300 Villages: Gulkana

Courtesy of Angela Vermillion.
Courtesy of Angela Vermillion.

This week, we’re heading to Gulkana on the Richardson Highway north of Glennallen. Angela Vermillion is tribal administrator for the Gulkana Village Council.

Download Audio

“My name is Angela Vermillion and I am the tribal administrator for Gulkana Village Counsel.

The village is located in-between the Gulkana River and the Copper River. And we are located on the Richardson Highway. And we are a small a small village of between 75 to 100 people.

Courtesy of Angela Vermillion.
Courtesy of Angela Vermillion.

We have Spruce Trees and in our background we have the Wrangell Mountains. We got a lot of hills, we got rivers and creeks.

People in Gulkana we are employed. Some work in the Copper River School District, work for our native regional corporation and we actually have a quite a few that work here for the Gulkana Village Counsel and various jobs.

For some in the summertime, we’re very much involved in our subsistence way of life. Have fish wheels and a lot of people are involved with fish[ing] for the wintertime. We do that and various ways of smoking it, drying it, jarring it [and] freezing it.

And then for fun people actually instead of on the fish wheel they actually go fishing with [a] fishing pole.

There’s just a lot of activities [like] biking [and] hiking.

We have street lights and we have paved roads and paved sidewalks which that…not…that’s kind of unusual for a smaller village to have all of that.”

Previous articleSpenard Jazz Fest: What Exactly IS Jazz?
Next articleAK: Making Music