The Fur Trade, Part I

Allen was ordered to explore the interior of Alaska and report on the Natives and their capacity to wage war.  To this end he was expected to gather information about the Natives: their mode of life, means of communication, relationship to each other, and their attitude toward Russia and the United States.  One of Allen’s objectives was to find out whether there was an easy route connecting the Copper and Tanana rivers.

What was known about the interior came from the reports of Russian explorers, White traders, and Native people. The primary objective of these reports was to provide information about the fur trade.  Before gold and oil fur was the major export of Alaska.  Alaska Natives began trapping furs for export probably in the 14^th or 15^th centuries.  Eventually the fur trade spread across Alaska and by the end of the 19th century trapping fur had become a “tradition” and well integrated into local economies.

The trade in furs was an important business that had a profound effect on Alaska Native people.  Through the fur trade Alaska Natives became involved in the world economy. Ahtna living on the Copper River traded furs for beads, cloth, and guns manufactured in countries half way around the world.  Trade goods became status symbols; people measured their wealth in terms of beads that were used to decorate their clothing or hung on strings around the body.  Native groups living closest to the source of goods became middlemen or intermediaries by trading goods to other Natives living in more remote areas.  These positions were often very lucrative and jealously guarded. 

In east central Alaska all Native groups participated in the trade.  Native trade networks linked the Chilkat Tlingit who lived in southeast Alaska with Tutchone Athabaskans in the southern Yukon Territory.  The Tutchone traded with Upper Tanana/Tanacross people and with Ahtna living in Alaska.  The Tutchone also traded with Han on the upper Yukon River who also traded with Upper Tanana/Tanacross people.  As the fur trade developed these networks became stronger and more important to the local economy.

Throughout his trip Allen comments on the amount of trade goods in the possession of Native people.  At the village of Last Tetlin, which he called Nandell’s, Allen noticed a variety of trade goods including an axe with a Montreal brand, a pair of sailor’s trousers and a “Thlinkit blanket,” both of which Allen thought came from “Chilcat Inlet.”  He also notes that many of the boys knew something of the alphabet that then learned from V.C. Simms, an Anglican missionary on the Yukon River.

When the Russians arrived in Alaska in the mid 18^th century the fur trade was already well developed.  Trade networks crisscrossed the territory.  Furs trapped by Athabaskan people living in the interior flowed along these networks toward the coast and eventually across Bering Straight to Siberia.  The Russian task was not to start the trade but redirect it to their advantage so that furs moved through their trading posts instead of through Native middlemen.  Initially the Russians concentrated their efforts along the coast.  Sea otters pelts made up a majority of this trade, but as sea otter populations declined the Russians redirected their efforts toward the interior and launched expeditions up the Yukon and Copper Rivers. 

While the Russians were busy establishing themselves along the coast of southern Alaska the English Hudson’s Bay Company was expanding across Canada into the Yukon Territory and eastern Alaska.  In the 1840s employees of the Hudson’s Bay Company established trading two posts on the upper Yukon River called Fort Selkirk and Fort Yukon.  Not long after it was built, the Chilkat Tlingit burned down Fort Selkirk to protect their position as middlemen between interior Athabaskans and American and British traders who operated in Southeast Alaska and traded with the Tlingit.  Fort Yukon thrived and continued to operate as an Hudson’s Bay post between 1848, when it opened, and 1867, when Russian sold Alaska to the United States and the Company was forced to move its operations to Canada. 

To the Russians, the presence of the English trading company posed a serious threat.  Furs were an important part of the Russian balance sheet and with the decline in sea otters the Russians looked to interior Alaska.  But the center of Alaska was largely unknown.  To improve their knowledge the Russians launched several expeditions to assess the trade and explore routes between the coast and the interior.  The Copper River was thought to be one route that would lead to the interior.