Trade and War

Like all Alaska Native groups, trade was important. It balanced their diet with a greater variety of food and enabled access to foreign technology and materials.  

The sea-faring groups traveled the coast to trade clothing, tools, and food among themselves and between neighbors. This trading included annual summer trade fairs. A rendezvous on Kotzebue spit was the largest, but there were many others. For example, trade fairs regularly occurred at Wales for Bering Strait Yupik. Inupiaq, living from the Colville River to the Mackenzie River in Canada, would gather at Barter Island on the Beaufort Sea every year. In addition to trading, the people played games, feasted, and danced at these gatherings.

There was also a strong trade between coastal and inland groups, as each had access to very different foods and resources. In the Arctic, this took place at annual summer fairs held between coastal and inland Inupiaq groups. Along the Bering Sea coast, it took place between the Yupik of the Y-K Delta and upriver Athabaskans. Along the Gulf of Alaska, it took place between the Alutiiq of the lower Kenai Peninsula and Prince William Sound and Athabaskan groups living inland on upper Cook Inlet and the Copper River. 

Coastal peoples exchanged whale blubber, seal oil, seal and walrus skins, herring, and ivory. Inland trade partners bartered moose/caribou meat and hides, furs (e.g., mink, marten, beaver, and muskrat), and jade and copper tools. By the 1700s, people also traded tobacco, beads, metal tools, and reindeer skins obtained from trade with Russians.

Also, like other Alaskan Native groups, conflict with other groups was common. Warfare normally consisted of raiding between groups. Inupiaq of the Bering Straits were known to have frequent conflict with Siberian Coast Natives. Not long before Russians entered the Y-K Delta region, the Yupik residents had been engaged in bitter conflict. In particular, Lower Kuskokwim River, Nushagak River, and Nunivak Island residents had staged a number of raids against one another. A particularly bloody battle occurred at the mouth of Mud Creek, the entrance for a route to the Yukon River. The Kuskokwim River people defeated the Nunivak Island people, allowing only a blinded man to return downriver to recount events.

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