Ice Slower to Form, Quicker to Break Up: Copper River Elders and Trappers Report

In Alaska’s Copper River Basin, frozen rivers were once highways. Snow made the land easy to cross, and ice carried people, sleds and trappers from bank to bank. Residents interviewed for a National Park Service article say that is changing: ice is slower to form and quicker to break up, snow is less reliable, and shrubs are crowding the trails. The author, an anthropologist, adds that climate change is only part of the story.

The Copper River downstream of the Tazlina River confluence, March 2022. Changing ice and snow conditions create unexpected patches of open water and dangerous crossing conditions. NPS / Barbara Cellarius.

Winter in the Basin

Winter conditions matter in the rural Far North: snow gives access to much of the land, frozen rivers and lakes are highways, and access to subsistence foods depends on snow and ice. The Ahtna, a Northern Dene Athabaskan group, have a traditional territory that covers virtually the entire Copper River Basin and parts of the Upper Susitna and Tanana basins. Until the early 20th century virtually all Ahtna lived semi-nomadic lives, moving several times a year; winter work meant hunting moose and caribou, trapping furbearing animals, fishing on frozen rivers and lakes and gathering firewood. Travel was easiest in winter, when snow smoothed the land for sleds and frozen rivers were easy to cross.

The 20th century brought outsiders, highways and permanent villages, all on the west side of the Copper River, and by 1950 nearly all Ahtna lived in villages or towns. Close ties to the land and to wild foods persisted. Trapping, practiced only in winter, was a main source of income for many families from the late 1800s to the mid-1900s, declined as wage work grew and fur prices swung, and continues as a seasonal job or a non-professional activity. Trappers depend on predictable snow and ice.

A warming region

The Basin has a subarctic continental climate, with winter historically lasting from October to April or May. The article says the Arctic and subarctic are warming faster than virtually anywhere else on earth, and that in Alaska winter is warming faster than any other season. Elsewhere in interior Alaska, a study found breakup significantly earlier in all communities analyzed, but later freeze-up in only some.

Little has been published about snow and ice in the Basin itself. Lieutenant Henry Allen’s 1885 expedition noted ice breaking up on the Chitina and Chitistone rivers in late April and early May, but covered only one season. A 1960 interview by anthropologists with an Elder records the Copper as crossable on foot from November to April and a big breakup sometimes on the 5th of May, or in late April in an early spring, which broadly matches what today’s Elders say about the mid-20th century.

What the interviews found

The study rests on nine oral interviews with residents who have extensive knowledge of winter activities in the Basin, chosen for their experience. Trapping was of particular interest because it is done mainly in winter, and because the east side of the Copper River can be reached in winter only when the river is frozen. Eight of the nine had current or former trapping experience; six of them went back to the 1970s or earlier, and four had trapped within the past two decades.

Ice. A majority said ice was more favorable for travel in past decades: crossing rivers was less treacherous and could be done earlier in the fall and later in the spring, and midwinter travel was more predictable. Recently ice has been slower to form and quicker to break up, presumably because of warmer winters and shoulder seasons, and several respondents described more variable and treacherous ice even in midwinter, with open water or jumbled blocks. A few had noticed no clear pattern, perhaps because of the noisy fluctuations inherent in climate trends. In the 1970s and earlier, respondents said, crossing the Copper was unremarkable: it could be crossed in many places, people crossed often to cut wood or visit family cabins on the east side, and open water gave itself away with steam in the cold.

Later freeze-ups and earlier breakups began to shorten the trapping season in the 1970s. One trapper noticed changing ice by 1970, pulled traps early because the ice was degrading, and stopped trapping on the east side. Another said that from the late 1970s the river could not be crossed until later in the winter, and because trapping is over by spring, the work had to be squeezed into a couple of months. A third said people used to cross even in October, a month for spear fishing there now, and that ice might not form until December, leaving a month of trapping and little reason to bother.

Snow. Smaller snowpacks, especially early in the season, have hindered access along the snowmachine trails trappers use, but snow has changed more erratically than ice: the winter of 2021-2022 began with very little snow and ended with record snowfall in the Basin. In past decades snow was more regular and could be deep by early November; one trapper recalled breaking trails before November 10 because the snow was already three feet deep, and said the trend has been less snow and later snow than 40-50 years ago.

Trappers also describe rotten snow, wetter and slushier than the hard crust and dry snow that made trails easy, which clogged snowmachines, stuck to skis and meant carrying a hatchet and wax. Some respondents now see a lack of snow early in the season as a major problem, and one said it was a main reason for giving up trapping: with rain in late October or November and no snow to set traps in, changing tactics does not help.

Shrubs add to the trouble. Several respondents said the spread of shrubs into forest and tundra that used to be clear, shrubification, which is closely tied to changing climate across the Arctic and subarctic, has made winter travel through the forest harder, especially in low-snow years. Alders now have to be cut, one trapper sometimes carries a chainsaw, which was never needed before, and heavy snow can bring trees and brush down onto the trail.

Open water on the Copper River north of Copper Center, March 2022. NPS / Barbara Cellarius.

Not only climate

Other changes happened at the same time. The east side of the Copper River was gradually abandoned in the first half of the 20th century, and by the early 1950s nobody lived there permanently; access probably played a part, since the modern villages with their schools and post offices are on the west side. Year-round jobs also cut winter use of the land: by the 1970s year-round employment was common and ruled out full-time trapping, and one respondent said money from the pipeline and union jobs made trapping financially unreasonable, something done only because people wanted to.

The shift from dog teams to snowmachines, mostly in the late 1960s and 1970s, came around the time respondents first noticed changing ice. Dogs could sense where ice was safe and stopped at overflow water, whereas a snowmachine can run straight into overflow; but snowmachines cover more ground, make breaking trail much easier and can speed over unstable ice or even open water, a crossing impossible on foot or with a dog team.

What it adds up to

The author concludes that traditional knowledge suggests climate change has had a demonstrable effect on winter access. Elders have noted a clear decline in ice conditions over several decades, with obvious effects on trappers and others who depend on frozen rivers and lakes for travel. Snow has varied but feels less reliable than before, especially early in the season, and together these changes have made winter access significantly more difficult. At the same time, climate change should be seen as one of a suite of social and environmental factors reshaping people’s relationship with the landscape: technological change and the rise of wage work also changed patterns of winter activity, which in turn changed how local people understand and relate to the land.

Sources

• Odin Miller, Anthropologist, Ahtna Intertribal Research Commission (the page’s own text and its acronym read “Resource Commission”), Traditional Knowledge of Changes in Winter Conditions in Alaska’s Copper River Basin, Alaska Park Science 22(1), 2023 (Reckoning with a Warming Climate), an abridged version of a technical report made under a cooperative agreement between the National Park Service and that Commission; the interviewees’ names, a table of them and the Commission’s maps are left out; rewritten in hubnx's own words.