Eliza Jones and Refuge staff meet with Alatna residents to discuss the Native placenames project. August 6, 2006. FWS photo.

Refuge Manager Mike Spindler and Assistant Planner Deborah Webb discuss Native placename locations with residents of Allakaket. August 6, 2006. FWS photo.

A Native placename map will be included in the Kanuti NWR Revised Comprehensive Conservation Plan.

In remote parts of Alaska “place names” are important to biologists, hunters, fishers and Native elders alike.  Early map makers sometimes tried to use local Native names, but the meanings were often lost when translated into English.  The result is often a long word that many people cannot pronounce and that has meaning to few; Native speakers have trouble understanding the English translated word, and non-native speakers have equal trouble pronouncing and understanding the correct Native word.  Just imagine the confusion when people of two cultures try to communicate about geographically related hunting and fishing regulations! This is one reason why cultural resource scientists are now studying place names.   

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Koyukuk River resident and elder Eliza Jones guided efforts to gather information about Native place names in the area of the Kanuti Refuge around the villages of Allakaket and Alatna. She worked closely with then Refuge Information Technician Johnson B. Moses, an elder with extensive local knowledge of Refuge resources. In 1997, the names were compiled and documented on maps and in a report written by Eliza and University of Alaska Fairbanks staff. Many of the recorded names refer in their meaning somehow to the topography of the landscape. For example, the traditional Koyukon Athabaskan name of the Koyukuk River, Kk’uyetl’ots’ene, literally means ‘River with willows towards its headwaters’. Or Totohudaatlnenh Denh refers to a ‘Lake brought close to the river by erosion’. Other names emphasize the importance of a place to certain animals or as hunting and fishing grounds. Tokkaa' Kk'aateyet, for example, translates to ‘Red-necked Grebe Lake’, and Huts'enh Nok'etedelaaghe indicates a ‘Place from where fish start their run (downstream)’. Yet another group of names may identify places where a one-time event took place, such as an earthquake or a clash between rival clans.  

In 2006 the Refuge worked with Eliza again to update and compile almost 300 of these names into a GIS database.  This has facilitated the Service’s proper use of Native place names on maps. Refuge staff members joined Eliza to present draft maps in Alatna and Allakaket in August, and as a result of those meetings were able to finalize a Native place name map to be included in the Kanuti Refuge Revised Comprehensive Conservation Plan. These maps will now be used to help clarify hunting regulations and make additional outreach projects more relevant to residents who live near and use the Refuge regularly.