Valdez–Cordova Census Area was a census area located in the state of Alaska, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population was 9,636. It was part of the Unorganized Borough and therefore had no borough seat. On January 2, 2019, it was abolished and replaced by the Chugach Census Area and the Copper River Census Area.
Chitina is a census-designated place (CDP) in Copper River Census Area, Alaska, United States. At the 2010 census the population was 126, up from 123 in 2000.
Gakona is a census-designated place (CDP) in the Copper River Census Area in the U.S. state of Alaska. As of the 2020 census, the population of the CDP was 169, down from 218 in 2010. It is home to the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program.
Mentasta Lake is a census-designated place (CDP) in Copper River Census Area, Alaska, United States. At the 2010 census the population was 112, down from 142 in 2000.
Tanacross is an endangered Athabaskan language spoken by fewer than 60 people in eastern Interior Alaska.
Athabaskan is a large family of indigenous languages of North America, located in western North America in three areal language groups: Northern, Pacific Coast and Southern. Kari and Potter (2010:10) place the total territory of the 53 Athabaskan languages at 4,022,000 square kilometres (1,553,000 sq mi).
The Copper River or Ahtna River, Ahtna Athabascan ‘Atna’tuu, "river of the Ahtnas", Tlingit Eeḵhéeni, "river of copper", is a 290-mile (470 km) river in south-central Alaska in the United States. It drains a large region of the Wrangell Mountains and Chugach Mountains into the Gulf of Alaska. It is known for its extensive delta ecosystem, as well as for its prolific runs of wild salmon, which are among the most highly prized stocks in the world. The river is the tenth largest in the United States, as ranked by average discharge volume at its mouth.
Ahtna or Ahtena is the Na-Dené language of the Ahtna ethnic group of the Copper River area of Alaska. The language is also known as Copper River or Mednovskiy.
Ahtna, Incorporated is one of thirteen Alaska Native Regional Corporations created under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 (ANCSA) in settlement of aboriginal land claims. Ahtna, Incorporated was incorporated in Alaska on June 23, 1972. Headquartered in Glennallen, Alaska, Ahtna is a for-profit corporation with more than 2,000 Alaska Native shareholders primarily of Ahtna Athabascan descent.
The Denaʼina, or formerly Tanaina, are an Alaska Native Athabaskan people. They are the original inhabitants of the south central Alaska region ranging from Seldovia in the south to Chickaloon in the northeast, Talkeetna in the north, Lime Village in the northwest and Pedro Bay in the southwest. The Denaʼina homeland is more than 41,000 sq mi (110,000 km2) in area. They arrived in the south-central Alaska sometime between 1,000 and 1,500 years ago. They were the only Alaskan Athabaskan group to live on the coast. The Denaʼina have a hunter-gatherer culture and a matrilineal system. The Iditarod Trail's antecedents were the native trails of the Denaʼina and Deg Hitʼan Athabaskan Native Alaskans and the Inupiaq Inuit.
Northern Athabaskan is a geographic sub-grouping of the Athabaskan language family spoken by indigenous peoples in the northern part of North America, particularly in Alaska, Yukon, and the Northwest Territories. The Northern Athabaskan languages consist of 31 languages that can be divided into seven geographic subgroups.
The Ahtna are an Alaska Native Athabaskan people of Alaska.
James Kari is a linguist and Professor Emeritus with the Alaska Native Language Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) specializing in the Dene of Alaska. For over fifty years he has done extensive linguistic work in many Dene languages including Ahtna, Dena'ina, Koyukon, Deg Hit'an, Holikachuk, Lower Tanana, Middle Tanana, Tanacross, Upper Tanana, and Babine-Witsuwit'en. He was on the faculty of UAF from 1973 until his retirement in 1997. He continues to work on numerous Alaska Native language projects. He is the author or editor of over 200 publications, including more than 4000 pages of bilingual texts in seven Dene languages. He is the most prolific contributor to the Alaska Native Language Archive. His special interest is Dene ethnogeography, and he has compiled or documented more than 14,000 place names in fourteen Alaska or Canadian Dene languages. He worked with Dena'ina writer and ethnographer Peter Kalifornsky on a 1991 compilation of his creative writings. In 2008 he was the organizer of the Dene–Yeniseian Symposium in Alaska, and co-editor of the volume The Dene–Yeniseian Connection published in 2010. In 2009 was selected Kari for the Alaska Governor's Award for the Humanities. In March 2013 Kari received the Professional Achievement Award at the 40th annual meeting of the Alaska Anthropological Association. In 2019 he was presented with a volume of papers by colleagues that recognize his career in Dene research.
Alaska Natives are a group of indigenous people that live in the state of Alaska and trace their heritage back to the last two great migrations that occurred thousands of years ago. The Native community can be separated into six large tribes and a number of smaller tribes, including the Iñupiat, Yup'ik, Aleut, Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and others. Even with just a small number of communities that make up the entire population, there were more than 300 different languages that the Natives used to communicate with one another.
The Alaskan Athabascans, Alaskan Athapascans or Dena are Alaska Native peoples of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group. They are the original inhabitants of the interior of Alaska.
The Tanana Athabaskans, Tanana Athabascans or Tanana Athapaskans are an Alaskan Athabaskan peoples of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group. They are the original inhabitants of the Tanana River drainage basin in east-central Alaska Interior, United States and a little part lived in Yukon, Canada. Tanana River Athabaskan peoples are called in Lower Tanana and Koyukon language Ten Hʉt'ænæ, in Gwich'in language Tanan Gwich'in. In Alaska, where they are the oldest, there are three or four groups identified by the languages they speak. These are the Tanana proper or Lower Tanana and/or Middle Tanana, Tanacross or Tanana Crossing, and Upper Tanana. The Tanana Athabaskan culture is a hunter-gatherer culture and have a matrilineal system. Tanana Athabaskans were semi-nomadic and as living in semi-permanent settlements in the Tanana Valley lowlands. Traditional Athabaskan land use includes fall hunting of moose, caribou, Dall sheep, and small terrestrial animals, and also trapping. The Athabaskans did not have any formal tribal organization. Tanana Athabaskans were strictly territorial and used hunting and gathering practices in their semi-nomadic way of life and dispersed habitation patterns. Each small band of 20–40 people normally had a central winter camp with several seasonal hunting and fishing camps, and they moved cyclically, depending on the season and availability of resources.
Siri Tuttle is the former director of the Alaska Native Language Center, the Alaska Native Language Archive, and a former Associate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. She specializes in Dene (Athabascan) languages of interior Alaska and has contributed to the fields of acoustic phonetics, phonology, and morphology. She retired in 2021.
Copper River Census Area is a census area located in the state of Alaska, United States. It is part of the Unorganized Borough and therefore has no borough seat. On January 2, 2019, it was split from the Valdez–Cordova Census Area, along with neighboring Chugach Census Area.
Katie John was an Alaska Native advocate and cultural expert. John was a plaintiff in a court case against the United States challenging the denial of Native subsistence fishing rights, known throughout Alaska as "the Katie John case." She was instrumental in developing an alphabet for the Ahtna language and preserving the culture and traditional way of life of the Ahtna Athabaskan people.
Mount Gakona is a 9,865-foot-elevation (3,007-meter) mountain summit in Alaska.
