Tanana Chiefs to hold virtual hunting and fishing advocacy workshop Nov. 20

Tanana Chiefs Conference will hold a virtual hunting and fishing advocacy workshop Nov. 20 focused on the Yukon-Tanana management structure. The session runs from 11:45 am to 1:15 pm, the same day the Alaska Board of Game meets on a proposed hunting and trapping closure along the planned Ambler Road.

Twyla Krueger, tribal court manager at Tanana Chiefs Conference, announced the workshop Monday on the organization's TCC Weekly program. She said participants will develop an understanding of issues facing the subregion.

"Alaska's wildlife and subsistence way of life are at a turning point," Krueger said. "The health of our salmon, our lands, and our communities depend on what we do now."

The workshop link will be posted on the TCC Facebook page.

The Board of Game's meeting page lists a special meeting on the Ambler Road by web conference Nov. 20 at 8:30 am. The proposed regulation would close the area within a mile of each side of the road to hunting and trapping from July 1, 2029, through Jan. 1, 2036, unless the board extends it. The planned industrial road would run about 211 miles west from Mile Post 161 of the Dalton Highway to the Ambler Mining District. TCC opposes the road project, according to its website.

Written comments are due by 8 am Monday, Nov. 16, through the Board of Game website.

The board tabled the closure proposal at a special meeting in July. TCC's twelve-month meeting outlook, dated Oct. 28, had expected it back before the board at its Jan. 23 to 26 meeting in Kotzebue. The outlook also lists a Federal Subsistence Board meeting Feb. 2 to 5 in Fairbanks and encourages tribal members to attend such meetings in person or virtually.

Salmon is also on the workshop's agenda. Subsistence harvest of Yukon River Chinook salmon fell to 1,564 fish in 2023, the lowest on record, according to a November 2025 Alaska Department of Fish and Game report to the Alaska Board of Fisheries. The 2010 to 2019 average was 27,874 fish.

The state closed subsistence Chinook and summer chum fishing across the Yukon through early June. Federal managers reopened subsistence salmon fishing for federally qualified users in federal public waters of the Tanana River drainage, District 6, on Sept. 4, with gillnets limited to 6-inch or smaller mesh, according to a federal subsistence bulletin. That action expires Dec. 31.