Regional Background

The Bering Straits Native Corporation region is the most culturally diverse region established through the Alaska Native Land Claims.

Three distinct languages -- Inupiat, Siberian Yup’ik and Central Yup’ik -- are spoken here. For centuries, the areas north and west of Solomon were occupied by Inupiat speakers, while the area to the east and south was the homeland of Yup’ik. The people of the Diomede and King Islands are Inupiat.  Saint Lawrence Island is the home of the only Siberian Yup’ik people on the American side of Bering Strait.

The lifestyles and subsistence pursuits of the Bering Strait people were even more diverse than their languages:

• Inland caribou hunters and fishermen, exemplified by the Qawiaramiut people (now Mary’s Igloo and Teller Native Corporation) occupied most of the interior of the Seward Peninsula.
• Along the coast margin of Norton Sound, Unaliq people pursued sea mammals, fish and caribou.
• King Island, some 40 miles off the mainland and only 2.3 square miles in area, supported people who were walrus, polar bear, and seal hunters.
• Like the King islanders, the Diomede Island and Saint Lawrence Island people have lived off the ocean's resources.

Small groups of people from the areas of the Selawik and Kobuk Rivers, located north of the BSNC region, migrated south, beginning around 160 years ago, to occupy the communities of Norton Sound. This migration may have been the result of a famine in the northern area, combined with the devastation brought by smallpox and the disappearance of the local caribou herds. These Malemiut speakers (a dialect of Inupiat) married into the remaining families of Yup’ik speakers, eventually settling in the communities of Koyuk, Shaktoolik, and Unalakleet. The communities of St. Michael and Stebbins are the home of Central Yup’ik people.

While the introduction of cash into the local economies and the establishment of permanent communities, schools, churches and health services have brought significant change over the past 100 years, living off the land continues to be the central component of each community’s identity. Balancing the need for cash to supplement and enhance subsistence pursuits with the ancient history of land use and natural resource stewardship is a continuing testament to the strength and viability of the region’s people.