Their great ocean-going canoes facilitated movement along the coast, and their trading relationships extended far into the interior through the mountain passes.

The trade goods that moved along these routes included materials whose presence in archaeological contexts can be identified — copper, obsidian, shells, furs — and also perishable goods including dried fish that leave no direct archaeological trace.

In this context, Kwäday Dän Ts’ìnchi’s presence on the glacier is consistent with — though not proven to be — a crossing of the mountains along one of the known trade routes.

He may have been traveling as a trader, carrying goods from the coast to the interior or vice versa.