Culture

Indigenous culture, and the preservation of traditional values and intrinsic connections to the land and waters, is the cornerstone principle of our work. The words subsistence, spirituality and sovereignty may have obscure meanings for many Americans’, but to Native people, these three words are guiding concepts that carry great import for our every day lives.

The Eyak’s are a people surrounded in mystery. Their Athabascan language was separated from all outside influences for thousands of years. Their name eludes to a lagoon that was trapped, like a cul de sac with no exit. The Eyak language is in closer relation to the Athabascan languages of the American Southwest than to other Alaskan Athabascan languages. The Eyak ancestral homeland runs along 300 miles of the Gulf of Alaska from Prince William Sound, near the fishing village of Cordova, east across the Copper River Delta to the town now known as Yakutat. The Eyak lands were positioned in the heart of a triangle, between three powerful nations. A once deeper waterway served as a pathway of transportation and trade. The Eyak were the barters and traders between the powerful and much larger Tlingit, Chugach Eskimo and Aleut tribes. The Eyak Nation was the last Native American tribe to be re-recognized by European Americans in 1930. Their very existence as a separate tribe was lost until Frederica De Laguna recognized a separate people and language in the young mining town of Cordova.

Honorary Eyak Chief Marie Smith Jones was the last full-blooded Native speaker of the Eyak language. She passed away at 89 in January of 2008. LINK TO FILM

The loss of our Native speakers signals the loss of a culture and way of life. Now the only living fluent speaker is Dr. Michael Krauss, a University of Alaska linguist, anthropologist, and professor emeritus who taught himself the language through interviews conducted with Eyak people from the 50’s through to Marie’s passing.

EPC is honored to work with Indigenous people all over world.

In June 2002, EPC was able to host a group of Alaska Natives that came together in Cordova to share knowledge, experience and strategies for addressing the detrimental impacts of oil and gas development in Alaska. The gathering resulted in the formation of an Alaska network, Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands (REDOIL). Originally, the REDOIL network consisted of grassroots Alaska Natives of the Inupiat, Yupik, Aleut, Tlingit, Gwich'in, Eyak and Denaiana Athabascan tribes.  REDOIL strongly supports the self-determination rights of tribes in Alaska, a just transition from fossil fuel development, and the implementation of tribal options for sustainable development. REDOIL addresses the fossil fuel issues based on these primary pillars:  1) Sovereignty, 2) Human and Ecological Health/Subsistence, and 3) Global Warming.

EPC is strongly against proposed oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. We stand in solidarity with the Gwich’in. This coastal plain area is the birthplace of their primary food source and known to them as their ally, the Porcupine Caribou herd. The Gwich’in call this region “Izhik Gwats’an Gwandaii Goodit” which translates to: The Sacred Place Where Life Begins.” Take action and CALL your representative and congressperson and tell them NO to drilling in the Arctic Refuge.

Eyak Language
Copper River Tribal Keeper