Taral to the Tazlina River

Allen and his party stayed one day in Taral and then on May 6 headed up the Copper River with the skin boat.  The crew pulled the boat while Nicolai steered.  The current was strong 7 to 9 miles and hour.  Generally the Ahtna never boated upriver, they walked and then floated down on wood rafts.  Skin boats were used for long trips down river and if they had to be taken up river they were pulled using a long rode or cord.

A mile above the mouth of the Chitina was the home of an old man and his family composed of 9 people in all.

Allen notes that from this point until they reached the Yukon River they were able to purchase or trade for food from the Native people.

The following day they reached the home of Messala who was once the head man but had grown old leaving Nicolai and Conaquanta as leaders or “principal men.”  According to Allen, Messala was one of the Ahtna leaders involved in the destruction of one of the Russian expeditions and he was afraid that Allen had come to avenge those killings.  He was also upset that he could only offer Allen half a dried salmon. 

From Messala’s the party moved up river, spring was in the air and Allen described the green grass sprouting on the terraces along the river.  These terraces were so uniform they appeared man made.  Stopped at a camp with a single woman in residence, her husband having gone hunting. 

Party camped that night just above the mouth of the Konsina River or Kuslina Creek.   The following day, May 8 or 9, 1885, the party camped at Liebigstag’s settlement, the largest village yet encountered.  Allen recorded a population of 30 people.   Liebigstag was the Tyone or chief.  Allen apparently stopped on the east bank of the River but Liebigstag’s house was on the west bank just below a high bluff Allen reckoned was 600 feet high.  Allen, along with Nicolai and Fickett and several other Natives crossed the river to visit Liebigstag and have a feast.  The protocol was rigid, Allen and Nicoali sat on either side of Liebigstag, while his relatives sat to the right and the retainers to the left.  According to Allen, everything went to the Liebigstag, which rankled Allen’s sense of equality.  Ahtna chiefs did not consider Allen their equal and Allen’s men were below their horizon.  They could not understand why Allen carried his own pack.  Liebigstag had a considerable quantity of meat and there was plenty of help to pull the boat and hunt for food.

In the Ahtna language Liebigstag’s village is called Bes Cene or ‘base of the riverbank’.  The place is also known as Riverstack (Reckord1981; Kari 1983; McKinley and Kari n.d.) and is located in the vicinity of present day Kenny Lake.  This place has an inherited chief’s title associated with it called Bes Cene Denen or ‘Person of Riverbank Flat.’

Allen describes the view from Liebigstag that takes in the full scope of the Wrangell Mountains.  To the  southeast is Mt. Blackburn.  At 16,286 ft (4,964 meters), Blackburn in the highest peak in the Wrangell Mountains, named by Allen after the U.S. senator from Kentucky J.C. S. Blackburn.  Dominating the view is the massive shield volcano Mt. Wrangell, named after the head of the Russian American Company admiral Ferdinand P. Wrangell.  Mt. Wrangell is over 12,000 ft (3,700 meters) high.  North of Wrangell are Mts. Drum and Sanford.  Allen named Drum after the adjutant general of the U.S. Army. The Mountain is a stratovolcanoe 12,010 feet (3,681 meters) high.  Mt. Sanford was named after the Sanford family (Allen was related to Rueben Sanford), and is another shield volcano 16,237 feet (4,949 meters). 

Many of the principal peaks of the Wrangell Mountains are named after prominent non-Natives.  The Ahtna did not name high mountains or any other land forms after people.  In the Ahtna language Mt. Wrangell and the Wrangell mountains are called K’ełt’aeni (which is ambiguous) but seems to refer to the mountains as a causative agent (Kari 2008), i.e. creating weather.  Mt. Wrangell is also called Uk’ełedi or ‘the one with smoke on it’, and Wrangell does belch smoke or ash on occasion.  Mt. Drum has the name Hwdaandi K’ełt’aeni, or ‘downriver K’ełt’aeni’ while Mt. Sanford has the name Hwniindi K’ełt’aeni, or ‘upriver K’ełt’aeni.’  Mt. Blackburn is called K’a’si Tl’aadi or  ‘the one at cold headwaters,’ which puts the mountain in relation to other surrounding geographic features; the Kotsina Mountains are called K’a’si Tl’aadi (‘cold mountain’), while Kotsina glacier is called K’a’si Luu or K’a’si Tl’aa Luu’ (‘cold glacier’ or cold headwaters glacier’). As may be evident, Ahtna place names are part of a system in which different geographic features, such as Mts Wrangell, Drum, and Sanford, are viewed as clusters of geographic landforms, all related to one another.  For more information see Kari 2008, Ahtna Place Names List.

Mt Drum taken from easternside

Mt Sanford (to the right) and Mt. Wrangell taken from the Nabesna Road, on the north side of the Wrangells.

Seven Ahtna in addition to 2 chiefs and 2 hunters, to help pull the boat upstream, now accompanied the expedition.  Lived on moose meat provided by the Ahtna and when that ran out on rabbits, and a few migratory birds.  Passed the Klutina River and went into camp one mile above Conaquanta’s winter house.  The chief had gone hunting but Allen was greeted by a number of his “followers” all of whom were arrayed in their best clothes.  Here Allen saw 23 men, 8 women and 16 children.  This was the largest and wealthiest community yet encountered by the expedition.  The Ahtna had flour, tea and sugar and some fancy china cups and saucers.  The flour had come from a trading post at the mouth of the Susitna River (more on the economy in a later post).

The following morning the party left Conaquanta’s house, but only with four Ahtna, Nicolai, Wahnie, Chetoza and one other.  Allen refers to Whanie as a “vassal” of Nicolai’s.  Allen mentions that whenever they encountered Ahtna there was considerable ceremony and he felt their acute sense of rank oppressive.  Nicolai was very conscientious of his rank, as were many other Ahtna, who would not even sell Allen food without first consulting Nicolai, who always advised selling at a high price. Allen writes his party was usually forced to accede to the Ahtna’s demands.

They passed the mouth of the Klutina River (called Tl'atina' or 'rear water').  The Ahtna told Allen the Klutina came from a large lake (Klutina Lake).  The Klutina River flows into the Copper River at Copper Center.  Good salmon spawning habitat is found in parts of Klutina Lake and in several tributaries.  Klutina Lake is about 18 miles long and 2.5 miles at its greatest width.  Important tributary streams flowing into the lake are Mahlo River, St. Anne Creek, the Hallet River, and the Upper Klutina River.

Klutina Lake is called Tl’atibene or ‘headwaters lake’ in the Ahtna language, (bene is the word for lake, na the word for river) and provides a majority of the sockeye salmon to the Copper River salmon fishery.  In 1898 about 3,000 prospectors headed for the Klondike gold fields came over the Valdez Glacier and into the Klutina River valley.  Lt. Abercrombie (1900), who reached the Klutina drainage in August 1898, reported, “the climate of this region must be rapidly changing.”  In many places the moss was dead and dry as punk so that campfires were impossible to put out. Moss would smolder for days and then fan into a blaze torching the dry spruce trees.  According to Abercrombie the entire valley seemed on fire, which made traveling very dangerous.

Klutina River looking up stream 

At this point Allen packs up all his glass plate negatives and sends them down river with Nicoali, but the plates never reach their destination and are lost, so there are no photographs from the expedition.

At the mouth of the Tazlina River Nicolai departed the expedition because it was moving out of his territory. Travelers in the Copper Basin at the end of the 19^th century noted the strength of Ahtna territorial boundaries.  According to the American army officer Abercrombie (1898) the Ahtna had, by common consent, divided the Copper Basin into geographical districts, each band had its own hunting territory which included salmon fishing sites.  Bands resented any intrusion by strangers and another traveler named Treloar wrote that no tribe was allowed to go into another tribe’s territory without permission or invitation.  Outsiders were not categorically excluded, but depending on their relationship to the leader they either had the right to share in the harvest or were granted permission to harvest animals or fish.  Permission to hunt, fish or gather was usually granted, especially in times of starvation.  Intermarriage between bands carried certain obligations to share so that members of several bands might have access rights to a particular territory.  Hunting areas were usually identified with the men of the band while salmon fishing sites were identified with women (see Holly Reckord 1983).  Denae or headmen such as Nicolai and Conaquanta regulated access to resources with their band’s territory by giving or denying permission for outsiders to use those resources.  Ahtna elder Annie Ewan called the denae a “Big chief, like you call somebody live in a place for years.  Like somebody born there and died in that place, is more important. A rich man.”  In Annie’s description we see the very close relationship between leadership and place.  The chief’s titles reflected this close association and the long-term institutionalized nature of the chief’s control over a particular place.  

As Allen moved up river he was assigned a guide as he entered each band’s territories (whether he knew it or not). After passing the Gakona River he was joined by an Ahtna whom Ahtna elder Katie John says was the chief of Gakona.  He led Allen up the Copper River as far as Batzulnetas. 

According to Ahtna elder Andy Brown Nicolai told Allen “we have a law in our village that you can’t stay here.  You have to get your own place to stay…we got law here and it’s the same all the way up the river” (quoted in Holly Reckord 1983).  Nicolai then told Allen he would send a man so that nothing happened to Allen and the guide would tell other Ahtna…”They not Russians.  Americans look like good people to us.  Don’t bother them.” 

Allen considered ascending the Tazlina but decided against it.  The Ahtna told Allen he had no chance to reach the source of the Copper River, could not pull a boat upstream because the current was too swift and there were many channels in the river.