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50-604: American Summit has been used for thousands of years by Athabascan natives, who saw its utility as the lowest point in the White Mountains , which lie between the coast of Alaska and the Yukon River. In 1886 and again in 1896, gold was discovered in central Alaska, sparking a series of gold rushes that attracted thousands of miners to the Yukon River area of Alaska. In 1897, to protect the growing population of

100-518: A burial ground in Nenana from the Alaska Railroad . As a result, the railroad avoided the cemetery. Conflicts became an increasing problem; the threat of loss of Native land grew after statehood in 1959. The Alaska Statehood Act recognized Native land rights, yet the state administration began planning as though it did not. It had two plans that were of particular concern. One was to build

150-467: A belief in tribal self-determination and the need for regional Native unity. The Tanana Chiefs Conference is a non-profit organization with a membership of Native governments from 42 Interior Alaska communities. The Board of Directors is composed of 42 representatives selected by the village councils of member communities. The board meets each March in Fairbanks . The nine-member Executive Board

200-456: A corporate structure. The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) of December 1971 set up 13 regional for-profit corporations for Alaska Natives - 12 in the state and one based in the Lower 48 for Alaska Natives living in the continental United States and nearly 200 village corporations. The act created the regional corporations for the management of land and financial assets, and overseeing

250-553: A project to improve the trail was begun in 1945. By 1953, the result was the Taylor Highway, a seasonal route that still connects Eagle to the outside world over American Summit. During the 2004 Alaska fire season , the worst in recorded history, American Summit was the site of a 10,000-acre (40 km) wildfire, one of several hundred that ultimately consumed 6,600,000 acres (27,000 km) in Alaska that year. Today, Eagle

300-580: A road to the Minto Lakes area northwest of Fairbanks and the Rampart Dam project. That project and another ill-conceived idea - creating a harbor at Point Hope on the Northwest coast with nuclear blast - contributed substantially to the rise of the land claims movement. A remarkable array of young, educated Native leaders began pushing the land claims toward a suitable outcome. One of the first

350-485: Is a large branch of the Na-Dene language family of North America , located in western North America in three areal language groups: Northern, Pacific Coast and Southern (or Apachean ). Kari and Potter (2010:10) place the total territory of the 53 Athabaskan languages at 4,022,000 square kilometres (1,553,000 sq mi). Chipewyan is spoken over the largest area of any North American native language, while Navajo

400-569: Is also debated, since it may fall in either the Pacific Coast group – if that exists – or into the Northern group. The records of Nicola are so poor – Krauss describes them as "too few and too wretched" (Krauss 2005) – that it is difficult to make any reliable conclusions about it. Nicola may be intermediate between Kwalhioqua–Tlatskanai and Chilcotin . Similarly to Nicola, there is very limited documentation on Tsetsaut . Consequently, it

450-532: Is an alcohol-free town, and American Summit is notable as the location of the liquor store nearest to Eagle. The store has been called one of the most remote liquor stores in the world. The Yukon Quest 1,000-mile (1,600 km) sled dog race crosses Eagle Summit every February on its route between Fairbanks, Alaska , and Whitehorse, Yukon . Athabascan Athabaskan ( / ˌ æ θ ə ˈ b æ s k ən / ATH -ə- BASK -ən ; also spelled Athabascan , Athapaskan or Athapascan , and also known as Dene )

500-530: Is an outline of the classification according to Keren Rice , based on those published in Goddard (1996) and Mithun (1999). It represents what is generously called the "Rice–Goddard–Mithun" classification (Tuttle & Hargus 2004:73), although it is almost entirely due to Keren Rice. Branches 1–7 are the Northern Athabaskan (areal) grouping. Kwalhioqua–Clatskanai (#7) was normally placed inside

550-416: Is debatably part of the Pacific Coast subgroup, but has marginally more in common with the Northern Athabaskan languages than it does with the Pacific Coast languages (Leer 2005). It thus forms a notional sort of bridge between the Northern Athabaskan languages and the Pacific Coast languages, along with Nicola (Krauss 1979/2004). Using computational phylogenetic methods, Sicoli & Holton (2014) proposed

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600-537: Is difficult to place it in the family with much certainty. Athabaskanists have concluded that it is a Northern Athabaskan language consistent with its geographical occurrence, and that it might have some relation to its distant neighbor Tahltan. Tsetsaut, however, shares its primary hydronymic suffix ("river, stream") with Sekani, Beaver, and Tsuut'ina – PA *-ɢah – rather than with that of Tahltan, Tagish, Kaska, and North and South Tutchone – PA *-tuʼ (Kari 1996; Kari, Fall, & Pete 2003:39). The ambiguity surrounding Tsetsaut

650-561: Is distantly related to the Athabaskan–Eyak group to form the Na-Dene family , also known as Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit (AET). With Jeff Leer 's 2010 advances, the reconstructions of Na-Dene (or Athabascan–Eyak–Tlingit) consonants, this latter grouping is considered by Alaskan linguists to be a well-demonstrated family. Because both Tlingit and Eyak are fairly remote from the Athabaskan languages in terms of their sound systems, comparison

700-694: Is elected by the Board of Directors. The president of the Board of Directors is elected by the full board and serves as the chief executive officer of the corporation. Programs funded by the Bureau of Indian Affairs , the Department of Labor and the Alaska Native Health Services are available to tribal governments, and eligible Alaska Native and American Indians . Services financed by the state of Alaska are provided for all residents of

750-556: Is spoken by the largest number of people of any native language north of Mexico. The word Athabaskan is an anglicized version of a Cree language name for Lake Athabasca ( Moose Cree : Āðapāskāw '[where] there are reeds one after another') in Canada . Cree is one of the Algonquian languages and therefore not itself an Athabaskan language. The name was assigned by Albert Gallatin in his 1836 (written 1826) classification of

800-472: Is the reconstructed ancestor of the Athabaskan languages. Tanana Chiefs Conference The Tanana Chiefs Conference ( TCC ), the traditional tribal consortium of the 42 villages of Interior Alaska , is a non-profit organization that works toward meeting the needs and challenges for more than 10,000 Alaska Natives (mostly Alaskan Athabaskans ) in Interior Alaska. The consortium is based on

850-503: Is usually done between them and the reconstructed Proto-Athabaskan language. This resembles both Tlingit and Eyak much more than most of the daughter languages in the Athabaskan family. Although Ethnologue still gives the Athabaskan family as a relative of Haida in their definition of the Na-Dene family, linguists who work actively on Athabaskan languages discount this position. The Alaska Native Language Center , for example, takes

900-498: Is why it is placed in its own subgroup in the Rice–Goddard–Mithun classification. For detailed lists including languages, dialects, and subdialects, see the respective articles on the three major groups: Northern Athabaskan , Pacific Coast Athabaskan , Southern Athabaskan . For the remainder of this article, the conventional three-way geographic grouping will be followed except as noted. The Northern Athabaskan languages are

950-528: The Tanana Chiefs Conference and Alaska Native Language Center prefer the spelling Athabascan . Ethnologue uses Athapaskan in naming the language family and individual languages. Although the term Athabaskan is prevalent in linguistics and anthropology, there is an increasing trend among scholars to use the terms Dené and Dené languages , which is how many of their native speakers identify it. They are applying these terms to

1000-564: The Yukon and Northwest Territories , as well as in the provinces of British Columbia , Alberta , Saskatchewan and Manitoba . Five Athabaskan languages are official languages in the Northwest Territories, including Chipewyan ( Dënesųłıné ), Dogrib or Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì , Gwich'in (Kutchin, Loucheux), and the Northern and Southern variants of Slavey . The seven or more Pacific Coast Athabaskan languages are spoken in

1050-1088: The 20th century. He also met with the Barrow -based Inupiat Paitot, the forerunner of the Arctic Slope Native Association, and with the Association of Village Council Presidents in the Lower Kuskokwim area. In 1963, Ketzler flew to Washington, D.C. , to present a petition from 24 villages asking Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall to freeze state land selections until the Native land claims were settled. Ketzler left TCC from 1964 until 1969 to go back to Nenana, but other young leaders - Ralph Purdue, John Sackett and Tim Wallis - took over. In October 1966, TCC met in Anchorage with other Native leaders from around

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1100-493: The Alaska Area Native Health Service were established for Community Health Aide services, outreach services, environmental health, mental health and substance abuse services, and other programs in a gradual sequence. In the late 1970s, TCC successfully bid to receive a number of grants from the state of Alaska for delivery of health care, social services and public safety services to all residents of

1150-819: The CAIHC Counseling Center, the new TCC Dental Clinic and Eye Clinic, and several remote-site alcohol recovery camps. Underlying all these programs are the commitments started by the Tanana Chiefs generations ago where the two rivers meet. The commitment translates into political advocacy for land rights and self-determination. It means working for a strong priority under law for the subsistence rights of rural Alaskans. And it includes support for local village governments that choose to enforce their own laws under their own authority. The Tanana Chiefs Conference region covers an area of 235,000 square miles (610,000 km ), an area equal to about 37 percent of

1200-498: The Indian Self Determination and Education Act of 1975 allowed it to become the responsible provider for dozens of programs in the region. Contracts with the Bureau of Indian Affairs were established to transfer the responsibility for management and delivery of services such as housing, lands management, tribal government assistance, education and employment and natural resources programs to TCC. Contracts with

1250-684: The Northern group – has been called a "cohesive complex" by Michael Krauss (1973, 1982). Therefore, the Stammbaumtheorie or family tree model of genetic classification may be inappropriate. The languages of the Southern branch are much more homogeneous and are the only clearly genealogical subgrouping. Debate continues as to whether the Pacific Coast languages form a valid genealogical grouping, or whether this group may instead have internal branches that are tied to different subgroups in Northern Athabaskan. The position of Kwalhioqua–Clatskanai

1300-561: The Northern languages. Reflecting an ancient migration of peoples, they are spoken by Native Americans in the American Southwest and the northwestern part of Mexico . This group comprises the six Southern Athabaskan languages and Navajo. The following list gives the Athabaskan languages organized by their geographic location in various North American states, provinces and territories (including some languages that are now extinct). Several languages, such as Navajo and Gwich'in, span

1350-460: The Pacific Coast grouping, but a recent consideration by Krauss (2005) does not find it very similar to these languages. A different classification by Jeff Leer is the following, usually called the "Leer classification" (Tuttle & Hargus 2004:72–74): Neither subgrouping has found any significant support among other Athabaskanists. Details of the Athabaskan family tree should be regarded as tentative. As Tuttle and Hargus put it, "we do not consider

1400-655: The Pacific Northwest of the United States. These include Applegate, Galice, several Rogue River area languages, Upper Coquille, Tolowa, and Upper Umpqua in Oregon ; Eel River, Hupa, Mattole–Bear River, and Tolowa in northern California ; and possibly Kwalhioqua-Clatskanie in Washington . The seven Southern Athabaskan languages are isolated by considerable distance from both the Pacific Coast languages and

1450-468: The U.S. government ordered the construction of a road from Valdez on the Gulf of Alaska to Fort Egbert. American Summit, as the lowest point in the mountains separating the two locations, was a natural site for the road, which was completed by 1901. To supply even faster communications, the U.S. military began the construction of Washington-Alaska Military Cable and Telegraph System , of which Eagle would be

1500-452: The boundaries: these languages are repeated by location in this list. For alternative names for the languages, see the classifications given later in this article. Eyak and Athabaskan together form a genealogical linguistic grouping called Athabaskan–Eyak (AE) – well- demonstrated through consistent sound correspondences , extensive shared vocabulary, and cross-linguistically unique homologies in both verb and noun morphology . Tlingit

1550-405: The development of natural resources. Village corporations, representing individual Native communities, have their own natural and financial resources to maintain. TCC incorporated Doyon Limited as the regional for-profit corporation for the specific purpose of making a profit for their stockholders. The act left a place for non-profit corporations to administer health and social service programs for

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1600-495: The entire language family. For example, following a motion by attendees in 2012, the annual Athabaskan Languages Conference changed its name to the Dené Languages Conference. Linguists conventionally divide the Athabaskan family into three groups, based on geographic distribution: The 32 Northern Athabaskan languages are spoken throughout the interior of Alaska and the interior of northwestern Canada in

1650-402: The following classification for the Athabaskan languages based exclusively on typological (non-lexical) data. However, this phylogenetic study was criticized as methodologically flawed by Yanovich (2020), since it did not employ sufficient input data to generate a robust tree that does not depend on the initial choice of the "tree prior", i.e. the model for the tree generation. Proto-Athabaskan

1700-476: The health and social service challenges for more than 10,000 Alaska Natives spread across a region of 235,000 square miles (610,000 km ) in Interior Alaska. TCC's movement into the modern era began with the advancement of non-Natives into the Interior. Tribal leaders strengthened their loose confederation to protect traditional rights. The first land dispute came in 1915 when the chiefs organized to protect

1750-461: The interior. In 1980, TCC moved to decentralize the operations of its programs away from Fairbanks , through the establishment of subregional offices in Fairbanks, Fort Yukon , Galena , Holy Cross , McGrath and Tok . During the 1980s, this process allowed for more local employment, attention to subregional program priorities, and better access by TCC clients to information and services. In

1800-467: The languages of North America. He acknowledged that it was his choice to use this name for the language family and the associated ethnic groups: "I have designated them by the arbitrary denomination of Athabascas, which derived from the original name of the lake." The four spellings— Athabaskan , Athabascan , Athapaskan , and Athapascan —are in approximately equal use. Particular communities may prefer one spelling over another (Krauss 1987). For example,

1850-513: The largest group in the Athabaskan family, although this group varies internally about as much as do languages in the entire family. The urheimat of the Athabaskan family is most likely in the Tanana Valley of east-central Alaska. There are many homologies between Proto-Athabaskan vocabulary and patterns reflected in archaeological sites such as Upward Sun, Swan Point and Broken Mammoth (Kari 2010). The Northern Athabaskan group also contains

1900-650: The mid-1980s, under the leadership of President William C. "Spud" Williams, TCC successfully assumed management of the Alaska Native Health Center in Fairbanks (renamed the Chief Andrew Isaac Health Center after the late Traditional Athabascan Chiefs from Dot Lake ) and the contract health care program. In the late 1980s, other new facilities and services were developed, including the Paul Williams House,

1950-447: The most linguistically conservative languages, particularly Koyukon, Ahtna, Dena'ina, and Dakelh/Carrier (Leer 2008). Very little is known about Tsetsaut, and for this reason it is routinely placed in its own tentative subgroup. The Nicola language is so poorly attested that it is impossible to determine its position within the family. It has been proposed by some to be an isolated branch of Chilcotin. The Kwalhioqua–Clatskanie language

2000-493: The northernmost point. Telegraph lines were strung over American Summit in 1902, and an undersea cable connected Valdez to Seattle in 1904. After 1909, when a radio link was established, the telegraph line was abandoned. The road remained and was improved so that by the 1920s, the first automobiles climbed American Summit. In World War II, construction of the Alaska Highway also spurred work on that highway's side roads, and

2050-479: The people. The Tanana Chiefs Conference became the non-profit corporation for the TCC region. With the land claims settlement, a major goal had been accomplished. But other pressing needs remained. Under the leadership of Mitch Demientieff, a 20-year-old University of Alaska student when elected TCC president in 1973, TCC developed a regional health authority for tribal health programs. The organization acted quickly when

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2100-422: The points of difference between the two models ... to be decisively settled and in fact expect them to be debated for some time to come." (Tuttle & Hargus 2004:74) The Northern group is particularly problematic in its internal organization. Due to the failure of the usual criteria of shared innovation and systematic phonetic correspondences to provide well-defined subgroupings, the Athabaskan family – especially

2150-590: The position that recent improved data on Haida have served to conclusively disprove the Haida-inclusion hypothesis. Haida has been determined to be unrelated to Athabaskan languages. A symposium in Alaska in February 2008 included papers on the Yeniseian and Na-Dené families. Edward Vajda of Western Washington University summarized ten years of research, based on verbal morphology and reconstructions of

2200-527: The proto-languages, indicating that these languages might be related. The internal structure of the Athabaskan language family is complex, and its exact shape is still a hotly debated issue among experts. The conventional three-way split into Northern, Pacific Coast, and Southern is essentially based on geography and the physical distribution of Athabaskan peoples rather than sound linguistic comparisons. Despite this inadequacy, current comparative Athabaskan literature demonstrates that most Athabaskanists still use

2250-465: The region, the U.S. Army began to establish a series of forts along the Yukon River in order to help maintain order. One of these was Fort Egbert , built in the town of Eagle. Because of its isolated location, supplies for the fort and town had to either travel along the width of Alaska via the Yukon River or through previously established transportation routes in Canada. Seeking a quick all-American route,

2300-552: The region. In 2006, The Tanana Chiefs Conference had almost seven hundred full-time employees and numerous part-time and seasonal positions. About two-thirds of the staff members work in village positions, with two-thirds of the staff members also being Alaskan Natives. The history of the Tanana Chiefs Conference (TCC) reflects the importance of balancing the traditional Native values with the modern demands facing us as indigenous peoples. TCC works toward meeting

2350-611: The state, including the active and vocal delegations from ANB and ASNA, and formed the Alaska Federation of Natives . In 1968, Alaska Natives were ready when oil was discovered on the North Slope . The first land settlement bill had been introduced in the United States Congress , and claims had been registered for most of the land in question. Secretary Udall, acting on Ketzler's petition, had frozen

2400-497: The status of land titles in the absence of a Native land claims settlement in late 1966. The land freeze sharpened the interest of the state and the oil companies to settle the land disputes. After a historic struggle in which Ketzler and dozens of other Alaska Natives lived in Washington, D.C., for weeks, Congress authorized a settlement of more than 40 million acres (160,000 km ) and nearly $ 1 billion to Alaska Natives through

2450-461: The three-way geographic grouping rather than any of the proposed linguistic groupings given below, because none of them has been widely accepted. This situation will presumably change as both documentation and analysis of the languages improves. Besides the traditional geographic grouping described previously, there are a few comparatively based subgroupings of the Athabaskan languages. Below the two most current viewpoints are presented. The following

2500-587: Was Al Ketzler Sr., of Nenana. He helped organize a meeting of 32 villages at Tanana in June 1962, leading to the incorporation of The Tanana Chiefs Conference. Acting as the conference's first president, Ketzler contacted national Indian organizations and met with the Alaska Native Brotherhood , an organization formed in Sitka by Tlingits and Haidas of southeastern Alaska in the early part of

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