Nushagagmiut

The Nushagagmiut — “the people of Nushagak” — are a Central Alaskan Yup'ik group whose villages line the Nushagak River and Nushagak Bay at the head of Bristol Bay.

Their country, shared in its upper reaches with Athabaskan neighbours, offered rich salmon fisheries: five species of Pacific salmon ascend the river, above all the summer run of king salmon, supplemented by sea mammals taken on the bay and caribou hunted inland.

Like other Yup'ik they organized village life around the men's community house, the qasgiq, and moved seasonally between fishing, hunting and trapping camps. In 1818 the Russian-American Company built Alexandrovski Redoubt on Nushagak Bay, and an Orthodox mission followed in 1837, turning Nushagak into a multi-ethnic trading centre where Yup'ik came to exchange furs and provisions.