All human beings need certain things to stay alive. You know what they are: food, air, water, clothing, and shelter. All human beings need these things, but different people get them in different ways. It is the different ways that Alaska Natives have used to get their basic needs that you will be studying. These ways are part of what we call a culture.
Before learning about people in other places or times, look at the way you fulfill your needs right now in Anchorage. How do you get food, air, water, clothing, and shelter? Where do the things you need come from? Could your family get them if you were the only people living in the area? If there were no town, stores, or money, could you fulfill your basic needs?
Perhaps you can imagine how you would survive: You would make use of the natural environment of the area. You would get your food clothing, shelter, water, and air from the plants, animals, minerals, and features of the natural environment.
What is your natural environment? The natural environment in Anchorage is not always easy to find. You have to imagine this area without all its houses, roads, buildings, bike trails, footbridges, water wells, playgrounds, and lawns. These things are all part of the man-made environment of Anchorage.
Lets look at Anchorage without its man-made environment. It is an area with some birch trees, some spruce and hemlock. There are swampy areas. There are marshy areas where birds nest. There are clear streams flowing down from the mountains, with salmon, and trout swimming up them in the summer and fall. There is tundra on the hills above the treeline. And there are many kinds of wildlife, such as moose, bears, sheep, clams, fish and birds.
This natural environment is what the Tanaina (also spelled Denaina) Athabascans found when they first arrived in the Anchorage area a long time ago. It was from this natural environment that they fulfilled their basic needs.
When those early Tanainas came to Anchorage, the first thing they had to do was learn about the environment. They had to learn what resources were in it. They had to know what time of year to get the resources. They had to know where and how to get the resources. It took each person many years to learn all those details. . |
