The First People in what is now Chugach State Park

Outdoor Explorer - Alaska Public Media

Aaron Leggett, President of the Native Village of Eklutna, photo courtesy Aaron Leggett.

This show is a follow-up to a show that aired in February of 2021 about Chugach State Park. We found a few paragraphs in the 2016 Management Plan about the First People to arrive in the Anchorage area intriguing. We will learn more about the seafaring First People who first discovered the Upper Cook Inlet and the Dena’ina Athabaskans who then moved into the area we now know as Anchorage and hunted and fished in the area we now know as Chugach State Park. Although Eklutna Inc. owns 10% of the land that Chugach State Park sits on and is the largest private landowner in the Anchorage Municipality, the Dena’ina have been called the “invisible people” because the stories of their ancestors have not been heard. Aaron Leggett, Senior Curator of Alaska History & Indigenous Culture at the Anchorage Museum and President of the Tribal Council of the Native Village of Eklutna, joins us to talk about the past, present, and future of the Dena’ina in the Anchorage area.

HOST: Lisa Keller

SEGMENTS:

Aaron Leggett, Senior Curator of Alaska History & Indigenous Culture at the Anchorage Museum and President of the Tribal Council of the Native Village of Eklutna

LINKS:

• Chugach State Park Management Plan
• “Shem Pete’s Alaska” book
• Aaron Leggett’s essay, “This Is My Story: “Tanaina” No More,” and the Anchorage Museum exhibit “Being Dena’ina”
• Native Village of Eklutna

BROADCAST: Thursday, September 30th, 2021. 10:00 am – 3:00 p.m. AKT

REPEAT BROADCAST: Thursday, September 30th, 2021. 8:00 – 9:00 p.m. AKT

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