ELEMENTARY: Trade (Alaska)

Trade in Pre-Contact Alaska
Trade is Ancient
Look at objects made centuries ago by Alaska Native people, and you can imagine a story of long journeys over high mountains or along rough rivers. Alaska Natives traded for goods that came thousands of miles to reach them, and they did this long before there were planes or cars. In fact, they traded long before any outside explorers from Europe or the United States came to this land!

One item shows very well how important trade was in the old days. Beautiful Chilkat robes from the Tlingit area were made of mountain goat wool, available only in the mountains. The wool was twisted with cedar bark, available in the southernmost part of Alaska along the shore. The yellow dye that made part of the design came from a lichen called wolf moss that grew far away in Athabascan territory in Alaska's Interior. One robe required material from three different places!

Tlingits as Middlemen in the Trade
The Athabascans and Tlingits met to exchange goods up to three times each year, with their biggest trade fair held in the spring. To get to the Interior, Tlingits had to travel up the Stikine, Alsek, and Taku rivers, and over the Chilkoot and Chilkat passes. They headed to meeting places they had agreed on during their last trading trip.

A typical journey of hundreds of miles might take two weeks or a month. The traders would have to walk, paddle, drag canoes, and trek across glaciers, ending up as far away as the Yukon River. They packed a hundred pounds of goods on their backs across steep mountain trails thousands of feet high. After trading with Athabascans, they carried home moose hides, decorated moccasins, caribou hides, birch wood bows with porcupine gut string and the wolf moss to dye their Chilkat robes.

The Chilkat and Chilkoot Tlingits, who lived in what is now known as the Haines and Skagway areas, had an important role in this trade network. They got goods from other groups living in Southeast Alaska and further to the south in what is now British Columbia, Canada, and traded those with Athabascans. They had exclusive trading rights - which means that no one else dared to walk their trails or trade with their partners. Marriage with Athabascan women helped strengthen their relationships with Interior tribes.

From the south, Tlingits carried goods that both other Tlingits and the Athabascans wanted. These included furs, dentalium shells (a mollusk whose beautiful shells were used for jewelry), abalone, cedar bark, eulachon oil (a kind of small, oily fish) and iron that had come from Europe.

What did Alaska Natives have to trade?
Throughout Alaska, each group had its own set of resources available for trade. The items might include raw materials such as copper, processed foods such as euchalon or seal oil, or fine handicrafts such as decorated moccasins. Animal hides of many kinds used to make clothing were important trade items in Western Alaska. In fact, the hides were sometimes treated almost like money.

Items made from a material that could be obtained only through trade became symbols of wealth. Copper from the Athabascans and Eyaks of the Copper River area was used to make the "tinneh" that only the richest Tlingit headmen owned. Dentalium shells, originally harvested by the Nootka off Vancouver Island, were worn only by Athabascan headmen and their families. Athabascans also wanted jade from Inupiat areas to make strong adzes and axes. Tlingits made prized rattles from puffin bills that came from the Aleut and Alutiiq areas.

Trading Partners
People usually trade only with people they trust and like. For this reason, a Tlingit man would form a partnerships with an Athabascan man, and remain his partner for many years. Yup'ik traders became partners with Inupiaq traders. And so on. These men would visit with each other's families and learn some of their language, getting to know each other very well over many years of trading.

Even so, trading relationships were hard to keep up. Villages were far apart, separated by rugged terrain that was passable only at certain times of year. Weather was often severe. Language differences kept people from communicating. The values of the goods shifted. Warfare disrupted trade, and food shortages sometimes meant there was no surplus to trade.

New Traders
When Europeans came to Alaska in the 1700s and 1800s, they found European-made beads and iron in some areas, even though no white person had ever been seen there. Because of their pre-contact trade networks, the Native peoples knew something of the strangers before they arrived.

New trade goods from European and American traders brought many changes to the Native people of Alaska. Not only were new items available, but money became part of the picture for the first time. But that is another story!