Tanana, Alaska
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Tanana Hohudodetlaatl Denh |
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| City | |
Postcard: Front Street, Tanana, 1910
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 Tanana
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| Coordinates: 65°10′14″N 152°4′33″W / 65.17056°N 152.07583°WCoordinates: 65°10′14″N 152°4′33″W / 65.17056°N 152.07583°W | |
| Country | United States |
| State | Alaska |
| Census Area | Yukon-Koyukuk |
| Incorporated | June 7, 1961 |
| Government | |
| • Mayor | Donna Folger |
| • State senator | Click Bishop (R) |
| • State rep. | Dave Talerico (R) |
| Area | |
| • Total | 15.6 sq mi (40.3 km2) |
| • Land | 11.6 sq mi (29.9 km2) |
| • Water | 4.0 sq mi (10.4 km2) |
| Elevation | 207 ft (63 m) |
| Population (2007) | |
| • Total | 275 |
| • Density | 26.6/sq mi (10.3/km2) |
| Time zone | Alaska (AKST) (UTC-9) |
| • Summer (DST) | AKDT (UTC-8) |
| ZIP code | 99777 |
| Area code | 907 |
| FIPS code | 02-75160 |
Tanana /ˈtænənɑː/ (Hohudodetlaatl Denh in Koyukon) is a city in the Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area in the U.S. state of Alaska. At the 2000 census the population was 308. It was formerly known as Clachotin, adopted by Canadian French.
Jules Jetté (1864–1927), a Jesuit missionary who worked in the area and documented the language, recorded the Koyukon Athabascan name for the village as Hohudodetlaatl Denh, literally, ‘where the area has been chopped’. Several residents are chronicled in the 2012 Discovery Channel TV series Yukon Men. Almost 80% of the town's population are Native Americans, traditionally Koyukon (Denaakk'e) speakers of the large Athabaskan (Dené) language family.
Prior to arrival of non-indigenous explorers and traders in early 1860, the point of land at the confluence of the Tanana and Yukon Rivers (Nuchalawoyyet, spelled differently in historic accounts) was a traditional meeting and trading place used by members of several indigenous groups. There were as many as five different Athabascan languages spoken in the area in 1868 when the French-Canadian François Xavier Mercier established the first (fur) trading post in the area. Noukelakayet Station, later known as Fort Adams, was located about 15 miles downstream from the mouth of the Tanana River on the north bank of the Yukon.
Subsequently, an Anglican mission and several other trading posts were established nearby. In 1898 the U.S. Army, under the leadership of Capt. P.H. Ray, founded Ft. Gibbon at the present location of Tanana. Ft. Gibbon's purpose was to oversee shipping and trading, maintain civil order, and install and take care of telegraph lines connecting to Nome and to Tanana Crossing, on the way to Valdez. All other Euro-American activities in the area near the Tanana-Yukon confluence moved upriver to accommodate Ft. Gibbon and the increased steamboat traffic caused by gold seekers. St. James Church moved to the present site of Tanana to serve the Euro-American population, and the Mission of Our Savior was constructed at the bottom of a hill opposite the confluence. The mission site became a center of activity for indigenous people in the area. Ft. Gibbon closed in 1923, but the town and mission remained.
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