Atna'tuu

Atna’tuu is the Ahtna name for the Copper River, whose waters run from the mountains of southern Alaska to the sea. Its basin is the homeland of the Ahtna, a Northern Dene people whose settlements and seasonal fishing places follow the river and its tributaries. Salmon returning upstream were a vital food, and copper from the interior was worked into tools and ornaments and exchanged with neighbouring peoples. In 1797 the Russian explorer Dmitrii Tarkhanov ascended the river as far as an Ahtna village near the Chitina, seeking the source of the metal.