Anchorage Daily News

KOYUKUK

POPULATION: 88 (2006)

LOCATION: On the Yukon River near the mouth of the Koyukuk River, 30 miles west of Galena and 290 air miles west of Fairbanks.

DESCRIPTION: Primarily a Koyukon Athabascan village whose residents live a subsistence lifestyle. Few full-time jobs are available in the community; the city, clinic, store and school (about 20 students) provide the only year-round employment. BLM firefighting, construction work and other seasonal jobs often conflict with subsistence opportunities. Trapping and beadwork supplement incomes.

HISTORY: The Koyukon Athabascans traditionally had seasonal camps, moving as wild game migrated. A dozen summer fish camps were located on the Yukon River between the Koyukuk and Nowitna rivers. Friendships and trading between the Koyukon and Inupiat Eskimos of the Kobuk area have occurred for generations. A Russian trading post was established at nearby Nulato in 1838. Smallpox, the first of several major epidemics, struck the Koyukon in 1839. A telegraph station opened in 1867, a trading post about 1880. Missionary activity intensified after the gold rush of 1884-85. A post office operated from 1898 to 1900. A measles epidemic and food shortages during 1900 reduced the Native population by a third. Gold seekers left the Yukon after 1906, but other mining activity, such as the Galena lead mines, began in 1919. The first school was constructed in 1939, and families began to live year-round.

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