mouth of Big River. nameless band — which ranged around Vinasale Mountain and had close ties with the former Tatlawiksuk and Takotna River bands. The Upper Kuskokwim communities: McGrath was a seasonal Upper Kuskokwim Athabascan village Takotna had a mixed population of Ingalik Athabascans and Yupîk Eskimos Nikolai is an Upper Kuskokwim Athabascan village Telida is an Upper Kuskokwim Athabascan village Prehistory History The first written account of the early trade and contact was by Lavrenty Alekseyevich Zagoskin, a Russian naval officer, who was given the mission of exploring the Interior of Russian America for the Russian-American Company. In the 1830s the Russians established a series of trading posts within reach of the Upper Kuskokwim people. On the Kuskokwim River the Russian trading posts consisted of Kolmakof Redoubt and a small post at Vinasale. With the U.S. purchase of Alaska in 1867, control of trading stations and the fur trade passed to Americans. Hunting-gathering The homeland of the Upper Kuskokwim Athabaskans is a part of Denali National Park and Preserve and located in the Tanana-Kuskokwim Lowlands ecoregion. The Upper Kuskokwim name of Denali mountain is (literally 'the tall one'). The Upper Kuskokwim Athabaskans were semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers who moved seasonally throughout the year within a reasonably well-defined territory to harvest fish, bird, mammal, berry and other renewable resources. The people of Nikolai and Telida hunted seasonally in the Alaska Range extensively for many generations, well into the 1900s. The economy of Upper Kuskokwim Athabaskans is a mixed cash-subsistence system, like other modern foraging economies in Alaska. The subsistence economy is main non-monetary economy system. Cash is often a rare commodity in foraging economies, because of lack of employment opportunities or perceived conflicts in the demands of wage employment and subsistence harvesting activities. Wild resource use in many Athabaskan villages is overwhelmingly for domestic consumption. The large animals most harvested were Dall sheep (, ), caribou (), black bear () and grizzly bear (, ). Until the late 1800s and early 1900s moose () were absent in most of the area. Before moose started to appear in the late 19th century and gradually replaced caribou population in upper Kuskokwim regions, caribou were the main target species for native hunters. Caribou also spend much of the year in the mountains, moving down to the lowlands primarily during the winter. Traditionally, Dall sheep were a favorite meal for people in Upper Kuskokwim region. People