My sister, Rain, had brought her friend up to live in Alaska. Her name was Toni St. Regis and she was a gem. She had worked for the 'big' publications when she was younger, but her heart was with the Indigenous Peoples and she fit into the Chickaloon Tribe just perfectly. Toni took the rough drawing of our Athabascan Nation Chickaloon Village logo and drew the new version as it appears today. She helped my sis design the newsletter and taught her the tricks of the trade. Sometimes I watched them working on the layout and it would nearly make me dizzy, all that pulling and dragging and switching of things. Toni encouraged me write. She told me I had a gift and she loved what I wrote and the way I wrote it and she gave me the courage to write some more.

Toni made her transition on March 29, 1999. Wherever you are, my friend, know that my kind thoughts of love are yours for the taking...Ahana

Patricia Wade

A Little History

The Northern Athabascan people have occupied central Alaska and northwestern Canada for more than 40,000 years, according to native oral traditions of our elders.

Before the arrival of the Russians and later the Americans, we Ahtna Athabascans of Chickaloon lived, hunted, trapped and fished, traded and carried on our traditions as we camped and traveled extensively from the Copper River Basin to the South of the Kenai Peninsula.  Traditionally, Chickaloon territory was a central point of trade of copper, sheep and goats from the north; and salmon, beluga, fur seals and dentalium shells from the south.