Dena'ina Uplands

These uplands form part of the Dena’ina homeland in south-central Alaska, a territory extending from Seldovia and Pedro Bay toward Chickaloon, Talkeetna and Lime Village. Covering more than 41,000 square miles, it includes inland valleys, waterways and coastal approaches. The Dena’ina are an Alaska Native Athabaskan people who came into this region sometime between 1,000 and 1,500 years ago.

They were the only Alaskan Athabaskan group to live along the coast, and their hunter-gatherer culture drew on both marine and inland produce. Society followed matrilineal descent, while travel and seasonal work linked settlements across a broad country rather than confining them to one permanent center.

The routes later associated with the Iditarod Trail grew from Native trails used by the Dena’ina, Deg Hit’an and Inupiaq, showing that knowledge of passes, rivers and winter travel had regional importance. Neighboring Athabaskan and Yupik peoples occupied lands in several directions, making these uplands one part of a wider network of exchange and kinship. For a terrain defined by difficult travel, the history of the country lies in how communities understood and connected highland paths, inland hunting grounds and the coastal edge.