Photo: “Tanana Women on Ice,” Alaska State Library, Kathryn Anderson Collection, UAF-1975-41-1
The Athabascan Indian people traditionally lived in Interior Alaska, an expansive region that begins south of the Brooks Mountain Range and continues down to the Kenai Peninsula. There are eleven linguistic groups of Athabascans in Alaska. Athabascan people have traditionally lived along five major river ways: the Yukon, the Tanana, the Susitna, the Kuskokwim, and the Copper River drainages. Athabascans were highly nomadic, traveling in small groups to fish, hunt, and trap.