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Northway Village
 

 

Northway Village is located between Nabesna River and Skate Lake, on a 9-mile spur road off of the Alaskan Highway. It lies in the Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge, 42 miles from the Canadian border. Northway presently consists of three dispersed settlements: Northway Junction, at milepost 1264, Northway, at the airport, and the Native village, 2 miles north of the airport. It lies at approximately 62° 59' N Latitude, 141° 57' W Longitude . The community is located in the Fairbanks Recording District. The area encompasses 4 sq. miles of land and 0 sq. miles of water.

The area around Northway was first utilized by semi-nomadic Athabascans who pursued seasonal subsistence activities in the vicinity of Scottie and Gardiner Creeks and Chisana, Nabesna, and Tanana Rivers. Their first contacts with white people probably occurred in the late 1880s during periodic trips to trading posts along the Yukon River. White traders entered the region as early as 1912, and by the 1920s, had established trading posts at Gardiner Creek and along the Nabesna River. Nabesna, the first settlement in the area, was located across the Nabesna River from the site now occupied by Northway Village.

Flooding led to the abandonment of Nabesna in the 1940s. Residence at the new site provided Native workers with construction jobs on the Alaska Highway and at the Northway airfield during World War II. A post office was first established in 1941. In 1942, the name of the village was changed to Northway to honor the village chief, T'aiy Ta', who had adopted the name Northway from a riverboat captain who traveled the Tanana and Nabesna Rivers in the early 1900s. Chief Walter Northway was thought to be 117 years old at the time of his death in 1993.

 

 



 


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