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Moose Farming?
Article #71
by T. Neil Davis
Very little seems to be known about the way of life of the Tanana Athabascan Indians who lived around Fairbanks before the foreigner came to the area. Ivar Skarland is one of the few to have studied the early ways of life; studying his writings, one gets the impression that life in this area was fairly primitive.
It now seems apparent, however, that the Interior Indians may have purposely modified the environment to produce more food. Verbal reports indicate the Indians recognized that spruce forests provide no food for moose and that they set fires to produce more moose browse. Only in recent years does there seem to be recognition that the fighting of natural forest fires is often a waste of money and that it adversely affects the balance of life.
Like the boy who passes teenage, approaches 21, and notices that his father is growing more wise, our modern society matures and sees the sophisticated intelligence and foresight in many of the practices of our aboriginal ancestors.
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