First delineation of this ethnolinguistic group was described by anthropologist Edward Howard Hosley (who has specialized in the study of Alaskan Athabaskan cultures) in 1968, as Kolchan.

'the people' as Tenaynah by Hosley), but this is too similar to the adjacent Tanana and Tanaina (today Dena'ina) for introduction into the literature.

[4] From a total of 6 separate band groupings in the upper Kuskokwim River area in late prehistoric times, the Kolchan have coalesced into one community, Nikolai Village.

[2] The Upper Kuskokwim regional bands:[3] The Upper Kuskokwim communities:[5] The first written account of the early trade and contact was by Lavrenty Alekseyevich Zagoskin, a Russian naval officer, who was given the mission of exploring the Interior of Russian America for the Russian-American Company.

The homeland of the Upper Kuskokwim Athabaskans is a part of Denali National Park and Preserve and located in the Tanana-Kuskokwim Lowlands ecoregion.

[8] The Upper Kuskokwim Athabaskans were semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers who moved seasonally throughout the year within a reasonably well-defined territory to harvest fish, bird, mammal, berry and other renewable resources.

Migratory waterfowl (ducks and geese) pass through the area by the thousands in the spring when the headwaters of the rivers first open, but most move on to nest elsewhere.

Men in birchbark canoes quietly approached waterfowl in bays and coves and shot them with bow and arrows.

There are five species of Pacific salmon recognized in Alaska, but only three of them (king or chinook, dog or chum and silver or coho) regularly venture up to the Upper Kuskokwim region.

[9] Northern pike (ch'ighilduda, ch'ulkoy) are harvested by people of Upper Kuskokwim region in summer, fall and during freeze-up.

[9] In Upper Kuskokwim region, Arctic grayling (ts'idat'ana) are harvested in summer, fall and early winter, using rod and reel gear or nets.

[9] Sheefish (zidlaghe) are harvested in the Upper Kuskokwim drainage mainly in summer months between June and August and less frequently in September and October.

[9] Traditionally, people set up a fish trap made out of spruce to catch Alaska blackfish (hozrighe, tułnuna) beneath the ice in winter.

[9] Beginning in late spring and continuing throughout the summer and early fall months, both adults and children gathered a variety of plants and vegetative materials.

Fruit and berries such as blueberries (jija), salmonberries (tujija'), lowbush cranberries (netl'), highbush cranberries (tsaltsa, tsoltso), raspberries (dwhnikotl'), crowberries (dziłnołt'asr), kinnikinnick berries (dinish), timberberries, and wild rose hips (nichush, nitsush),[12] edible roots such as Hedysarum alpinum (Indian potato, Alaska carrot or wild carrot, tsosr), and assorted plants were eaten fresh, preserved for later consumption, or used for medicinal purposes.