Anchorage Daily News

BEAVER

POPULATION: 65

LOCATION: On the north bank of the Yukon River, about 60 miles southwest of Fort Yukon and 110 miles north of Fairbanks.

DESCRIPTION: A community where more than 95 percent of the population is Alaska Native, predominantly mixed Gwitchin/Koyukuk Athabascan and Inupiat Eskimo. Almost all residents engage in subsistence hunting and fishing. Poor fish returns since 1998 have had a significant negative impact, however. Most wage jobs come through the post office, clinic, village council and school, attended by about 20 students. Seasonal wages are earned through BLM firefighting, construction jobs, trapping, the production of handicrafts and selling cut firewood. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, more than 11 percent of the population lives below the official U.S. poverty level.

HISTORY: Gold discoveries in the Chandalar area in 1907 led to the founding of Beaver as the Yukon River terminus for miners heading north. The Alaska Road Commission built a trail from Beaver north to Caro on the Chandalar River around 1907. A store and three freight companies were set up in 1910. A post office came in 1913, and a second trading post in the early 1920s. The first Beaver school opened in 1928, and an airstrip was built in the 1930s.

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