Gulkana

In 1943, without warning the villagers, Alaska Road Commission crews began building a new bridge across the Gulkana River, and the western approach split Gulkana Village in two, passed within a few feet of the cemetery, pushed rocks against homes, and left a berm so steep that residents could not cross from one side to the other. The project destroyed the village as a cohesive community, made it unsafe during breakup flooding, and ruined a prime salmon dipnetting area, forcing residents to move to higher ground and establish the village’s current location on the north side of the river while the old village was demolished into a barren gravel pad. The destruction showed Ahtna ancestors that they had become strangers in their own land. World War II brought further change, including the U.S. Army’s construction of the Richardson Highway and the arrival of an Army camp, roadhouse, school, post office, store, and other buildings. By the end of World War II, the people had been dispossessed of their lands, their traditional way of making a living was gone or severely curtailed, and highways crisscrossed much of traditional Ahtna territory. In 1971, Gulkana received a federal townsite patent for land on both sides of the river, including the original townsite and cemetery, but in the early 1970s the federal township trustee ceded the cemetery and old townsite to the State of Alaska without the village’s knowledge or compensation. In 2018, Gulkana Village Council reached an agreement with the State of Alaska acknowledging that Gulkana had unlawfully lost its traditional land, and on October 13, 2020, a final deed signing restored ownership of the old townsite and cemetery to the village so it could again protect its burial grounds and old village site.

Gulkana, Alaska · United States