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The caribou herd that used to be the largest in Alaska and, at times, the largest in North America has continued to shrink, fitting an Arctic-wide pattern that scientists have
What was once the largest caribou herd in Alaska has shrunk nearly 70% in 20 years, but it is not the only herd experiencing dramatic drops.
The herd upon which villagers from the Arctic coast to Interior Alaska depend has shrunk nearly 70% in 20 years.
So who was this Riddiford, and why did this name hold such sway at the site of Joseph Cooper’s boat landing for more than a decade?
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Place names can be ephemeral. And they can fade for myriad reasons. Sometimes offensive names are replaced by more appropriate appellations, as in the case of Dillingham’s Squaw Creek recently being given the Yup’ik name Amau Creek. Sometimes names disappear, such as when the planned community of Gruening, named for Alaska’s U.S. Senator Ernest Gruening, was a Nikiski-area dream that never quite came true. This is the story of Riddiford, which was the name of the community at the outlet at Kenai Lake — until it suddenly no longer was.