The official consensus in Alaska is that the Tlingit and the Haida, being coastal tribes, lived easy. The Athabascan, on the other hand, being farther north and inland lived much more on the edge. They wre far more dependent on speedy, elusive, unpredictable food sources. There were times when almost everyone in a village starved. That was never true for the coastal people. They had time and energy for wars and they made full use of it.