ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the four dimensions of the subsistence issue from the perspective of those who live on the land, and then consider briefly changes in the rural-urban pattern of subsistence. There are: access to resources, competition for scarce resources, acquiring and maintaining the means with which to participate in subsistence, and maintaining a way of life that is important to them. The blocking of fish streams and other encroachments of outsiders on Native subsistence in southeast Alaska were the subject of discussion in a meeting at the Juneau Public School House, on December 14, 1898. The charges were eventually dropped, again showing the power of local political organization and demonstrating that subsistence users were even willing to risk arrest to protect spring waterfowl hunting practices. Subsistence use patterns were directly challenged in Barrow during the spring of 1960 when two hunters were arrested for taking waterfowl out of season.
