John Fredson
Alaskan Native leader
John Fredson (born 1896, as Neetsaii Gwich'in - August 22, 1945), was a tribal leader born near Table Mountain in the Sheenjek River watershed of the state of Alaska, United States. He is most noted for gaining federal recognition for the Venetie Indian Reserve in 1941, then the largest Indian Trust Land reservation in Alaska, and containing approximately 1.4 million acres (5,700 km2). This was before Alaska was admitted as a state.
As a youth, Fredson had taken part in Hudson Stuck's expedition to climb Denali, and served as base camp manager. Afterward Stuck sponsored him for college, and he attended Sewanee, The University of the South, becoming the first Alaska Native to graduate from college. Fredson returned to Alaska, where he worked in a hospital and as a teacher, becoming a leader and political activist.
Early life and education
Born in 1896 to a Gwich'in family near Table Mountain in what is now designated as Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area, Alaska, John Fredson grew up speaking Gwich'in as his first language. Orphaned at a young age, he attended a mission school operated by the Episcopal Church of the United States, where he learned English. From an early age, he became highly skilled in following trails, climbing and hunting.
At the age of 16, Fredson was part of the 1913 climbing expedition of Hudson Stuck, Episcopal Archdeacon of the Yukon, who led the party that ascended Denali, the highest peak in North America.
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This entry incorporates text from “John Fredson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.