Chistochina

At the edge of the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve and overshadowed by Mount Sanford is Chistochina, a traditional Athabascan village of 100 residents. Chistochina is along the Tok Cut-off Road, 42 miles northeast of Glennallen, and surrounded by rivers and creeks; Sinona Creek, Bolder Creek, Chistochina River and the largest of them all, the Copper River. The north entrance to the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, the country’s largest national park at 13.2 million acres, is only 35 miles down the road.

Chistochina has remained predominately an Athabascan village where subsistence hunting, fishing, trapping, and gathering are the basis of its economy. Visitors will often see beautiful handcrafts ranging from baskets and dolls to skins, furs, and beadwork on display and for sell in Chistochina’s handful of businesses. 

The rivers and the salmon that spawn up them was the reason the area was originally an Athabascan fish camp before evolving into a stopover for traders and trappers. When the Valdez-Eagle Trail was constructed during the gold rush to Eagle in 1897, miners utilized the traditional trail past the village and in the early 1900s the Chistochina Lodge was built as a roadhouse for travelers. The two-story log roadhouse was one of several along the Valdez-Eagle Trail, all spaced a day's journey apart by horse or dog team, and later designated a National Historic Site before burning down in 1999.