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DIANNE GUDGEL-HOLMES. Kantishna Oral History Project. Records; 1910-1984. 2.5 cu. ft. Inventory.
The Kantishna Oral History Project was begun in February, 1983, under the direction of Dianne Gudgel-Holmes. The primary goal of the project was to accumulate various obscure historical, photographic and oral materials to supplement the oral history of Abbie Joseph, a Koyukon-speaking Athabaskan born in the 1890s, from the Kantishna region. One of the project activities involved interviews with elderly people who had lived in the study area. The project was funded with grants from the Alaska Humanities Forum, the Alaska Historical Commission, and the National Park Service.
The collection consists of copies of transcripts of oral history interviews with people who lived and worked in the Kantishna area; copies of Bureau of Land Management Land Files and copies of Native allotments; copies of 1910 census records for the lower Tanana Valley/Upper Kuskokwim area, and the Cook Inlet area; selected Episcopal Church records pertinent to the Lower Tanana Valley; Federal Aviation Administration records concerning the airfield at Lake Minchumina; civil/criminal and naturalization records from the Fairbanks Court concerning the Lower Tanana Valley; various reports and information on the Kantishna area from the Alaska Historical Library; various records on the Kantishna area from the National Archives; probate/death records from the Kantishna and Fairbanks Recording Districts; information on trappers and trapping statistics in the Lake Minchumina/Kantishna area; and material from the Byron Gordon Collection of the University of Pennsylvania. There are also personal papers (diaries, correspondence, notes) from people who lived and worked in the Kantishna area.
The collection was presented to the UAA Archives by Dianne Gudgel-Holmes
in 1984. Some materials in the collection are restricted.