Wild Food Harvests in Seven Northern Alaska Communities: 117 to 691 Pounds Per Person

Cloudberry. Photo: NPS/Nicole Braem.

In seven northern Alaska communities near National Park Service (NPS) lands, household surveys between 2014 and 2018 found wild-food harvests ranging from 117 pounds per person in Central to 691 pounds per person in Eagle. Residents also describe a changing climate that is making it harder to reach the places where they hunt and fish. The findings come from an article in the NPS journal Alaska Park Science, written by two subsistence researchers and based on surveys by the Alaska Department of Fish & Game (ADF&G).

Why harvest data matter

Customary and traditional harvests of wild resources feed rural Alaska communities and support their economies, spiritual life and culture. Extended families often harvest and process food together and share it widely within and between communities. Subsistence grows out of a long history of Indigenous practice, and state and federal law give it priority over other consumptive uses.

Much of it happens on NPS-managed land. After the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) of 1980, the NPS took on ten national parks, preserves and monuments in Alaska, under a different approach from the rest of the country: access was more liberal and subsistence generally continued. Creating the parklands still cost some people: in some regions residents were displaced, and new regulations changed how people used the land. Documenting harvests, local knowledge, use areas and customary practices gives managers, and communities speaking for themselves in regulatory processes, critical information, and collecting it steadily lets analysts see change and managers adapt.

How the surveys work

For over 40 years ADF&G's Division of Subsistence has worked with Alaska communities to gather and report information on how they use fish, wildlife and plants, and the NPS supports research on harvests in communities with long subsistence histories in or near parklands. Standardized household surveys count what each household harvests and uses and collect demographic, economic and food security data, with room for comments on management concerns. Comprehensive studies add in-depth interviews with local experts, which give context on harvest and processing methods, changes in hunting areas and practices, climate and landscape change, and resource health. The harvest data go into the public online Community Subsistence Information System, and most full technical reports are online too.

Comprehensive surveys have been completed in over 240 Alaska communities. Rural residents harvest an average of 276 pounds of wild foods per person each year, against 19 pounds for urban residents, and in some areas more than 400 pounds. In rural Alaska, 60% of households harvest wild game and 86% use it; 83% harvest fish and 95% use it. The gaps reflect sharing between households.

Seven communities

Between 2014 and 2018 the division surveyed seven communities with long subsistence histories in or near NPS land. Eastern and central Alaska have mostly been home to people of Athabascan descent, who have long relied on moose and caribou alongside river salmon, and Buckland is mostly Iñupiaq, with marine mammals added to its harvest.

Source: ADF&G Division of Subsistence household surveys, 2014, 2017 and 2018.

Totals ranged from 7,910 pounds (Eagle Village) to 325,037 pounds (Buckland). Larger communities tend to harvest more, so the per-person figures allow a fairer comparison. What people harvest follows what is nearby. Communities directly on the Yukon River take large amounts of salmon, most of their harvest by weight; non-salmon fish matter more in places like Northway, with less salmon; moose and caribou make up larger shares in Buckland, Central and Hughes; and marine mammals appear only in Buckland, the one coastal community.

Changes over time

Buckland's harvest was stable per person; the larger total reflects a larger population, and the mix shifted a little toward salmon and away from marine mammals. Hughes tells a different story: with a population that stayed relatively stable, the harvest fell sharply, and salmon, the biggest part of the 1982 harvest, gave way to more large land mammals and non-salmon fish. The authors suggest causes such as fewer sled dogs, and so less salmon needed to feed them, and changes in resource abundance; in 2014 hunters said they had to travel farther for moose, at a rising cost in fuel. In Northway the total fell along with the population, but per-person harvests of non-salmon fish (129 pounds in 1987, 124 in 2014) and large land mammals (90 pounds, 86 pounds) were similar, while salmon, birds and eggs, and plants were higher per person.

What residents see changing

• Buckland. Sea ice has changed over lifetimes. Spring hunting of seals and walruses depends on thick sea ice as a platform for hunting and butchering, so quicker melting narrows the window and means longer trips. Break-up comes earlier, which makes river and lake travel treacherous in spring, and warmer falls delay freeze-up and leave less snow, so snowmachine travel can be hard or impossible.
• Hughes. Warmer seasons speed spring break-up and delay fall freeze-up on the Koyukuk River, a main travel route. Less snowfall hinders winter trails and dries spring conditions, lengthening the fire season by at least a month, and residents notice more frequent and severe fires. Thawing permafrost, draining lakes, eroding waterways and spreading brush together make it harder to reach harvest sites and other communities.
• Circle, Central and Eagle. Residents worry about declining salmon, a keystone species, and note warmer springs and falls and milder winters, which may thaw permafrost and dry lakes and waterways and make it harder to reach, process and store subsistence foods.
• Northway. Since the 1960s and 1970s the Chisana River has flooded clear creeks and lakes with silty glacial water, over a process lasting decades. Residents link the silt to fewer whitefish runs and to changes in where muskrats and ducks are found, and a traditional fishing site, locally called Fish Camp, was lost. The authors say the flooding is likely related to thawing permafrost.

The authors conclude that wild-resource harvests continue to make major contributions to rural well-being, that documenting them will matter more as the climate changes and keystone species like salmon decline, and that the long-term observations of people who have used the land for generations can teach managers a great deal.

Sources

• Caroline Brown (Alaska Department of Fish & Game) and Brooke McDavid (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service), "The harvest and use of wild resources by communities within or near northern Alaska parklands," Alaska Park Science 21(1), 2022, part of the series Commemorating ANILCA at 40, National Park Service. The authors' views are their own and not necessarily the NPS's. Survey data: ADF&G Division of Subsistence household surveys, 2014, 2017 and 2018; rewritten in hubnx's own words.