies. Some of these other societies did not have “men’s houses,” and among those that did, the structures were functionally different from those of the Yup’ik—as they did not serve as residences for men (Pratt 2009c, 67).

Since the majority of the region is underlain by shallow permafrost, burials were above ground. Cemeteries were typically located adjacent to but outside the habitation areas of the camps or villages with which they were affiliated.

Subsistence and settlement patterns in the region remained essentially as described above through at least 1930 or so. By 1950, virtually every local Yup’ik group had been compelled to occupy centralized, year-round villages to accommodate the Western educational system. Churches and missionaries associated with such villages were also a factor in this coalescence of what had previously been scattered Indigenous populations. This process of centralization led to significant changes in population distribution and customary patterns of land use, including a decrease in mobility on the family level (for example, see Oswalt 1963, 130–131). It also resulted in the permanent abandonment of many otherwise viable villages and camps due to logistical constraints imposed by the sometimes great distance between these settlements and the modern villages. Accordingly, many areas that formerly were heavily utilized for subsistence purposes began to be used infrequently.

I now provide some site-specific examples to illustrate some of the dramatic but common landscape changes occurring in the Yukon Delta. Historical and ethnographic accounts about each site are supplemented by recent field observations to show that most of the processes of landscape change documented in these examples are not new.

EXAMPLE 1: CURUKARYARAQ

When ANCSA researchers surveyed the site of Curukaryaraq (AA-10361) in June 1981 (figure 6.4), they found three depressions in a setting that suggested they could be of natural origin.⁵ However, Alaska Native elders unanimously (and independently) described them as the remains of semi-subterranean structures. Radiometric data suggest the site was probably established by the mid-1700s, which is consistent with oral history accounts asserting that the site existed prior to European contact (ca. 1833 in the study region). Before its abandonment following a smallpox epidemic around 1900 (USBIA 1984a), the site was occupied as a spring and fall camp for harvesting blackfish, whitefish, and mink.

Scammon Bay elder Dan Akerelrea (1981a) was interviewed on the site and indicated it had been “higher” the last time he had seen it, decades earlier. He also said that Ciutnguilleq, the river along which the site is situated, used to be wide enough for large boats to navigate.⁶ By 1981, however, the river was less than 3 metres wide in the site area and essentially unnavigable. The interpreter for this interview, Xavier Simon (also from Scammon Bay), assisted with another interview with Dan Akerelrea a few days later—the circumstances of which led to an exchange in which he spoke briefly about landscape changes in the region:

Xavier Simon: Curukaryaraq. That’s the first spot we hit. Curukaryaraq.

Interviewer: There were a couple of houses there, and maybe one [qasgiq]?

Xavier Simon: Mm-hm.

Interviewer: They seem to be built into the bank where they couldn’t be seen.

Xavier Simon: Well, they were. . . . You know, they were high places. [The people] won’t build on the low places [. . .] the whole site just sunk. . . . There are a lot of changes Dan said. Some creeks [got] narrower. Some creeks [got] wider; and [there] used to be lakes. Now they’re all [dry] lake beds. You know, the country keeps changing. There’s lot of changes. That’s why no matter even [if a site is] lost, you know, the whole thing might be lost. The whole [site] might just be disappearing. [But what we are doing now] is the [important] thing: [showing] where they are and [giving] the correct name. It’ll be the same site [even if it disappears]. . . . Maybe ten years from now you won’t see anything [at Curukaryaraq].

(Akerelrea 1981b, 24)

Xavier’s words were somewhat prophetic, because by 2012 the site was completely underwater (figure 6.5).⁷ The current lack of surface indications of past cultural use means the prior work by ANCSA researchers is now the only evidence that a site exists at this locale.⁸ There is little question that the site’s surface disappearance is due to thermokarst melting, but that event did not happen over the course of a few years. As indicated in Native oral history accounts, it was instead part of a process the region’s Indigenous people have witnessed before, which in this instance spanned a minimum period of about seventy years. Finally, in addition to the site’s submergence, since 1981 the river has become even narrower and willows that were then present at Curukaryaraq have completely disappeared—no doubt because they cannot grow in water.

EXAMPLE 2: ANQERCAQ

In 1982, Native elders described Anqercaq (AA-9774 [USGS Ankachak]) as the “grand-daddy village” of the lower Yukon River—a reference to the settlement’s antiquity, regional significance, and large size (see figure 6.6). Established in prehistoric times, the village was linked to a number of noteworthy historical events—including an 1855 attack on the Russian trade post of Andreevskaia Odinochka that resulted in the deaths of several employees and the looting of the post (Pratt 2010). The attackers were residents of Anqercaq, a settlement Russians and later American visitors to the region thereafter referred to as Razboiniskaia (or “Robbers Village”) (see Zagoskin 1967, 278) (see figure 6.7).

The site had an estimated population of 122 in 1844 (Zagoskin 1967, 306) and 151 in 1880 (Petroff 1884, 12), at which time it evidently contained 25 houses and about 30 graves (Nelson 1899, 247–248). An epidemic of smallpox around 1900 led to the deaths of many residents. Anqercaq remained occupied for several more decades, but by 1935 it had been destroyed by erosion (USBIA 1984c, 46). Based on a comparison of aerial photos taken in 1982 (figure 6.8) and 2004 with published topographic maps, about 700 meters of the Yukon’s north bank in this area has been lost to erosion since 1951 (USBIA 2008, 19–20).

But channel migration and bank erosion has not affected all areas of the Yukon River in the same way. Thus, Ayemqerraq (AA-10067)—a small village contemporary with Anqercaq but located more than 100 kilometres downstream on the river’s north mouth, Apun (USGS Apoon Pass)—is still intact today.⁹ Ayemqerraq also occupies the Yukon’s north bank; however, channel migration and associated erosion has led to bank accretion in its vicinity. In fact, comparisons of aerial photographs and published topographic maps reveal that Ayemqerraq (figure 6.9) was some 270 metres inland from the river by 1951—and that distance had increased to about 360 metres by 2012 (USBIA n.d.). The site’s abandonment around 1920 (USBIA 1989) may have been tied to this process of accretion, which was effectively making the river less and less accessible from the site.

EXAMPLE 3: MERR’AQ

Once an important spring camp for sea mammal hunting, when ANCSA researchers surveyed Merr’aq (AA-11430) in July 1983 they found a cemetery containing the graves of at least ten people (figure 6.10)—all of whom apparently died during a 1940 diptheria epidemic (USBIA 1985, 7). No evidence was found of other surface cultural features, but a large qasgiq reportedly once stood just north of the cemetery area: it was destroyed by erosion sometime before 1983 (Inakak 1983). The existence of such a structure (in combination with the cemetery remains) indicates that a substantial settlement may have been associated with Merr’aq; and radiometric data suggest cultural use of the area as early as the mid- to late 1600s. An unusually large accumulation of sea mammal and other faunal remains along the shoreline fronting the cemetery testifies to obvious long-term use of the area (figure 6.11). It also raises the possibility that a pond or small lake may once have separated the cemetery from the presumptive habitation area; if so, some of the faunal accumulations are likely tied to traditional disposal practices that required people to place the bones of certain animals in water (for examples, see Nelson 1899, 437; Fienup-Riordan 1994, 107–118).

But whatever the case, the lack of dwelling remains at the site was understandably attributed to shoreline erosion, the extent and ongoing process of which led the 1983 researchers to predict that “the whole site area . . . in the near future, will probably erode into the Bering Sea” (USBIA 1985, 11). In September 2011, ANCSA researchers revisited Merr’aq expecting to find it destroyed by erosion.¹⁰ Instead, the cemetery was intact—despite the loss of an estimated 5–10 meters of shoreline across the site area between 1983 and 2011. Erosion in this area (see figure 6.12) is ongoing and will no doubt continue, but the cemetery might remain essentially as is for another decade or more.

EXAMPLE 4: QAVINAQ, QISSUNAQ, AND CEV’ALLRAQ

In June 2015, it was reported that artifacts were eroding out of a cutbank at the site of Qavinaq (AA-9389), a former settlement that evidence suggests was established by the early eighteenth century if not earlier. Native oral history indicates the site was abandoned in prehistoric times after an attack by Yup’ik warriors from the Yukon River who burned the village and killed its male residents.

The 2015 report generated a flurry of activity among Alaska Native and federal government parties concerned about the site’s preservation: much of the concern was, to be blunt, based on a lack of understanding about certain “natural” realities of the regional landscape. In other words, this is just one of literally hundreds of sites in the Yukon Delta that are being steadily consumed by erosion, a process that was well underway at Qavinaq when ANCSA researchers first visited the site in 1981 (USBIA 1984d, 7, 34–36; see also figure 6.13 in this chapter). The main purpose of discussing Qavinaq here is that it is the first in a multi-village sequence that illuminates the linked processes of erosion, village abandonment, and resettlement in this region.

Located along a river of the same name, Qavinaq lies about 19 kilometres inland from the Bering Sea coast (see figure 6.14).¹¹ Despite its inland setting, however, the probable causes of past and ongoing erosion at the site are tidal surges that significantly alter the river’s water level and flow. This point is clarified by an observation made by Edward Nelson in January 1879:

From the mouth of the Yukon to that of the Kuskokwim, excepting merely the small part covered by mountains[ . . . ], the country is so low that the tide flows up the river[s] from 10 to 50 miles, and we were frequently unable to find a fresh-water stream or lake from which to obtain drinking water, even 20 to 30 miles from the coast. (Nelson 1882, 669)

Although the event was not instigated by erosion, when Qavinaq was abandoned many of its residents relocated to Qissunaq (AA-9391 [USGS Kashunuk])— a large village some 13 kilometres to the west and situated adjacent to a major river bearing the same name (i.e., Qissunaq [USGS Kashunuk River]). In about 1880, the village contained an estimated 125 people and 20 houses (Petroff 1884, 54), and the settlement is well-documented in the historical literature on the region (for examples, see Nelson 1899, 382–391; USBIA 1981). Among other distinctions, Qissunaq was the site of the region’s first church (built ca. 1925) and the headquarters of its full-time missionary, a testament to the settlement’s size and importance. Situated atop an approximately twelve-metre-high mound (figure 6.15) and surrounded by a seemingly endless expanse of low, marshy ground, the site was a prominent feature of the physical landscape, and is literally visible for miles on a clear day. Qissunaq had been established by the mid-seventeenth century (Frink 1999, 4)—sometime prior to the abandonment of Qavinaq—and was occupied through the mid- to late 1940s, when it was abandoned due primarily to a series of major fall and winter floods (see Barker 1979; USBIA 1981, 67; Woodbury 1984, 10; see also Fienup-Riordan 1986, 23–27). Generated by a combination of high tides and strong winds, the floods repeatedly inundated much of the village with salt water and ice.

Many of the former Qissunaq residents moved to Cev’allraq (AA-11257 [USGS Old Chevak]), about 19 kilometres to the northeast. Notably, they disassembled the church at Qissunaq and moved it to Cev’allraq. Cev’allraq was a small village in its own right at that time but some Qissunaq people had also used it as a summer fish camp (USBIA 1984e, 6–7). The site’s population had grown to an estimated 150 people by the early 1950s, at which it, too, was abandoned in response to frequent flooding (USBIA 1984e, 7–8; Woodbury 1984, 11). The residents next moved to Cev’aq (Chevak), that is, “New Chevak,” a site situated on comparatively high and dry ground approximately 13 kilometres to the northwest.

Human-caused landscape change was also the genesis for the place names Cev’allraq (“former cev’aq”) and Cev’aq (“cut-through place where the river has carved a channel; man-made channel”) (Jacobson 2012, 199). At Cev’allraq, someone once cut a channel in the marshy tundra extending between Qissunaq (USGS Kashunuk River) and Kiuqlivik (USGS Keoklivik River) to connect the two watercourses (Nayamin 1981; USBIA 1984e, 9, 53)—evidently for the purpose of simplifying boat travel. The channel grew wider over time, probably thanks largely to the erosional action of tidal surges, and by 1981 looked like a natural feature of the landscape (figure 6.16). Three other such channels are known to have been cut in the area between Cev’allraq and the modern village of Cev’aq (Matthew O’Leary, pers. comm., 2015). The cutting of these channels clearly express Indigenous knowledge of local hydrological and erosion processes.

In short, the “village ancestry” of today’s residents of Chevak can be traced sequentially backward in time to Cev’allraq, Qissunaq, and Qavinaq; and “coastal” flooding was the driving force behind two of the three associated village-abandonment events. These examples illustrate the resiliency and adaptability of the region’s Indigenous population in the aftermath of natural disasters like floods (see also Griffin 1996; Pratt, Stevenson, and Everson 2013). It also begs comparison with certain high-profile situations in present-day Alaska involving the proposed relocations of rural/Alaska Native villages now threatened by coastal erosion (for example, Shishmaref, Kivalina, Shaktoolik, Newtok, etc.). Village relocations in rural Alaska that occurred prior to 1950 or so certainly had their own complications, but most of the related work could nevertheless be accomplished by the villagers themselves. Mobility and flexibility were still hallmarks of their ways of life; and villages were smaller and far more self-sufficient in those days, largely because they lacked the major infrastructure of modern communities (electrical lines, fuel tanks, generators, water/sewer systems, and so on). Thus, when natural processes forced people to acknowledge that their community was situated in a bad location and therefore must be relocated, they were capable of resolving the problem on their own. That is no longer the case today. In essence, flexibility has been lost as a key element of northern Indigenous societies.

The above examples show that the Yukon Delta ecosystem is not static, and that changes can be highly localized. Traditionally, Indigenous residents of the region were sufficiently attuned to the ecosystem to have anticipated and prepared for many of its changes (see for example, Nuttall 2010). But while natural processes account for the ecosystem changes just described, others may arguably be associated with declining human use of the landscape.

A logical starting point here is the centralization, as in other parts of the circumpolar North, of populations in response to legal mandates requiring Indigenous children to become students in the Western educational system, the end result of which was fewer and larger “centralized” villages in the region, and permanent changes to traditional patterns of land use and settlement. The annual round of subsistence life in the region had previously been an extended family affair, involving children and adults alike; but in order to care for and avoid having to separate from school-age children, many adult females could no longer participate in subsistence activities in some seasons of the year (see Polty 1982, 13–14). Seasonal camps that remained in use were therefore occupied for shorter durations of time and by fewer people, typically adult males (figure 6.17). Associated losses in traditional learning from life on the land occurred, in concert with a decline in multi-generational contacts and interactions (Oswalt 1990, 153).¹²

Nevertheless, through at least the 1980s many Indigenous residents of the Yukon Delta continued to occupy family subsistence camps in a customary manner. For example, families left their home villages to live and harvest fish, berries, and other resources at remote camps for weeks at a time. In so doing, they travelled extensively on the delta’s rivers, lakes, and sloughs, as well as upon the terrestrial landscape. Their direct links to and presence on the land were plainly evident, especially in summer, when boats constantly plied the waterways and fish racks, cabins, and canvas tents dotted the adjacent uplands. In the space of the last generation, however, people have generally become far more sedentary. One indicator of this is that family-occupied fish camps are becoming a thing of the past in some parts of the Yukon Delta. For many people, summer fishing now commonly occurs in the form of day trips.

There are numerous reasons for this changing pattern of land use, of course, including the high costs of gasoline, equipment, and other materials, and harvest restrictions due to a persistent cycle of poor salmon runs (often blamed on commercial fishing bycatch practices but increasingly also linked to climate change [for example, see Biela et al. 2022]). Families with one or more adults with steady, wage-earning jobs may also find it difficult to schedule sufficient time away from their villages to engage in subsistence camping. But another pervasive factor is that many Alaska Native youths today—like their non-Native, urban counterparts—cannot tolerate long periods of separation from the technology and media, like television and the Internet, that is inaccessible from remote sites. As such, a reasonable argument could be made that advances in electronic and digital technology over the past generation constitute one of the most serious threats yet to the preservation (through first-person experiences) of customary and traditional practices of Yup’ik life on the land. That being said, technologies like the Global Positioning System [GPS]) can also contribute to the preservation of certain customary practices.

That new technology can lead to cultural and land-use change is a well-known fact. For instance, the arrival of snow machines to the Yukon Delta effectively marked the end of travel by dog team and the associated abandonment of many cold-season camps. Pilot Station elder Noel Polty (1982, 4–5) explained this using winter trapping as an example. A trapper on snow machine could travel longer distances from his village in shorter periods of time than was possible with a dog team; indeed, he could potentially go from his home all the way to the end of his trapline and back again all in the space of a single day (see also Wolfe 1979, 76–77). With a dog team, the same trip would take two or more days, requiring at least one overnight camp. Once travel by snow machine became the norm, the cold-season camps that were abandoned were typically those located nearest to permanent villages. Noel observed that younger generations consequently knew nothing about many of the old sites situated closest to their villages; those sites had essentially become indistinct from the larger landscape that travellers on snow machines glimpse only in passing, if at all.

In stark contrast to the cultural impacts associated with snow machines and other technological changes, however, recent and ongoing advances in communication technology threaten to disconnect Indigenous youths from their ancestral cultural and physical landscapes—neither of which can be learned in detail from books, films, YouTube, Wikipedia, and the like. Such learning requires extensive personal time on the land and active engagement with elderly culture bearers, whose collective knowledge constitutes a non-renewable resource. These learning tools are easily lost to Indigenous youths obsessed with being constantly connected to a virtual world.

Perhaps the most apparent landscape change in the Yukon Delta that can be linked to reduced human use of the country is the choking off of watercourses due to beaver dams. Although no formal surveys have been conducted to estimate beaver populations in the delta (Doolittle 2013), all parties agree that their numbers have increased exponentially in recent decades. At the time of Russian contact, the delta’s Indigenous peoples reportedly hunted beavers specifically for their meat and had little interest in their hides (Zagoskin 1967, 269). The value placed on their furs by Euro-American traders eventually led Indigenous hunters to increase their focus on the harvesting of beavers, a factor that contributed to a decline in their numbers in the region by 1900 (see, for example, Nelson 1887, 279–280; Wolfe 1979, 65–66).¹³ Beaver hunting and trapping continued in the delta (albeit at reduced levels) through the 1960s; but it has declined significantly since the 1970s because of major reductions in the commercial value of animal furs.

Today, trapping of these animals still occurs and some people continue to use beavers as food; but there is no question that fewer beavers are being harvested now than at any time in the past—despite the fact that today there are no closed seasons, licence requirements, or bag limits on beavers.¹⁴ Reduced harvesting of beavers (together with increased shrubification, which has allowed them to expand their range) has made the animals ubiquitous throughout the delta. The most obvious indicators of their proliferation are dams that have caused the deaths of many rivers and streams once heavily used by Indigenous people (figure 6.18). As the late Teddy Sundown, of Scammon Bay, stated in 1985, “[The beavers have] destroyed our hunting areas. They’ve destroyed the streams and lakes we used to hunt and fish in” (Sundown 1985, 3).

Indigenous residents of the region have registered complaints about the animals to the US Fish and Wildlife Service (Doolittle 2013), the federal agency with management jurisdiction over most of the Yukon Delta; but there are no harvest restrictions to prevent people from dealing with specific beaver problems on their own. The complaints usually concern inconveniences beavers cause in connection with travel on local rivers. If significant numbers of the area’s Indigenous residents still used the country as extensively for boat travel as occurred in the 1980s, however, there is little doubt they would also be harvesting beavers in greater numbers, if only to preserve access to important waterways. Instead, boat travel is increasingly restricted to the main channels of the Yukon and selected portions of major tributaries.

But very little in nature is simply black or white. Thus, from a biological standpoint there are also known “positives” associated with beavers and their lodges. Studies have shown that the presence of these animals can not only increase the productivity of many waterfowl species, but also the productivity of sockeye, coho, and chinook salmon (Doolittle 2013). Beaver ponds provide excellent habitat for juvenile salmon, and fluctuating water levels in the ponds (especially in the spring and fall) enable the fish to easily move into adjacent river systems (Rearden 2013). Beavers therefore contribute to the health and viability of several key subsistence resource species.¹⁵

In some areas of the delta, another ecosystem change in which decreased human use of the land is implicated is the in-filling of rivers by vegetation. Thus, travel by powerboat has become highly problematic on one major tributary of the Yukon, the Qip’ngayaq (USGS Black River). As recently as the 1980s, summer fish camps were common along this river—hence boat travel on its waters was comparatively heavy. But, in 2011, researchers travelling downstream on the Qip’ngayaq in powerboats from the Yukon River were unable to reach the vicinity of Ingrill’er (USGS Kusilvak Mountain) owing to the repeated fouling of boat propellers by submerged aquatic vegetation. Although not documented, a mix of environmental factors (warmer weather and shallower water allowing more sunlight to reach underwater plants, for example) has likely accelerated the growth of such vegetation in the area in recent decades; however, navigability problems of this sort had already developed on the Qip’ngayaq by the 1950s. In fact, the site of Nunaqerraq (USGS New Knockhock [AA-9365])—situated about 56 kilometres downriver from where the 2011 research team had to turn back—was abandoned as a village by 1960 due to increasing “shallowness” (that is, in-filling) of the Qip’ngayaq even further downstream (USBIA 1986, 25). In other words, boat travel between Nunaqerraq and the river’s outlet on the Bering Sea had become impracticable. Regardless of environmental factors, vastly reduced boat travel on the river has arguably contributed to its in-filling by vegetation in some areas. If human use of the Qip’ngayaq had not decreased so dramatically, the river’s main channel might still be navigable today—partly because boat propellers would regularly “trim” submerged vegetation. But people might even be “caring” for the river in accordance with ancestral traditions. As Joshua Phillip, of Tuluksak, explained to ANCSA researchers in 1988:

The people in the past watched over the land with respect and honor. [The] rivers and sloughs we just looked at with much marsh and mire, when [people travelled] through these places they would clean them. They would remove all the bog and overhaul the [mouths and outlets]. This is done since the rivers are food sources. They paid great attention to the land. We were instructed to clean and groom the rivers and sloughs when we travel through them. (Phillip 1988, 5)

This “cleaning” of waterways served both to facilitate boat travel and to prevent barriers to the migrations of blackfish, whitefish, and salmon (see, for example, Moses 1988, 24–27)—subsistence resources of critical importance to the delta’s Indigenous people. Thus, regularly travelled rivers and sloughs were cared for in a manner analogous to basic road maintenance in today’s “built environment.” But, not surprisingly, decreased travel on such waterways is correlated with decreased maintenance of them.¹⁶

In spite of declining human use of the country, enduring personal connections to place have been documented not only in stories but also physical evidence discovered in recent visits to some sites. This is illustrated by examples from the Qip’ngayagaq (USGS Kipniyagok) drainage, where “new” burials have been noted at two long-abandoned sites—a testament to the deceased individuals’ deep connections to place. Since neither site is easily accessible from modern communities, the existence of these burials also reflects the commitment of surviving family members/friends to honour the deceased’s wishes relative to burial locations (even if doing so may violate state laws).

EXAMPLE 1: NUNALLERPAK

Radiometric evidence indicates that Nunallerpak (AA-9373 [also known as Qip’ngayagaq]) was occupied as early as the mid-1300s (USBIA 2011). It was a major year-round village starting sometime before 1900 through to about 1920, when mortalities linked to an epidemic (most likely the 1918–1919 influenza) may have caused its virtual abandonment (Akerelrea 1981c, 16–17; Henry 1981, 17–20). But its subsequent reoccupation as a winter village is evidenced by the fact that it was home to 43 people in January 1940 (US Bureau of the Census 1940 [“Nunalakpuk”]).¹⁷ The site was also used as a spring camp for sealing, fishing, and beluga whale hunting (Tunutmoak 1981), probably until about 1960. When ANCSA researchers investigated Nunallerpak in 1981, they found the remains of more than 40 dwellings in the habitation area and 45 graves in an adjacent cemetery (USBIA 1984f) (figure 6.19). Nine of the graves were situated on a small mound (“burial knoll”); during an on-site interview, Scammon Bay elder Dan Akerelrea (1981c, 12) said they appeared to be the oldest burials at the site.

Nunallerpak was revisited in 2011 with the objectives of testing the habitation area and re-inspecting the cemetery (figure 6.20). The survey located no trace of graves on the “burial knoll” (those features having been completely overgrown with tundra vegetation) but did record a new burial at the site dating to 1996 (figure 6.21). The interred person (“A. Canoe [Died 04-13-96]”) is believed to be Alice Canoe, who probably lived in the modern village of Alakanuk (60 kilometres to the northeast) at the time of her death. She was living at Nunallerpak with her husband and three children in January 1940 (US Bureau of the Census 1940), so it is reasonable to think this place had special meaning to her. It is unknown how long she was a resident of Nunallerpak, but other members of her family may also be buried there.

EXAMPLE 2: QIP’NGAYAGAQ

The former year-round village of Qip’ngayagaq (AA-9883) was remembered as a particularly good site for fox trapping and harvesting whitefish. Site usage probably began by the mid- to late 1700s and its occupation as a village reportedly ended about 1930. But for four or five decades thereafter several individuals regularly used the site as a spring and summer subsistence camp for the harvesting of blackfish, geese, and berries (USBLM 1983). When Qip’ngayagaq was investigated by ANCSA researchers in 1981, it consisted of three areas that collectively contained thirty-one houses and twenty-five graves (USBIA 1984g). The smallest of these areas (“Area A”) included the remains of nine houses, a collapsed cabin, and one grave. This particular burial differed from all others at the site because the coffin was intact and a sewing machine was attached to its cover (figure 6.22).

A 2011 revisit to “Area A” of the site unexpectedly revealed two additional burials next to the “sewing-machine grave” (figures 6.23 and 6.24). Later research determined the individuals interred in the “new” graves were half-brothers: Tom and Fred Augustine. Both men formerly lived at the site (Xavier Simon, in Akerelrea 1981c, 36). Tom died in April 1982 and his funeral was held in Alakanuk (see Fienup-Riordan 1986, 210); afterwards, his body was transported some 70 kilometres southwest for burial at Qip’ngayagaq.¹⁸ Fred (who also was born at this site) was buried in 1989. Another brother, Willie Augustine, is also buried here (Augustine 1985; Yupanik 1985), but the date and precise location of his burial on the site is unknown. Circumstantial evidence suggests the “sewing-machine grave” is likely that of a female relative of the Augustine brothers. Thus, the three graves constitute a family grouping.

Interestingly, the grave dating to 1982 is today the least visible of the three, being almost completely overgrown by tundra (figure 6.26). If not for the prior work by ANCSA researchers, it would be easy to conclude from surface appearances that this is the oldest burial in this part of the site.

It is no surprise that landscape changes are a constant in the Yukon Delta because natural environments are never static. But even in this highly dynamic ecosystem there is little doubt that landscape changes are occurring more rapidly today—with the undeniably warming climate being the key factor. My earlier claim that climate change should not be treated as a default explanation for landscape changes being observed in the region today is supported by contextual information about historical processes of ecosystem change found in Indigenous oral history accounts, and indeed in other documentary records. Such records show, for instance, that although erosion is continuous along the Yukon River (see, for example, Petroff 1884, 6, 10; Pratt 2018, 67–69), sites of similar antiquity that occupied its banks have not been impacted consistently. In other words, the same process of erosion that destroys sites along one part of the river may help preserve them in another. Erosion affecting sites along the Bering Sea coastline may be more predictably destructive, but, again, it often is not reasonable or accurate to characterize the negative impacts noted at coastal sites today as entirely the result of recent climate change.¹⁹

Existing USGS topographic maps of the region (most dating to the early 1950s) depict scores of hydrological features that do not accurately represent the contemporary physical landscape. Some rivers have carved new channels while others have disappeared; and coastlines have been dramatically altered. What was yesterday a large lake may today be a dry lake bed; and two adjacent lakes may now have merged into one. Navigating this country by map is thus a daunting and potentially highly confusing undertaking. The fact that Indigenous place names often remain for settlements and natural features that have vanished (see, for example, Drozda 2009) adds another layer of challenges to the situation.²⁰ Overall, the comparatively fine-grained data contained in the ANCSA 14(h)(1) Collection provide an invaluable tool for assessing ecosystem changes through time in many areas of Alaska.

The merit of the preceding observation is reinforced by a recent article about cemeteries at Kongiganak and Kwiggilingok, Yup’ik villages on the western shore of Kuskokwim Bay. The article (Cotsirilos 2017) describes the serious impacts of thawing permafrost, including grave crosses sticking “out of the sunken ground at odd angles” and some burials completely submerged in water. The villagers’ inability to prevent these problems is an unfortunate reality, one to which they are for the most part reluctantly resigned. The article succeeds as a human-interest story, but it also attributes the problems in these two cemeteries to recent climate change, which, as I have argued, is only part of the explanation. The ANCSA 14(h)(1) Collection contains hundreds of photographs from the 1980s documenting similar conditions in cemeteries throughout the Yukon-Kuskokwim region (see figure 6.27 for an example). Simple explanations for change—either cultural or ecological—should always be suspect, because history is layered and often opaque.

As demonstrated above, revisiting sites recorded and photographed thirty or more years ago to compare their “then and now” appearances can bring certain processes of landscape change into much sharper focus. It can also be a powerful reminder that, in some ecosystems, surface evidence of past cultural use of an area can be entirely eliminated or obscured by natural processes in comparatively short spans of time. Thus, land that today appears wholly natural and free of human traces may actually have been heavily used by people in the past. Another important result of the site revisits described in this chapter is the physical evidence they revealed of strong feelings about and associations with certain “abandoned” landscapes among contemporary Indigenous residents of the region (see figure 6.28). This is especially true with regard to abandoned sites where “new burials” have been observed. Site revisits have recently taken place in many areas of the Yup’ik region, but new burials at long-abandoned sites seem to be restricted to a relatively small portion of the region. The individuals interred in those burials were residents of the lower Yukon River—the first part of the Yup’ik region to experience widespread Indigenous language loss. The new burials thus represent an interesting nexus of memory and landscape relative to matters of identity. Most of the individual sites discussed above have a long history of cultural use, and many of them contained abundant surface remains testifying to that fact. But some of the landscape changes noted at those sites during recent revisits should be taken as cautionary lessons to archaeologists (and not just those with research interests in the Yukon Delta). Perhaps the main lesson is that surface cultural remains alone are an insufficient basis for definitive statements about a site’s physical extent or the intensity of its past use. For example, consider the case of Nunallerpak (discussed above). In 1981, archaeologists recorded 45 graves at the site’s associated cemetery; however, by 2011, surface evidence of at least 15 of the graves had disappeared, none by erosional processes likely to have destroyed them (they had instead sunk beneath the surface or been completely overgrown with vegetation). Given the site’s long history of use, this finding strongly suggests that the Nunallerpak cemetery contains more than the 45 graves seen in 1981. This reinforces the idea that the results that flow from most archaeological site investigations are best understood as “snapshots in time.”

My main objective in this chapter has been to point out that knowledge of how a given ecosystem looked and operated in the past is an essential tool for assessing how directly that ecosystem is being affected by contemporary climate change. In processual terms, reliable evaluations of the latter require reasonably deep perspectives—which, in the view of this author, should be based on minimal temporal periods of at least fifty years. We know that active human use of an ecosystem can trigger or contribute to landscape changes, many of which involve ongoing natural processes. But in some ecosystems such changes may also be linked to reduced human use of the land. By devoting greater attention to this largely unexplored topic, researchers have the potential to expand our understanding of Indigenous patterns of land use and environmental stewardship in the Arctic. This could help generate more complete, balanced, and defensible interpretations of climate change impacts. Critically examining how people confronted, thought about, and responded to landscape change in the past would also contribute to discussions about how anticipatory knowledge can help people meet the challenges of current and projected climate change.

The author has been fortunate to work with many outstanding Yup’ik elders and interpreters from communities across the Yukon Delta, and also with some excellent colleagues on early ANCSA 14(h)(1) field crews that worked in the region: I thank all of these individuals for their contributions to the collection of data on which this chapter rests. Frequent discussions about landscape changes in the Yukon Delta with my long-time colleague Matthew O’Leary were especially valuable and appreciated; his insights have strongly influenced my thinking on the topic. I am particularly grateful to Mark Nuttall for his thoughtful observations on and questions about my topic. I also thank Robert Drozda for assistance in obtaining certain photographs included in the chapter; Dale Slaughter for producing the maps; Kristin K’eit for information concerning federal and state environmental laws; and Scott Heyes for comments offered on an earlier draft of this chapter.

1. 1 Land status issues in Southeast Alaska prevented Sealaska Corporation from filing claims for its total ANCSA land entitlement prior to the various deadlines for doing so. More than three decades later, that problem was rectified when the US Congress passed the 2014 National Defense Reauthorization Act (Public Law No, 113-291). Section 3002 (“Sealaska land entitlement finalization”) of that act authorized Sealaska Corporation to make additional land selections, including 76 new ANCSA 14(h)(1) site applications. As a result, the total number of ANCSA 14(h)(1) claims filed by the regional corporations is now 4,047.
2. 2 US surveys are typically performed by surveyors under contract with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The US surveys correct and refine the draft survey information ANCSA researchers compiled on each ANCSA 14(h)(1) site; they constitute the government’s final, official land descriptions on which land patents for the sites are based. In accordance with an existing agreement between the BIA and BLM, if the surveyors encounter problems with the boundaries reported for a given site, they are authorized to seek resolution by contacting BIA from the field. Sometimes the identified problems can be resolved only by further BIA fieldwork; in such cases, the BLM places the US survey on hold and reschedules it at a later date. Since virtually every other type of land claim authorized by the ANCSA legislation was prioritized above the ANCSA 14(h)(1) claims, US surveys of these sites often do not occur until several decades after the associated ANCSA field investigations were conducted. Thus, when opportunities to do so arise, BIA staff revisit previously investigated sites to obtain new aerial photography and improved locational coordinates. The results are shared with the BLM so they can be incorporated into future US survey contracts.
3. 3 Every “composite field map” consists of two or more United States Geological Survey (USGS) topographical maps that were either glued or taped together. Some of these composites served as project area/reference maps for ANCSA field crews, but the majority were used in oral history interviews with Alaska Native elders. As a result, many composite field maps are heavily annotated with place names and other cultural information (for example, cabin and camp sites, grave locations, trails, and so on).
4. 4 The primary objective of oral history research on the project was to obtain site-specific information that would help us evaluate the local and/or regional significance of the applied-for sites. But ANCSA 14(h)(1) oral history tape recordings are extremely rich in data concerning a wide range of other cultural history and heritage topics (for example, subsistence practices, settlement patterns, religious/ceremonial life, warfare, technology, human-animal relationships, and culture change).
5. 5 Every ANCSA 14(h)(1) claim was assigned a discrete case file number by the BLM, the federal agency to which site applications had to be submitted. The relevant case file numbers (AA-10361, for example) are listed for all ANCSA 14(h)(1) sites discussed in this chapter. It was not uncommon for ANCSA researchers to determine that two or more applications had been filed for the same site. In such cases, BIA combined the applications and issued a single report, with the lowest numbered case file given precedence (AA-10071 over AA-10391, for example).
6. 6 The watercourse is identified on USGS maps as the “Ear River.” The river’s Yup’ik name is Ciutnguilleq (“former thing that was like an ear”[?]) (Henry 1981; see also Jacobson 2012, 218, 227). According to Orth (1967, 294), Ear River is “an abbreviated translation of an Eskimo name ‘Tsut-muilk,’ reported by USC&GS [United States Coast and Geodetic Survey] in 1949.” (Note that when Yup’ik place names presented in this chapter are not correlated with USGS names, it means the landscape features in question are unnamed on official maps.)
7. 7 The purpose of the 2012 visit to Curukaryaraq was to obtain new aerial photographs and improved locational coordinates and to conduct archaeological testing at the site in hopes of obtaining an organic sample that could be dated to provide further information about the site’s chronology. Fortunately, a shovel probe in sod that was slumping into the pond which now covers the main site area produced sufficient charcoal flecks to generate a radiocarbon date.
8. 8 The scheduled 1982 investigation of a former spring and fall camp named Naruyat Paingat (AA-11481) had to be cancelled after ANCSA researchers found the site was entirely submerged beneath the waters of Elaayiq (USGS Israthorak Creek) (USBIA 1984b). At least one semi-subterranean house pit could be seen through the water; but there was no way the site could be recorded. Its location was confirmed by Yup’ik elder John Wassillie of Akiachak, the Kuskokwim River village with which Naruyat Paingat is affiliated. Oral history accounts suggest the site may have remained in use through about 1930; it is not known how long it had been submerged as of 1982. In fact, since notable high-water conditions were present across the region in the summer of 1982 it is possible the site’s submergence may have been only temporary. When ANCSA researchers revisited the area in 2004, however, the site was still underwater (USBIA 2004).
9. 9 Radiometric data from Ayemqerraq indicate its initial occupation occurred as early as the mid-1600s; and, like Anqercaq, this site also holds a significant place in regional history concerning internecine warfare—which probably ended in the Yukon Delta prior to 1800 (see Pratt n.d.).
10. 10 In August 2011, surveyors performing a US survey at the site contacted the BIA and reported that erosion had exposed “hundreds” of bones along and beyond the shoreline margin of the site and suggested the site boundaries should be expanded accordingly. Revised boundaries were tentatively agreed upon, but final completion of the survey was delayed until BIA staff could assess the situation first-hand, in part to determine if any of the eroding bones might be human. This was the impetus for the September 2011 BIA site visit.
11. 11 ANCSA composite field map number 84VAK02 contains an annotation indicating that the river is also named Qavinaq.
12. 12 Because it was inextricably linked to the Western educational system, the population-centralization process also had significant negative impacts on the vitality of Indigenous languages in the region.
13. 13 Data limitations preclude estimating the number of beaver hides Indigenous hunters and trappers in this region may have traded to Euro-Americans annually from about 1840 through the early 1900s (see Arndt 1996; Wolfe 1979, 54–79).
14. 14 By comparison, in the 1970s licences were required to harvest these animals and a limit of ten beavers per licence was enforced (Wolfe 1979, 77).
15. 15 In some areas of the larger Yukon-Kuskokwim region, however, Indigenous residents have directly blamed major reductions in local fish populations on increased beaver populations and the animals’ dam-building activities (see, for example, Williams and Nook 1988, 4–5).
16. 16 Ironically, today such traditional river “maintenance” practices might even be punishable under state or federal environmental laws. This would be the case if, for example, the plants being removed were considered sensitive aquatic species, sensitive habitat contributors, or species of importance with respect to bird habitat and nesting.
17. 17 The obvious correlation of the site name reported in the census (“Nunalakpuk”) with Nunallerpak supports oral history accounts that suggest the site was abandoned for some amount of time and then later reoccupied as a winter village. That is, Nunallerpak essentially means “big old village”—and in traditional Yup’ik place-naming practices, the base nuna- was usually only applied to abandoned villages (see also Pratt 2013, 32n21).
18. 18 Given the month of death, the body (contained in a wooden coffin) was most likely loaded on a sled and pulled behind a snow machine all the way from Alakanuk to Qip’ngayagaq. This is probably also how the body of “A. Canoe” was transported from Alakanuk to Nunallerpak in 1996. Clear evidence for this method of transporting coffins to burial locations during winter months is seen in figure 6.25. The grave pictured therein was recorded by ANCSA researchers at the site of Nunaqerraq, located in close proximity to the Qip’ngayagaq drainage.
19. 19 This point is reinforced by a consideration of erosion occurring at a former Yup’ik village site on Kuskokwim Bay excavated by researchers with the University of Aberdeen. The site, Agalik (Pratt 2013 [“Nunalleq” (Knecht 2014)]), has received considerable press in the past decade—partly because its excavation has been portrayed as a race to save the village from certain destruction by the impacts of climate change (Knecht 2014). One publication about the excavation suggests—with no supporting evidence cited—that the 1964 Alaska earthquake initiated erosion of the site (Knecht 2014, 43); it also asserts the rate of erosion has increased dramatically since 2009 (Knecht 2014, 44–45), clearly implying climate change caused that increase. As in the Yukon Delta, coastal erosion is no doubt negatively impacting sites all along Kuskokwim Bay, and global warming is almost certainly accelerating that process. For instance, decreases in the extent and thickness of sea ice can significantly exacerbate rates of coastal erosion during fall and winter storms. But the operative word here is “process”—that is, coastal erosion is continuous in this region. Returning to the village of Agalik, notable erosion of that site was actually occurring by the early 1930s—such that Clark Garber (n.d., 3) speculated at the time that the entire site might soon be lost to the ocean. Assigning climate change sole responsibility for the increased rate of erosion observed at Agalik since 2009 also does not take into account possible impacts of the archaeological excavation itself on that process. It was reported that 232 square metres of excavation blocks were opened at the site between 2009 and 2013 (Knecht 2014, 44–45). Stated another way, by 2013 excavators had removed 232 square metres of insulating sod from the surface of the site. That action must have increased thermokarst melting to some degree, and hence may have contributed to accelerated erosion at the site.
20. 20 The voluminous place names data contained in the ANCSA 14(h)(1) Collection constitutes an outstanding resource for exploring topics like the suggestion of Mary Pete (1984, 51–52, 70n91]) that a form of “name taboo” is practiced among the Yup’ik in connection with former habitation sites that have been lost to erosion. This author is dubious about that finding for several reasons (for example, see discussion above on Anqercaq), but it is certainly possible that not all Yup’ik groups had identical practices relative to place name usage.

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• Williams, Sinka, and Stanley Nook
• 1988 Tape-recorded oral history account. Philippa Coiley, interviewer. 20 July. Lower Kalskag, Alaska. Translated and transcribed by Monica Shelden. Tape 88CAL081. Bureau of Indian Affairs, ANCSA Office, Anchorage.
• Wolfe, Robert J.
• 1979 Food Production in a Western Eskimo Population. PhD dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Los Angeles.
• Woodbury, Anthony C.
• 1984 Cev’armiut Qanemciit Qulirat-llu: Eskimo Narratives and Tales from Chevak, Alaska. Alaska Native Language Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks.
• Yupanik, Jimmy
• 1985 Tape-recorded oral history account. Harley Cochran and John Peterkin, interviewers; Andrew Kelly, interpreter. 17 June. Emmonak, Alaska. Partial transcription (English only) by Matthew O’Leary. Tape 85ALA020. Bureau of Indian Affairs, ANCSA Office, Anchorage.
• Zagoskin, Lavrentiy A.
• 1967 Lieutenant Zagoskin’s Travels in Russian America, 1842–1844. Translated by Penelope Rainey; edited by Henry N. Michael. University of Toronto Press, Toronto.