Photo Courtesy of Kay Kennedy Collection, 91-098-337, Archives, University of Alaska Fairbanks As part of the Kiana Village History Project, there is a recorded discussion among several local elders about the naming of the village of Kiana.
The word Katyaak means "together, rivers meet together", so "there's lots of Katyaaks in this area all over. Up the river, down river," Roger Oteruk says. The word Qayaana means a point, "that point across the river", Oteruk goes on to explain. "The white people when they come here, the miners, I guess, -- they hear the Eskimos talking about Qayaana and they call it Kiana for that Qayaana. That's the way I understand it. That's how I understand Kiana got its name."
In fact, Kiana is a place where only two rivers meet. The Kobuk river splits in two just east of the village and meets the Squirrel River as two tributaries, so it appears as two separate rivers at Qayaana.
Map and satellite image from Google Maps at http://maps.google.com/
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