Page 36 - Parks Highway Bearfoot

CANTWELL
BLU EBERRI ES
Bearfoot Checkpoint:Cantwellis located at Mile 210 of the Parks Highway. Year-round population of about 200 people.
During Cantwell summers, locals harvest blueberries in acres of blueberry bushes. li Highway, which was used Picking is particularly good along the Denali by the Ahtna for hunting Highway. Look along the highway rights of and berry picking. The Aht- way for berries. na are considered masters
Town of Cantwell Cantwell is a year-round town at the intersection of the Denali and Parks High- ways. The town of Cantwell is spread out along these two roads. For the several hun- dred people who live here , a subsistence lifestyle is a pri- ority. Cantwell's sister town is Paxson, 135 miles to the east on the Richardson Highway.
Athabascan Life The Athabascan people in this area are Ahtna people, and share family ties, social customs, language and heri- tage with the Alaska Natives living in the Copper River Valley. Families once lived not only in Cantwell, but along what is now the Dena-
at long-distance walking and wilderness survival, and traveled by foot between Cantwell and the Copper Valley for social and cultur- al events, carrying copper tools and smoked salmon for trade.
Caribou Harvest Food has always been a problem for rural Alaska. In the 1900's, enterprising "market hunters" noted the presence of all types of wild- life in this region, and began harvesting wild sheep and caribou to feed the people of Fairbanks. Efforts to stop this practice led to the cre- ation of a game sanctuary that became Denali Nation- al Park . In 1921 the govern- ment tried to farm tame reindeer here, but they es- caped and joined Cantwell's caribou - their wild cousins.