Malemiut Plains

The lowlands east of Norton Sound lie between the coast and the interior river country of western Alaska. Tundra, wetlands and scattered lakes cover much of the landscape, while rivers provide routes toward the sea. Unalit Yup’ik communities lived along Norton Sound, and in the nineteenth century Iñupiaq-speaking Malemiut families moved south from the Kotzebue Sound region. Hunting, fishing and travel connected these peoples across a broad country that crossed the boundary between coastal and inland ways of life.