Yupiit Piciryarait Museum

Region

Western Alaska is home to one of the biggest river deltas in the world—the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.

Carving through an expanse of wilderness over 75,000 square miles, the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers wind westward, meeting with the Bering Sea on Alaska’s Western coast. Along the banks of these rivers, the surrounding tundra, and the coast—are forty-seven communities—home to fifty-six federally recognized Alaska Native Villages.

The unique characteristics of the delta made it a perfect place for nomadic tribes but a great challenge for permanent villages. The delta terrain is silt underlain with permafrost. The region is treeless sub-arctic tundra.

The People

Yup’ik/Cup’ik Eskimos and Athabascans have inhabited the region for more than 12,000 years. Traditionally, Yup’ik tribes were nomadic, following caribou herds in the winter and living in temporary fish camps in the summer.

First contact with outsiders was not made until the 1800s, when the Yup’ik people first encountered Russian explorers. The people of the region have seen major changes in the past two centuries, with communities settling in one location year-round, and modern technology like airplanes and snowmobiles becoming part of daily life.

Despite these recent changes, most communities still retain their traditional languages and values, and depend on subsistence foods like seal, walrus, caribou and fish.

The Tribes

The region includes the following federally recognized Alaska Native Tribes: