Adlai Alexander

Adlai Alexander, First Chief of Fort Yukon, at his fish camp upriver. "Back in those days fish was so abundant we just used to fish for King Salmon and in the fall time we wouldn’t even fish for dog salmon, or silver salmon, because we got so much king salmon that there was enough there to feed the dogs through the winter.

“Nowadays we got this commercial fisheries and everything, they’re doing it for money. And us, we’re just doing it to subsist. And some people just don’t understand that yet. That’s why there’s a shortage of salmon and everything else, you know -like the wild game, their world is getting smaller as people develop more and more.”

“We’ve got to do something with these youth because they’re our most important resource. And if we don’t do something with them today, they just might take the other path and go down into drugs and alcohol, and that’s an everyday fact of life. We’ve got to use up those funding for education and training, because once this war starts, those funds are no longer going to be there.”