SIX YEARS AGO: Taking Charge, Villages Tried To Keep Elders Safe By Barring Cross-Village Traffic

COPPER RIVER HISTORY 

THE COVID YEARS IN THE COPPER VALLEY 

Spring & Summer of 2020 

Six years ago, in March, 2020, Gulkana Village put up a blockade in an attempt to protect their elders from a brand new disease called Covid which was killing large numbers of people in the Lower 48, especially the elderly.

The Journal, which had just been reinstated on the web a few days before the blockade went up, wrote a story about it. Several months later, the following story was written in July, as the pandemic continued. This report tracked several other Copper Valley communities that were rattled by the intensity of the virus and its dangers, and joined in the quarantine effort. 

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24-Hour Physical Blockade, Mid-July at Gulkana Entrance. (Photo, Country Journal)

 Gakona & Kluti-Kaah Join Gulkana & Mentasta With Efforts To Protect Elders 

At least four villages have joined a strong local effort on the part of the Ahtna Native community to try to keep covid-19 out of local homes and families, by shutting off traffic into their communities. 

Faced with rapidly rising numbers of coronavirus cases in the region, and empowered by tribal authority conveyed by the U.S. government, several Ahtna villages have closed their communities to incoming traffic. They posted their mandates on various Facebook sites.

Holli Nollner guards the Gakona Village entrance. July 28th. (Photo, Country Journal)

Gakona and Kluti-Kaah are joining in on a major tactic enacted by Gulkana Village and Mentasta Village, both of which erected barricades and signs at their entrances months ago, in an effort to hold down traffic and transmission.

The strongest recent mandate is from Mentasta, at the northern border of the Copper Valley where it  phases into Tanana Country.

Lucy Pete at the Hector Ewan Road entrance to Kluti-Kaah homes. July 27th. (Photo, Country Journal)

The only valid forms of local government in the Copper Valley are village councils. The valley as a whole is in what is known in Alaska as the "unorganized borough" and is without government. The first layer of government for most people living outside of Native villages is the state government, in Juneau.

David Bell is guarding this second entrance to the Kluti-Kaah Subdivision. July 27th. (Photo, Country Journal)

Find three mandates below: