COUNCIL OF ATHABASCAN TRIBAL GOVERNMENTS box 126 • alaska 99740 · or (907) 662-2587 (907) 662-2581

p.o.

fort yukon,

COUNCIL OF ATHABASCAN TRIBAL GOVERNMENTS box 126 • fort yukon, alaska 99740 · (907) 662-2587 or (907) 662-2581

p.o.

ORGANIZATIONAL BACKGROUND SUMMARY

The Council of Athabascan Tribal Governments (CATG) is a consortium of 10 tribal governments in the Yukon Flats, a 10,000 square mile region in the Northern Interior of Alaska partially above the Arctic Circle. We are about 1,250 people in number and live in nine small Gwichin Athabascan Indian villages scattered over the Flats and along the Yukon River. We make our living by hunting, fishing, and trapping. Seasonal jobs like fire fighting and construction supplement our subsistence activities but the per capita income falls at least a third below the poverty level in the United States. Unemployment is about 80% with a resulting dependence on welfare payments and, many of the state and federal programs that we had come to rely on have been cut with the resulting recurring cycle of economic recession.

There is no stable locally controlled economy in the Yukon Flats. The communities are being developed from the outside. We are dependent on state and federal welfare or handout programs. Our subsistence economy is under constant threat because we have no control over its regulation nor the payment we receive for our natural resources. This threat is expressed in the following excerpts from seven Economic Development conferences, meetings, and workshops that have been held in the Yukon Flats since September 1985:

"The control has been taken away from us and we need to regain it.
We're a strong government because we're Natives and we're interested
in our land. Like we always say, 'We're the boss of our land', and
slowly it's being taken away from us and, if we continue allowing it,
in the next five years, we won't have anything we won't have control
at all."

"...we have to have the land under protection so that we can continue
to live like we're doing. I mean, we can't live any other way We've
got to go out and shoot our moose but this land is getting closed
They come down with new regulations every year
tighter - pretty soon they might cut off trapping."

in.

"Like Simon here

it's tighter and

he was raised up there in the canyon up the Porcupine and he couldn't even go around the bend and build himself a

CATG

cabin where he wants to.

He had to get a permit and it took him a long time just to get that permit to build himself a cabin.

Now, when

that starts happening, that means that it's going to be happening to
us too.
And, he's living up there on the other end he goes trapping
up there every winter - all his life. Living up there all his life
doesn't mean a damn thing to where the force is coming from
force is coming this way the force is coming in on us. If we don't
stand together and go like that, then, we might as well kiss it good
bye."

the

"After 1991, there's a good possibility they're going to start taxing all our land and, if they do that, we're going to have to sell a chunk of land to pay taxes on the rest of the land and, eventually, we won't have any land left. The cash economy is here in our natural resources - we're just not using it and we're going to have to do it."

"One of the things that I would like to see is further development of
our fur industry. All the trappers I know are getting ripped off. We
could go as far as the finished product. We could make Lynx coats and
Marten hats. Somebody else is doing that and making all the money
and they just give us ten cents on the dollar! I see those nice Lynx
coats in Fairbanks, at Martin Victor. They cost $10,000 $30,000
really fancy. I don't see why we can't make that kind of product."

it's that responsibility has

"It's not something that we're after
been taken away from us. For a long time we haven't been responsible
for anything and, what we're really gearing up to do right now is
trying to take control and take that responsibility - our

responsibility to our community

We always leave it to somebody

is what we're really trying to do. we leave our responsibilities up to

somebody else. I think it's time that we take control of our own
responsibilities. I think that's really what we're doing."

Since the CATG first met to try to alleviate some of the conditions
our villages, lack of local control over economic activity in the Yukon
Flats has been cited as a major problem. The dollars that do come to the
Yukon Flats are not being circulated here. They migrate with the propie
who come
in to work or are spent on commodities and services that could
be provided here instead. When money is spent here for local products,
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