...Kwethluk's life and economy relied heavily on the traditional harvest and use of wild resources. All households participated in harvesting wildlife for subsistence use. Household harvests of wildlife avaeraged 3,860 pounds edible weight. The per capita harvest was 800 pounds edible weight, among the highest of communties in Alaska. Household harvests ranged from 19 to 23,758 pounds edible weight. Seventy percent of the households were involved in harvesting or processing salmon for subsistence use in 52 subsistence salmon production units. Salmon production units were composed of extended families in multiple households. During 1986 there were 52 fishing camps used for processing and preserving salmon for subsistence use. Some salmon fishing camps had been relocated due to erosion along the Kuskokwim River or Kuskokuak Slough. Salmon comprised 53 percent of the total community harvest of wildlife. Salmon harvests during 1986 totaled 229,063 edible weight. Harvests of salmon for subsistence use averaged 884 pounds of Chinook, 591 pounds of chum, 349 pounds sockeye, and 203 pounds of coho salmon per household. Harvests levels during 1986 were about average.
Freshwater fish contributed 32 percent of the total pounds edible weight of wildlife harvested. Northern pike, whitefish, and burbot were the primary freshwater fish harvested. Moose accounted for 90 percent of the big game harvested and brown bear constituted the next highest quantity of big game harvested. During certain years, caribou was an important subsistence resource. Extended family members in multiple households often comprised hunting, fishing, and gathering groups. Sharing of wildlife harvested for subsistence households in the community and with households in other communities was common.
Kwethluk used a substantial area for obtaining wild foods, including inland mountains, rivers, and coastal marine waters. Areas used for hunting, fishing, and gathering extend from Kuskokwim May to McGarth, and from Baird Inlet to the Nushagak River. Contemporary patterns of land use were closely linked to historical use patterns and traditional use areas.
...Trapping for furbearers begins in early November. Adequate ice and snow cover limits trapper mobility during this time of the year. Beaver, fox, otter, and mink are harvested at this time; muskrats are occasionally taken. Some of the furs are sold while others are used locally by people making hats, boots, mittens, and crafts for use by family members, to be given away as gifts, or to be sold. Most of the furbearers (except red fox) also provide valuable fresh red meat to the household diet. Wood gathering continues throughout winter and the harvest of small game such as hare and porcupine often occurs during wood gathering trips. Labrador tea is harvested, as needed, during anytime of the year.
During mid-December through mid-January, families are busy preparing for holiday festivities. Christmas is celebrated during December 25, the traditional Protestant holiday, and again beginning January 7, the Russian Orthodox holiday locally referred to as "Slavic.' During each of these Protestant and Russian Orthodox holidays there is much sharing of wild game and fish throughout the community. During 'Slavic' especially, many households prepare food that is shared with many people who visit house to house and help celebrate the holiday and share in the food prepared specifically for the occasion. Groups of 50 to 100 people, sometimes more, including relatives and friends from neighboring communities, go from house to house until all of the participating households have been visited. This feasting continues for several days, as each household shares food and gifts with crowds of people who go house to house, singing songs and sharing fellowship in celebration of Christmas. As one might expect, vast quantities of wild game, fish and berries are prepared and consumed at this time. Hunters sometimes try to harvest moose or caribou during December, so that the household has ample meat on hand for these holiday feasts.
Beginning in mid-January, after 'Slavic' and as the amount of available daylight increases, people gradually spend more time out hooking for pike and burbot, hunting and snaring hare, looking for small game and furbearers, and resetting their traps and snares for beaver and fox. During early February, hunters on snowmachines travel north and west to the Yukon River in search of moose. Hunters also travel north and east to the mountains and beyond, looking for moose, caribou, furbearers, and small game. Brown bear are occasionally harvested during this time. During Lent, (mid-February through mid-April) some individuals abstain from eating red meat. During this time freshwater fish and dried or smoked salmon are the main source of protein for some families.
The period from mid-February to mid-April is normally marked by clear blue skies and moderately cool temperatures. Travel conditions on the tributaries near the Kuskokwim River are normally good and a favorite activity is to go hooking for freshwater fish. Pike, the usual catch at this time of year, are cut and hung outside near the house or above a family's cache to dry.
As early as late March or early April, a few families in airplanes fly to traditional camps in the mountains, near the headwaters of the Kwethluk, Kisaralik, Aniak, and Nushagak rivers. There they fish, hunt, and trap for a few weeks harvesting lake trout, Dolly Varden, grayling, brown bear, caribou, moose, beaver, otter, muskrat, ptarmigan, porcupine, and parka squirrel. Individuals, men and women, from several different households usually make this trip. Men hunt the surrounding countryside on foot, looking for caribou, brown bear, moose and furbearers, while women concentrate on harvesting parka squirrels and small game. Meat from the harvest is dried into jerky and some of it is prepared and eaten in camp. People often remain in the field for a few weeks, returning to Kwethluk as breakup proceeds. Boats like those made by previous generations of Kwethluk hunters described earlier, are made from materials gathered from the land. A boat frame, consisting of planks and ribs made of balsam poplar, is covered with untanned hides of brown bear, caribou, or moose, often sewn together in combination (Coffitig 1988). These boats are used to transport the people, camping gear, dried meat, and other items obtained from subsistence hunting, fishing, and gathering activities, back to Kwethluk by floating down the Kwethluk River. One of these boats, built in 1987, measured approximately 14 feet long, 8 feet wide, and was 20 inches deep amidships.
During April, some individuals fly to Eck, Kwigillingok, or Kipnuk where, with their relatives, they hunt seal and walrus. Most of the harvest effort is for seal, however, walrus are taken if an opportunity occurs. Boats, carried on sleds pulled by snowmachines, are transported from one of the coastal communities to the edge of the shore-fast ice, where they are launched. Also during April, Kwethluk hunters make day trips throughout the lowlands surrounding the community in search of hare and also ptarmigan which have moved from the upland areas near the foothills to the lowland winow scrub areas.
Mid-April is a time when waterfowl begin arriving. This is also a time when caches of dried fish and smoked salmon that was prepared the previous summer are often depleted or running low. The return of the waterfowl, the first spring migrant to return to the area, is evidence that a new season has begun and a reminder that soon it will be time to go to summer fish camp and to pick berries. Shortly after Lent, waterfowl hunting is often in full swing.' Men and boys take advantage of the late evening daylight and go hunting for ducks, geese, and swans. Hunters return to their favorite hunting places along the tributaries, lakes, and marshes south and east of the community. Hunters travel by snowmachine, on foot, and by three-wheelers or four-wheelers. Men sometimes pull small aluminum boats 12 to 16 feet long up the frozen Kwethluk River, using snowmachines or all-terrain vehicles, to areas where there are open channels and enough water to use them. As the Kwethluk River melts, narrow channels of open water appear along its edge, permitting hunters in small boats with outboard motors to travel to spring camps and hunting areas along the Kwethluk and Akulikutak rivers. During spring breakup, much of the surrounding lowland floods and becomes accessible by small boats. This is an especially good time for muskrat hunting.
May is an extremely busy month in Kwethluk. During early May, while the Kuskokwim River is covered with rotting ice and unsafe for travel, people are busy preparing for the upcoming salmon fishing season. Boats are repaired and repainted, groups of men help one another move their boats from the riverbank, where they were stored for winter, and into the river. Outboard motors and gill nets are repaired for the busy season to come. When school is finally out for summer and the Kuskokwim River is free of ice, families again prepare for fish camp.
RESOURCE SHARING
Resources harvested for subsistence were shared widely. Not only did sharing occur within the community, but resources were shared between communities. For example, resources were commonly given to households in Bethel, Napaskiak, Togiak, Kasigluk, Akiak, and Kwiolingok and resources were received from households in Bethel, Napaskiak, Togiak, Kasigiuk, Akiak, Kwigilfingok, Akiachak, Kipnuk, Eek, Napakiak, Chuathbaluk, Tuntutuliak, Goodnews Bay, Tuluksak, Hooper Bay, Fairbanks, and Barrow . Food is a universal language: in Yup'ik society, sharing of food with friends and strangers visiting one's house is as frequent as a 'hello' or a handshake in western culture. Friends and relatives commonly and frequently shared meals at one another's house or fishing camp. Individuals that were present at mealtime were welcomed to share whatever the table provided. This study did not try to quantify the amount of any wildlife that was given and received, nor did it try to measure the types of resources shared during meals...
Resources such as fish, game, birds, plants, and berries, were also given to those who were unable to harvest for themselves or perhaps 'had no luck' when out hunting. Usually this included the elderly and the widows, but resources were also commonly given and received between other types of households, especially those who were related. Some of the more commonly shared resources included whitefish, pike, burbot, moose, beaver, and ducks... Other resources, such as grouse, lake trout, rainbow trout, grayling, and Dolly Varden were often consumed at camp while in the field. Greens and plants, other than berries, were usually available to anybody that wishes to harvest them. Other less available resources, notably seal, seal oil, walrus, and caribou were shared by Kwethluk households who were successful harvesting them or by family and friends in other communities closer to the coast...
FURBEARER HUNTING AND TRAPPING
Furbearers have always played an important role in the lives of Kwethluk residents. Before, during, and after the dramatic fall of the fur prices early this century, furs were important for trade, barter, and cash. Furs of beaver, otter, mink, fox, lynx, and wolverine were usual items of trade for commodities such as seal skins, which were used for boat coverings and mukluk soles, seal meat, seal oil, as well as staple commodities such as coffee, salt, sugar, tea, and flour, among other things.
Some furbearer species are quite numerous in the lower Kuskokwim River area. For the last few years the Department of Fish and Game has sealed more furbearers in Game Management Unit 18 than in any other Game Management Unit. The most abundant species in 1985-86 included beaver, mink, otter, muskrat, and fox. Wolf, wolverine, marten, and lynx are found in the boreal zones north and east of Kwethluk and were harvested on an opportunistic basis. Beaver were very numerous in the area and residents reported some of the tributary streams were being blocked by beaver dams making access to upstream areas difficult for people and for fish. Beaver were not always so abundant. During the early part of this century (1905-1920) until- at least the late 1950s, people from Kwethluk traveled east, over the Kuskokwim Mountains, to hunt and trap beaver. Trappers traveled extensively, during winter and spring, throughout the areas around Chukiminuk and Nuyakuk lakes, as well as in the upper Holitna, Aniak, King Salmon, and Togiak River drainages in search of beaver. Prior to 1960, Game Management Unit 18 was closed to beaver trapping. Residents reported that as beaver gradually became more common in the lower Kuskokwim River region, such as along the headwaters of the Kisaralik, Tuluksak, Kwethiuk, Eck, and Kanektok rivers, people began to harvest them in those drainage's.
Harvest and Use (of Furbearers)
...During the study period, furbearer harvest effort was aimed at beaver, mink, otter, red and cross fox, and muskrat. Beaver, muskrat, and fox were primary furbearers harvested....Trappers did not specifically direct their effort towards wolf, wolverine, lynx, or marten, however, trappers were aware that they might encounter these animals and were on the lookout for them while tending their trap lines or when involved in other subsistence activities.
Beaver, mink, and otter were the furbearers most commonly sold, however, 75 percent or more of the fur harvested was not sold but was used domestically for clothing, crafts, and food. Occasionally, an individual, such as an elder, would ask a trapper to catch a certain type of furbearer for them. When fur prices are low trappers reported that they frequently trade or give some lower valued animals to relatives or elders for use as food or for crafts. Sometimes people receiving furbearers will then sell them to a fur buyer (H. Jones pers.comm., 1988) The meat of all types of furbearers, except for fox, wolf, and wolverine, was used for food and was also used as dog food.