Chilkoot River - History

History

The L’uknax Adi clan of Tlingit Indians, whose principal symbol is the red salmon or sockeye, traditionally owned the Chilkoot River and the Chilkoot Lake.

Another group of inhabitants of the Heines/Chilkoot River area are the Jilkoot Kwaan (Kwaan is Tlingit word meaning “to dwell”). They are a clan of the Tlingits who also owned land in the vicinity.

The history of the Chilkoot River and the Chilkoot Lake is directly linked to the Chilkoot village, where the Tlingits lived, after which the river and the lake are named. This village existed near the outlet of the Chilkoot River and was divided into two parts by the river; the western part was inhabited by Raven clan Tlingits while the Eagle Clan Tlingits lived on the eastern part. It was an important location for the southeast Alaskan Tlingits who reportedly settled here during pre-historic days when they became occupied in salmon and hooligan fishing. They used hooligan fish to make fish oil, their cooking medium, by cooking the fishes in a canoe lined with hot rocks. The name Chilkoot has also a legend tagged to it, as the word ‘lkoot’ refers to an incident of the village getting totally buried under a land slide of the “red bluff on the Chilkoot Lake.” The population of the village dwindled over the years from a figure of 127 people (in 1880 census), just to 2 houses with 7 people in June 1990, and was finally abandoned. Another factor for desertion of the village is attributed to the cannery industries that got established in the area for processing salmons that were fished from the river and the lake, in Haines and other places in the late 19th and early 20th century; the last Tlingit reportedly left the place in the early 1940s and most of the families now live in Haines. The fishing tools that the Tlingits used for fishing in the river and the lake in the past, which were mostly nets and gaff hooks, have also since been replaced with modern fishing rods and reels.

The biologists of Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) constructed a fishing weir across the Lower Chilkoot River in 1976 to enumerate the movement of Sockeye fishes from the Chilkoot lake downstream.

The road from the Lynn Canal to the outlet of the lake was extended and improved over a period from 1953 to 1956 by the Alaska Road Commission; the intended purpose was to have access to the recreation area for quality fishing and access to small boats to the river shores for extracting timber from the area for commercial purposes. The road on the upstream side of the lake known as 'Cox Road' (named after a homestead owner in the upper reach of the river) on the west side of the lake was built in 1968.

Use of boats on the Chilkoot River and the lake from the Tlingit village was in the form of canoes rowed to the “Glory Hole,” at the upper end of the lake for harvesting salmons and also for hunting wild life in the hills. However, in the mid 20th century boats were used to transport construction materials and to the homestead built by Cox in the upper reach of the river. Now, commercial ships operate in the lake, catering to tourism for fishing, sightseeing and for hunting expeditions.