Salmon, herring, and other fish native to the Alaskan waters have a seasonal migration, swimming inland in the summer to find appropriate, typically rocky, spawning grounds upstream to lay their young. The herring, for instance, which lay their young near the Nelson Island villages, serve as a main food source for the people there. Salmon, on the other hand, swim more inland and are caught using fishing nets along the broad rivers in the lower Yukon.

As the environment changes within the year, Yup’ik people migrate to areas that have historically supported their seasonal subsistence. For instance, during the migration of fish during the summer and at the first moment of ice-breakup on the water, Yup’ik people travel to fish camps along the coast-lines. One example of a Yup’ik fish camp, one of the largest and most established today, is Umkumiut on the western end of Nelson Island. Today, a camp like this is mostly inhabited by old men, women, and children, which are organized to perform tasks such as catching, drying, and preparing fish. Tasks like drying and harvesting the skin of fish is done near the coastline because of the appropriate cool conditions (from the sea breeze) that maintains the preservation of the fish after catching. Men will do the fishing on the water in the Norton Sound, then carry the catch to lined pits, where they harvest is covered and left to soften for three to five days. After this, the fish are ready to be prepared and dried by women. Women use an uluaq (a woman’s knife), which you can see a picture of HERE, to remove parts of the fish not meant for drying, and lay out the rest like a blanket over a drying rack. The fish are preserved by the unique temperature and smoking process. 

Though salmon is a main food source in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta where Yup’ik people reside, all parts of the fish are used in some way. The then durable and dried salmon skin is used for waterproof parkas, bags (as seen in the collection), and other garments. Along with an intensive process of harvesting, an equally challenging process is undergone in order to create waterproof stitches used for the bags in the collection. This intense weather and hardwork of harvesting and preparing fish continues throughout the entire summer. 
The types of salmon which swim into rivers that Yup’ik people camp on start with king salmon (chinook) and are followed red salmon (sockeye).

As the Yup’ik culture has changed in the face of modern Alaskan living, so has the relationship of fishing and Yup’ik people. Technologies, such as snow-mobiles that have caused more men to commute between the fishing camps and villages, and social structures, like schools, has changed the migration practice of the Yup’ik people. Alongside this, commercial fisheries, reliance on government, and shifting cultural practice under western influence has left fish camps like Umkumiut almost abandoned during the summer fish harvest. In the face of the Earth’s changing climate, sensitive areas, like Alaska, and animals, like salmon, have seen the most change. Despite all this, Alaskan Indigenous culture still lives richly through the elders and young people of the villages.

Follow the tags below, or at the top of the page to see Yup'ik objects utilizing fish material.

(Baker, 1993)
(Fienup-Riordan, 2007)