14 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 192 



slopes above Russell and Nunatak Fiords were formerly hunting 

 grounds for mountain goats. From Nunatak Fiord, Russell Fiord 

 turns southward, extending so far that its head, "Mud Bay," protrudes 

 into the coastal plain only 14 miles from the ocean. 



The Alsek River rises in Yukon Territory close to the headwaters 

 of the Yukon, Tanana, and Chilkat Rivers, and cuts through the 

 high barrier of the Saint Elias-Fairweather Range to reach the sea at 

 Dry Bay. The mudflats at the mouth, about 10 miles wide, are 

 covered only at high tide. Formerly there were a number of villages 

 or camps on the lower Alsek and at the mouths of smaller streams and 

 sloughs that enter Dry Bay. Until fairly recently the Dry Bay 

 people used to ascend the Alsek to hunt, fish, gather berries, and 

 trade with their interior neighbors and relatives, while the Southern 

 Tutchone of the upper Alsek used to visit Dry Bay. Interior trails 

 connected the settlements of the Southern Tutchone with those of 

 the Interior Tlingit around Tagish Lake and with the villages of the 

 Chilkat Tlingit on Lynn Canal. 



A chain of sloughs, streams, lakes, and salt-water lagoons until 

 recently provided an inland waterway for canoes going between 

 Yakutat and Dry Bay, although some portages were necessary. It 

 was on these streams and lakes that most of the earlier settlements 

 were located, and here the natives obtained their supplies of salmon. 

 Until 1875 or 1880 there were few permanent houses on Yakutat Bay 

 itself; the most important village site was Old Town on the southern 

 point of Knight Island. 



The eastern shore of Yakutat Bay as far north as Point Latouche, 

 a distance of about 23 miles, is heavily timbered with spruce and 

 hemlock. The former provided the natives mth most of the wood 

 used for houses, boats, and implements, while the sweet inner bark of 

 the hemlock was used for food. In addition, cedar drift logs were 

 sometimes found on the ocean beach and utilized. Dense stands of 

 trees extend in narrow belts parallel to the ocean, but most of the 

 plain between Yakutat Bay and Dry Bay is open country. The 

 natives complain that the trees have recently been encroaching on 

 areas where they used to gather strawberries, salmonberries, blue- 

 berries, highbush cranberries, elderberries, Kamchatka lilies ("wild- 

 rice"), wildcelery, wild "rhubarb," and "Indian-potatoes," as well as 

 a variety of medicinal plants. Also there is a tradition that originally 

 there were no trees on the islands in Yakutat Bay, and that even as 

 late as 1850 or 1860 Krutoi Island was not wooded. 



The Ya utat area enjoys a fairly equable climate, since the 

 thermometer rarely drops below zero or rises to 80; but there is very 

 heavy precipitation, averaging about 130 inches a year. Over 4 feet 

 of snow may accumulate at one time on level ground, and mountainous 



