"Lands that now lie within the Park are an important part of the Southern Tutchone homeland. Families that lived in this part of the territory regularly fished, hunted, and trapped here." [2] Though there were likely no long-term settlements in the park, temporary camps were common, and some of these old sites are now being uncovered. Besides food, people came here to gather rocks and minerals, including obsidian, used for making tools and arrow points. People also traveled high up on the glaciers and mountains, either for hunting or as travel corridors, as ancient relics and even a frozen body (the so-called Long Ago Man) have recently emerged from glaciers here. [2] The Lowell glacier, which occasionally surged and blocked the Alsek river over the last 1,000 years, is the likely source of several important native stories. A central theme is that cooking with grease can anger the glacier, causing it to surge or release a flood . In this way glaciers were known to be sentient, smelling and listening , and could react to things said by people. [9]