The Eyak Village is currently located on the Copper River highway on the Malaspina Coastal Plain. Old stories say they moved from the interior of Alaska down the Copper River to the mouth of the Copper River Delta. The Eyak have their own language, which is a branch of the Athabaskan-Eyak-Tlingit language family. They lived off the rich salmon runs and abundant wildlife of the Delta. The Eyak were always a relatively small group, and the neighboring Tlingits, Chugach and Alutiiqs continuously pressured them, raiding their fishing grounds and more peacefully assimilating the Eyak through intermarriage. The Eyak got along better with the Tlingits better than any of the other surrounding cultures do to the common language they spoke.

The Russians who first traded in Alaska recognized the Eyak as a distinct culture with its own territory. By the 1880's, however, Tlingit expansion had reduced the Eyak to about 200 people on the Copper River Delta. At that point, Americans arrived. The Americans opened canneries, and competed with the Eyak for Copper River salmon, slowly taking over their jobs and their food. The Americans also brought alcohol, disease, and opium, the last from Chinese cannery workers. Much of this the Eyaks had never been exposed to. These took their toll, and by 1900 there were only about 60 Eyak remaining. They lived in a settlement on Eyak Lake that, in 1906, became a part of the town of Cordova, Alaska. (Which is where they currently reside).

Today the Eyak culture is represented only by about 172 individuals and only one of those can speak the Eyak language fluently. They are the smallest native group in Alaska and are fighting to revive their culture. As part of that battle, some of the Eyak people are working to protect the traditional lands along the Copper River Delta that sustained their ancestors for so many years. A coalition of national, regional and local groups including the National Wildlife Federation are working together to protect the Delta, and in 1995 the Eyak held their first potlatch (a traditional gathering and gift exchange), the first time they had done so in 80 years.

Though this page has been carefully researched, the author does not claim expertise on the Eyak.