BIRD ETHNOGRAPHY
of the Chugach Region
Written by Carolyn S. Morton, John M. Morton, and Willow Hetrick
Bird illustrations by Kim McNett
Bird maps by Tricia S. Littlejohn
Interested in reading the “Bird Ethnography of the Chugach Region” book?
Introduction
The Chugach Region is Prince William Sound and the southern Cook Inlet in southcentral Alaska. This is an area in which its marine waters remain ice-free even in winter and, in fact, Valdez is the northernmost ice-free port on the west coast of North America. Consequently, a great abundance of birdlife uses the Chugach Region year-round for breeding, during migration, and wintering.
One version of the Eyak origination story highlights the significance of birds in general, specifically the Copper River Delta.
Introduction
The Chugach Region is Prince William Sound and the southern Cook Inlet in southcentral Alaska. This is an area in which its marine waters remain ice-free even in winter and, in fact, Valdez is the northernmost ice-free port on the west coast of North America. Consequently, a great abundance of birdlife uses the Chugach Region year-round for breeding, during migration, and wintering.
One version of the Eyak origination story highlights the significance of birds in general, specifically the Copper River Delta.
“No people were at Eyak nor were there people at Alaganik. From way upriver it was the people, they boated down in those cottonwood-like canoes. Down the Copper River, they boated, following along the way that river flows around they were boating around. They came upon them eggs. First they saw eggs. They boiled them. They tried them and (they were) good, they got lots of them…They remained living there and then, their children, thus there came to be many of them. The Eyaks kept having children at Eyak. Thus, we became many at Eyak. Thus, we are Eyak people at Eyak. Then when they felt like it, then to the mouth of the river, to the breakers at the river-mouth, to get seals. Yonder at where they had boated down from, there were no seals. Neither were there very many, the salmon that might swim up thither. They boated down and they found out about that, everything. Seals, ripe reddened salmon, these cockles, these eggs, they saw them, these birds‒ geese, mallards…thus Eyak became a home.”
— as told to Kauss and McGary (1982)
People of the Chugach Region, Alutiiq/Sugpiaq, and Eyak have and still live in close association with birds. However, traditional use is sparsely recorded. Use during pre-contact times is based on archaeological digs of a few sites, some of the more important being a traditional village site on Hawkins Island in Prince William Sound, Yukon Island in Kachemak Bay, and Karluk on Kodiak Island. Beginning with Vitus Bering in 1741, there are post-contact observations written by Russian, English, Spanish, and eventually American ship captains that captured their perceptions of bird use by Chugach people during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Seminal research by anthropologists Kaj Birket-Smith and Fredericka de Laguna on the Eyak Indians (1938) and later the Chugach Eskimos (1953) helped capture the use of birds at a time when the Chugach Region was transitioning into more modern times. More contemporary subsistence use of birds has been captured in recent years through interviews with Native elders in the seven communities in Prince William Sound (Chenega, Eyak [Cordova], Tatitlek, Valdez) and on the adjoining Kenai Peninsula (Nanwalek, Port Graham, Qutekcak [Seward]) that currently comprise the Chugach Region. The Division of Subsistence within the Alaska Department of Fish and Game also gathers data on the harvest and use of wild resources.
Events that have significantly affected birds and humans alike in the Chugach Region in the past century were the implementation of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, the Great Alaska Earthquake in 1964, and the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989. A rapidly warming climate is causing a myriad of cascading ecological effects that will only increase in the coming decades.
Chugach Bird
Ethnography Catalog
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Information Sources
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Ibid. 1979a. Taped interview. Jim Ketz, interviewer. 7 June. Cordova, Alaska. Tape 79CAC006. On file at the BIA ANCSA Office, Anchorage.
Ibid. 1979b. Taped interview. James Marcotte and William Mitchell, interviewers. 24 August. Anchorage, Alaska. Tape 79CAC007. On file at the BIA ANCSA Office, Anchorage.
2 Ferguson is not present for the visit to Strawberry Point.
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