![]() In fact, valuing subsistence-related “work” only as utilitarian is viewed as dysfunctional and inconsistent with traditional practice. “Fish Camp gives back-it’s not just taking fish…but you have to be here for the whole month to really get that benefit.” (Karen Evanoff) A key facet of Fish Camp is that work is not an activity separated from family and social life work and social life are integrated. ![]() Intergenerational reminiscing and the sharing of family lore and history take place, as well as public displays of humility, respect, and thanks-giving for food received-food that will sustain families in the year ahead as it has sustained the ancestors for generations. Shared labor affords space to catch up on family and community news, and to teach children fishing skills and other traditional knowledge. Multiple factors have contributed to this contraction, from a declining harvest associated with the loss of dog teams, to localized flooding from the introduction of the outboard motor to rising gas prices from scheduling conflicts with paid employment to the ease of ATV access across summertime trails from increases in brown bear numbers to an increasingly complex maze of land ownership and regulation.ĭuring the fish harvest, much eating, visiting, and shared labor transpires, as well as moments of gender-differentiated time allowing for moments of “men’s talk” or “women’s talk” throughout the day. While many of these fishing camps have persisted in small ways, with individual families or groups of families using formerly large camps as fishing outposts, the use of many camps has declined. Families often moved between fish camps for many reasons-environmental, social, and otherwise. During the fishing season, camps were historically located approximately one to two miles apart from each other. Historically, there were many salmon fishing camps distributed broadly throughout the landscape, each situated to take maximum advantage of the two-cycle salmon fishery in the Lake Clark Basin and its subbasins within the study area. You choose it where the slime will wash away by moving water.’” As the salmon return to these camps each year, so too do entire inland Dena’ina communities. …You never see a fish camp where there is too much eddy. Or where they think it is easier to set the net. Thus, Bill and Martha Trefon explain that “‘hey pick where the current is or eddies where all the slime could wash away. Also, the river was and is predictable in its characteristics-with harvesters wishing to avoid places with too much or too little current. Such camps were created at places where salmon were known to be predictable, in places where families had both easy physical access and rights to fish in the particular location. Over the centuries, the locations of fish camps have been established based on intimate knowledge of fish behavior and migration. Most fundamentally, Fish Camp is the venue for harvesting much of the salmon eaten by the inland Dena’ina community. ![]() Situated at the outlet of Sixmile Lake where it enters Newhalen River (Nughil Vetnu), “Fish Camp” is not only a place, but as the name implies, an event, a practice, a temporary community, a way of life. Summer salmon processing at fish camps, and especially Nondalton Fish Camp (Nundaltin Q’estsiq’), is arguably the most important and enduring traditional subsistence practice found in the inland Dena’ina world. Today, salmon are especially harvested using gillnets and beach seine nets. King salmon were taken with a harpoon-like spear constructed with a head attached to a line and shaft-a tool referred to in Dena’ina as dineh.” Interviewees for the current study note that salmon were not only traditionally speared, but were caught using bow and arrow by some. ![]() Balluta write, “Historically, both set and dip nets were made of spruce roots and sinew. Historically, Dena’ina fishers employed veł niqak´idezehi, (seines) and tuqesi (spears) to harvest gh’elica (red fish), and taz´in (fishtraps) to capture a variety of fish species including salmon and species like whitefish, trout, grayling, and pike. The methods by which salmon are caught have varied through time. Village residents, as well as those who have moved away, reconvene in the summer and sometimes the fall, not only to harvest and preserve salmon in quantities sufficient to sustain each family, but also to fulfill personal emotional, cultural, and social quotas. For inland Dena’ina families, the arrival of the salmon is a time not only for harvesting a large part of the year’s foodstuffs, but for celebration, sharing, and reunion with family and friends. People and animals alike converge to witness and take part in one of the largest wild salmon migrations on the planet. When the salmon return to spawn in the Lake Clark Basin in late summer and fall, all of life changes.
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