Five hundred years ago, in a mountain-rimmed ocean fjord in southeast Alaska, Tlingit hunters armed with bone-tipped harpoons eased their canoes through chunks of floating ice, stalking seals near Sít Tlein (Hubbard) glacier. They must have glanced nervously up at the glacier’s looming, fractured face, aware that cascades of ice could thunder down and imperil the boats—and their lives. As they drew near, they would have asked the seals to give themselves as food for the people and talked to the spirit of Sít Tlein to release the animals from his care.
Five hundred years ago, in a mountain-rimmed ocean fjord in southeast Alaska, Tlingit hunters armed with bone-tipped harpoons eased their canoes through chunks of floating ice, stalking seals near Sít Tlein (Hubbard) glacier. They must have glanced nervously up at the glacier’s looming, fractured face, aware that cascades of ice could thunder down and imperil the boats—and their lives. As they drew near, they would have asked the seals to give themselves as food for the people and talked to the spirit of Sít Tlein to release the animals from his care.
Tlingit elders in the Alaska Native village of Yakutat today describe their ancestors’ daring pursuit of harbor seals, or «tsaa,» and the people’s respect for the spirits of the mountains, glaciers, ocean and animals of their subarctic world.
Long ago, they say, migrating clans of the Eyak, Ahtna and Tlingit tribes settled Yakutat fjord as the glacier retreated, shifting their hunting camps over time to stay close to the ice floe rookery where the animals give birth each spring. Clan leaders managed the hunt to avoid premature harvesting, overhunting or waste, reflecting Indigenous values of respect and balance between people and nature.
Now, Yakutat’s 300 Tlingit residents continue this way of life in modern form, harvesting more than 100 different fish, birds, sea mammals, land game and plants for subsistence use. Harbor seals are the most important, their rich meat and blubber prepared using traditional recipes and eaten at everyday meals and memorial potlatch feasts.
Yet the community faces a crisis: The dramatic decline of the Gulf of Alaska seal population due to commercial hunting in the mid-20th century and the failure of the animals to recover because of warming ocean waters. To protect the seals and their way of life, residents are turning to traditional ecological knowledge and ancestral conservation practices.
We are an Arctic archaeologist who studies human interactions with the marine ecosystem and a Tlingit tribal historian of the Yakutat Kwáashk’i Kwáan clan.
