The Ahtna and 

the Upper Copper River Salmon Fishery, 1915-1980

 Part One

Introduction

In an earlier post I wrote how the Ahtna were dispossessed of their lands by being literally drawn off the map and made to disappear under an overlay of colonial place names.  After the U. S. purchased Alaska, Ahtna lands became public domain and the resources they depended on public property.  In this post I describe how Ahtna were dispossessed of the salmon fishery because they lacked a treaty protecting their aboriginal rights, which made them vulnerable to the rhetoric of conservation and equality before the law.

For a millennium salmon have provided sustenance to the Ahtna.  The arrival of salmon signaled the start of the Ahtna annual cycle and for generations the Ahtna have assembled at fish camps along the river and its major tributaries.  Today, protecting their right to harvest salmon has become one of their most pressing concerns.  The Ahtna are not unique among Native American people in this desire; the harvest of wild foods, which is fundamental to the existence of all Native American and Ahtna culture, has been a consistent and fundamental issue in past conflicts between aboriginal and settler cultures.  Frequently these conflicts have arisen from commercial exploitation of those resources, or as Alaska has become more urban, the use of those resources for sport of hunting and fishing.

The Ahtna have a history of engaging with colonial power based on strong sense of territoriality and the firm belief that they should be consulted in matters that pertain to their homeland and to decisions that effect their ability to take the fish and animals that they depend on.  The Copper River Basin is Ahtna land, they have not relinquished it, and they are willing to share it but will not be pushed out.  They will not be side lined.  This assertiveness puts the Ahtna in conflict with the settler culture that values progress and economic development over indigenous rights, and views wildlife as a common property resource for which aboriginal people should have no advantage or priority in harvesting.

Aboriginal rights to harvest traditional foods can be protected in several ways.  One is to create reservations, which are often not large enough to sustain traditional economies.  Another is to enter into off reservation treaties, like those granted to Native Americans in the state of Washington whose treaties with the federal government override state laws and protect Native rights to harvest salmon.  A third way is other federal –preemptive legislation (Case 1983:276).  Preemptive legislation preempts or trumps contrary state laws.  For example, international migratory bird treaties provide some protection for Alaska Natives, as do preemptive statutes such as the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA).  But there are no treaties or preemptive legislation protecting the Ahtna’s aboriginal right to harvest salmon.  Instead attempts to provide aboriginal rights, as are realized, for example, in the MMPA, has been redirected toward rural residents, as under federal law (i.e. The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act), or to all Alaska residents as in State law.  The argument is that any preferential treatment of Native people is discrimination against non-Natives.

When the United State purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867, aboriginal rights were acknowledged in the treaty of cession, and later in the Organic Act of 1884, and still later in a disclaimer clause of the Alaska Statehood Act of 1958 (Section 4).  But neither the United States government nor the State of Alaska signed treaties with the Ahtna protecting their right to harvest salmon in the Copper River.  

The Ahtna and the Commercial Fishing Industry

At the beginning of the 20^th century the Ahtna had developed a lucrative business selling dried salmon to be used to feed dog teams that hauled freight and mail during the winter.  This put them in direct competition with commercial fishers at the mouth of the Copper River.

Between 1889 and 1905 a commercial fishery developed on the Copper River delta.  In 1915 a cannery was built at Abercrombie Canyon 55 miles upriver from Cordova and   fishermen using dip nets and gill nets were stationed in Abercrombie Canyon and Miles Lake (see Figure 1).  Almost immediately there was an effect on salmon abundance up river and by 1916 the situation for Ahtna fishers was critical (Thompson 1964:8). 

Alarmed that this intensive fishing would destroy the fishery Ahtna leaders appealed to the government to close the cannery at Abercrombie, and several Ahtna, including Joe Nicolai, Chief Goodlataw, and Johnny Goodlataw, approached Frank H. Foster, an attorney practicing at McCarthy, asking him to write letters to Washington D.C. protesting the presence of the canneries (Foster 1920).[1]  Seventy-five years later Ahtna elder Frank Billum (1992) recalled how his elders “fought against the commercial fishery” and told a judge “No fish, our Copper River Indian may have no fish to eat anymore,” and they told the judge to put a stop to the cannery at Abercrombie Canyon.

Ahtna leadership around Chitina

Ahtna elder Frank Billum (1992) said that in the 19th century there were three brothers who controlled the Chitina area.  They each held a title that was a combination of a place name and the title ghaxa or denen.  These titles were Ts’esk’e Denen (O’Brien Creek leader), Taghael Denen (Taral leader), and Hwt’aa C’ae’e Denen  (Fox Creek leader).  Mr. Billum called Ts’es K’e Denen the “Indian blacksmith,” who pounded copper into knives.

When the brothers died, sometime in the later half of the 19th century, Nicolai took over as leader.  He was a member of the udzisyu clan (Caribou people).  Mr. Billum thinks that Nicolai, and his younger brothers Hanagita and Eskilida, were nephews of Tse’eske Denen.  Nicolai, who has been described as the chief of Taral (Allen 1887; Pratt 1998), may have held the title Taghael Denen.  Hanagita and Eskilida were Nicolai’s younger brothers, which would account for their subordinate position (Shinkwin 1979:36).  Once Nicolai died Hanagita became chief at Taral (Billum 1992).  After Hanagita died his younger brother Eskilida became the principal leader and when he died Chief Goodlataw, who was Nicolai, Eskilida and Hanagita’s maternal nephew became leader.  Chief Goodlataw’s father was a Tlingit whose name was Golden Goodlataw.  Chief Goodlataw had two sons Captain, or Cap, and John.  Cap worked in the Kennicott mine.  The Goodlataws understood America law and how to engage the power structure, for example in 1918 John petitioned the governor of the territory to provide a school for the Ahtna living around McCarthy. 

The Ahtna’s complaint came to the attention of Arthur Miller an agent of the U.S. Bureau of Education who drafted a formal petition on the Ahtna’s behalf (Figure 1).  In response the Bureau of Fisheries launched several investigations.  Reports, such as those supplied by agents E. M. Ball and J. H. Lyman of the Bureau of Fisheries, are the only record of the Ahtna’s response to the situation.

         Figure 1.  A.H. Miller’s Map of Ahtna communities, 1918.  This map was made for a hearing 

        about the Copper River fishery.  Miller provided locations and estimated population of each 

        community.  He also showed the location of the cannery at Abercrombie Rapids and the location        of the commercial fishing nets in Miles Lake.  

Figure 2. Cap Goodlataw, Chief Goodlataw, and unnamed man.  At the time Chief Goodlataw was the principal leader of the lower Ahtna. 

Figure 3.  John Goodlataw and family.

In the summer of 1915 Ahtna at Copper Center told Ball there was plenty of salmon, and “they thought the run was as good as ever,” but Ball heard a different story at Gulkana where the Ahtna could not fulfill a government contract to provide salmon for dog food.  At Chitina several Ahtna told Ball they got few fish and complained the “White men…were killing all of the game; soon they will take all of the fish, and then there will be nothing left for us.”  Yet Ball was uncertain whether the commercial fishery was to blame and reported that in river fishing would not “jeopardize the future of salmon….” so  “it may become a question of the greatest good to the greatest number or the survival of the fittest” (Ball 1915b).  To Ball the question was “whether these companies shall be allowed to carry on unlimited operations regardless of the needs of [the] people [?].”  He went on to say that the Indians were in “earnest” and were going to do “their utmost to have the Abercrombie cannery closed and legislation enacted prohibiting the operation of any canneries above the delta of the Copper River” (ibid.: 8).

Ball’s investigations were followed up by those of agent J. H. Lyman who visited the upper Copper River during the winter of 1915-1916 and again in the summer of 1917.  Lyman concluded that one cannery operating in Abercrombie Canyon had no effect on the fishery, but several would (Lyman1916b).  Lyman (1916b) pointed out that the Ahtna were dependent upon the salmon, and had no other way to make a living other than fishing.  He also wrote that the Ahtna had long-term knowledge of the fishery and were more deeply concerned about the issue compared to non-Natives who had “superior resources” that would allow them to meet and keep pace with changed conditions.  In the end, Lyman wrote, you can kill off the fish "and make other provisions for the Ahtna, or you can save the fish and make the Ahtna self-sustaining" (ibid.).  

In fact the Ahtna had already concluded that if they were to survive they would have to look for alternative ways of making a living.  As early as 1916, Chief Goodlataw had testified to Lyman that, while the cannery caused a shortage, it did not hurt them [the Ahtna] at Taral, Chitina, or Wood Camp because they had other ways of making money (Lyman 1916a).  Two years later (1918), another investigator for the Bureau of Fisheries wrote, “Practically all of the natives who are physically fit worked for the Alaska Road Commission, stating as their reason ‘No fish, fish all gone, no use for native to try and catch fish so long as the Government allow cannery in the canyon’” (Wingard 1918). 

Initially, the U.S. Department of Commerce, which had jurisdiction over the fishery, was reluctant to impose restrictions on the commercial fishery.  Secretary of Commerce William Redfield believed the problem lay not with the fishing industry, but with Native people who were “about as shiftless as any in Alaska and that they are prone to complain unless they can secure salmon with but little effort” (Redfield 1917).  Besides, Redfield wrote, the “fisheries companies have rights that are to be respected and there is the broad question of policy as to whether a fishery enterprise which produced food for the world at large must be made to suffer in order that 300 Indians can secure fish easily.”

By 1917, however, it was clear that the runs were being affected and new regulations needed.  New regulations were adopted for the 1918 season partially closing Copper River to commercial fishing (Byrne 1918).  However, a year later it was evident the fishery was still endangered and more stringent regulations were needed.  As a result the regulations of December 1918 were continued until September of 1921, at which time all commercial salmon fishing was eliminated from the Copper River making it illegal for the Ahtna to sell salmon.  Finally, in 1924 Congress passed the White Act authorizing regulations governing where, how, and when salmon and other fish could be taken for commercial purposes in Alaska.

Baring laws protecting the indigenous rights of the Ahtna, the fishing industry, backed by the federal government, asserted its right to take as many salmon as they wanted because “they were feeding the world.”  The Ahtna would simply have to adjust to a new order.  But the Ahtna refused to accept a system that did not value their rights, and allowed business to take everything leaving them destitute.  They resisted by mobilizing the system against itself, and pointing out that overfishing would not only starve the Ahtna but also eventually kill the commercial fishery.  But in the end it was not the welfare or the rights of the Ahtna that mattered.  Rather it became an issue of regulating the fishery to protect the capital investments of the canners, who agreed to the conservation measures in the White Act to protect their property (Taylor 2002:366).

[1] Eventually the Ahtna were joined in their complaint by a single commercial fisher who alleged that continuation of the commercial fishery within the Copper River would  “cause a depletion in the runs of the salmon thereby depriving the fishers operating on the tidal flats of said river a means of livehood [sic]…”(Lyman 1916b).