Local Partner: Eyak Preservation Council / Native Conservancy
Project intends to record stories/legends, explore historical uses of sacred sites, and illuminate cultural significances of traditional place names throughout Eyak and Tlingit ancestral lands from Yakutat to Cordova.
The objective is collaborative cultural mapping; archeological excursions to Eyak ancestral sites; amass place-based information; conduct interviews with elders and Eyak and Tlingit knowledge holders; synthesize Eyak and Tlingit history, language and stories; integrate Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) through an accessible, interactive, community-controlled online atlas. Goals include participatory GIS mapping, state / federal Indigenous site registration, youth education, community reconnection, language and heritage revitalization, cultural resource conservation, landscape preservation in these times of climatic change.
No comprehensive research and documentation of Eyak cultural sites or place names has been undertaken. This important, timely and meaningful project includes community research and expeditions throughout traditional Eyak and Tlingit homelands to discover how human/environment interactions have changed in response to changing climatic conditions over time. The occurrence of Eyak and Tlingit place names inside Yakutat Bay provides evidence of Eyak and Tlingit occupation at a time when the bay was ice free.
Documentation of patterns of human settlement and adaptation to landscape changes, creation of permanent records of heritage, land features, and cultural values and activities, and a working peer-partnership with the Eyak Cultural for a multi-year cultural mapping initiative across the entire delta with the goal of preserving heritage values for present and future generations.
Local partner:
Eyak Preservation Council (EPC) was conceived by Alaskan Native Eyak-Athabaskan, Dune Lankard, on March 24, 1989. Governed by an active Native-majority. EPC’s mission is critical to our regional focus, as the ecosystem supports some of the last thriving, abundant wild salmon runs on the planet. Preservation is crucial to the Indigenous culture, economy and the wild salmon way of life. The thriving cultures and economies of the Copper River Delta are critical to those living and working here, and to all of humanity.
