The Athabascans and Tlingits met to exchange goods up to three times each year, with the main gathering in 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 either to designated meeting places or to villages.

The journey might take 10 to 30 or more days to a place hundreds of miles away, sometimes as far as the Yukon River. The traders would paddle and pull canoes where possible over water, trek across a glacier, and pack one hundred pounds of goods on their backs across steep mountain trails thousands of feet high to reach their destination.

The Chilkat and Chilkoot Tlingits, who lived in what is now known as the Haines and Skagway areas, held an important role in trading. They obtained goods from other groups living in Southeast Alaska and further to the south in what is now British Columbia, and traded those into the Interior, bringing back from the Interior goods for distribution through trade among the Southeast villages. They had exclusive trading rights that were acknowledged by others. Marriage with Athabascan women helped strengthen their relationships with Interior tribes.

From British Columbia and Southeast Alaska, the Tlingits carried furs, dentalium shells, abalone, cedar bark, eulachon oil (from a species of smelt) and iron obtained through trade with others. For these goods, Interior tribes would exchange moose hides, decorated moccasins, caribou hides, birch wood bows with porcupine gut string and the wolf moss for dyes.

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.

Hides of various kinds that could be used in making clothing were among the most important trade items in Western Alaska, often forming a sort of currency against which other things were measured. The types of hides traded depended on the area. For instance, coastal peoples harvested seals, and traded the hides to Interior tribes.

Throughout Alaska, items produced 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 create the "tinneh" that were symbols of wealth among the Tlingit. Dentalium shells, originally harvested by the Nootka off Vancouver Island, became a symbol of wealth among Athabascans. Jade from Inupiat areas was sought by Interior Athabascans who used the material to make strong adzes and axes, while puffin bills from the Aleut and Alutiiq areas became valued rattles in Southeast Alaska among the Tlingits.

Since trading relationships depended on good will and a measure of friendship, specific trading partners were identified between the groups. These men would visit with each other's families and learn some of their language, in an effort to assure some continuing friendship through troubled times.

Even so, trading relationships were hard to maintain. Settlements were far apart, separated by rugged and forbidding terrain that was passable only at certain times of year. Weather was often severe. Language barriers kept people from communicating. The values of the goods shifted. Warfare disrupted trade, and food shortages sometimes meant there was no surplus to trade. While trading often occurred primarily within a region, goods could travel far afield as well. When Europeans came, they found European-made beads and iron in some areas, even though no white person had ever been seen there. In this way, 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 an entirely new system of trade, and new relationships among traders developed. But that is another story!

The main trading relationships in pre-contact Alaska:

The Tlingit, Haida, Tsmishian and Eyak peoples of Southeast Alaska traded amongst themselves and with tribes to the south and north. Among the many resources traded were: greenstone for tools, mountain goat wool, dentalium, clams, mussels, and chitons, yew wood, red and yellow cedar, deer skins, dried halibut, dried salmon, seal oil, herring eggs, eulachon oil, seal meat, berries in oil, spruce root baskets, bentwood boxes, and artfully decorated clothing. Tlingits traded as far north as the Yukon River, climbing through the Chilkat and Chilkoot mountain passes and following river valleys to reach the Athabascans. They also traveled by sea to trade with the Alutiiqs on the coast the north of them, and with other tribes to the south. The Tlingits did a lot of trading goods they got from one peoples to another tribe, for instance, trading dentalium shells obtained through connections to tribes in what is now British Columbia, to Athabascan groups in Alaska's Interior region.

Aleut/Alutiiq peoples of the Alaska Peninsula and Kodiak Island used sea routes along the coast of the Gulf of Alaska for most of their trading to Tlingit, Eyak, and Athabascan tribes. They crossed passes and low points along the Alaska Peninsula to trade with the Yup'ik people of the Bristol Bay area. The Aleut/Alutiiq peoples harvested and traded: seal oil, seal meat, dried salmon, bird skins for parkas, obsidian for tools, caribou meat, caribou hides, whale oil, whale meat, sealskin for boat covers, ivory, walrus meat, herring, herring eggs, berries in oil, bear intestines for rain parkas (only in Alutiiq areas), bear hides (only in Alutiiq areas), clams, mussels, and sea urchins, iron (picked up from Japanese or Chinese shipwrecks), baskets and mats.

The Yup'ik and Cup'ik peoples of the coasts and rivers of Southwestern Alaska traded amongst themselves, with coastal peoples providing goods not available upriver and vice versa, and through these relationships, obtained goods from inland Athabascan peoples. The Yup'ik and Cup'ik peoples also traded with the Inupiaq. Travel in summer was by boat and undertaken primarily along waterways and the coast. The Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers were main thoroughfares, allowing the Yup'iks headed upriver to meet Athabascans traveling downriver. In winter, dog sleds traversed frozen ground and rivers. Yup'ik and Cup'ik trade goods included: seal meat, seal oil, dried salmon, bird skins for parkas, clay pots, caribou meat, caribou hides, beluga whale oil and meat, fancy parkas, sealskin for kayak covers, ivory, walrus meat, herring, herring eggs, and berries in oil.

The Inupiaq people of Alaska's north and northwest coasts, and St. Lawrence Island Yupiks traded amongst themselves and with Native peoples on the other side of the Bering Strait. They also traded with Athabascan people of the Interior. Depending on their destination, the Inupiaq and St. Lawrence Yupik used large skin boats to traverse the Bering and Chuckchi seas or to travel up then many rivers of the area, and used dog sleds across frozen tundra in the winter. Inupiaq and St. Lawrence Island Yupik trade goods included: seal oil, whale meat, whale blubber, walrus meat, ivory, seal meat, caribou meat, caribou skins, caribou antlers, bird skins for parkas, blueberries, blackberries, cranberries, sealskin for boots and boat covers, walrus skin for boat covers, baleen from whales, and polar bear skins.

Athabascan peoples occupying Alaska's Interior, the Copper River area and Southcentral Alaska traded with many groups, and through their trade relationships, brought goods from far -distant tribes to one another. They traded with the Tlingit, as well as with the Yup'ik and the Inupiaq, following large rivers such as the Copper, the Yukon, and the Kuskokwim. Goods they brought to barter included porcupine quills, deer meat, caribou hides, moose meat, moose hides, copper, lichen for dye, birch wood bows with porcupine but strings, decorated moccasins, antlers, birch bark containers, snares and traps.