Anthropological discourses about land and landscape typically fall into two relatively disconnected fields. There is a materialist/ecological literature that examines the economic value of land access and use, and the material constraints presented by an ecosystem. Conversely, aesthetic and semiotic approaches to landscape explore rhetorical modes of attachment and the cultural processes through which social relations are objectified and represented through relationships to land. This paper incorporates both of these approaches in an analysis of the case of Kamchadal political economy. Kamchadals are an indigenous group at the center of contemporary disputes over natural resources and the cultural significance of land in Kamchatka, a peninsula in Eastern Siberia. The fight for access to natural resources becomes increasingly central to Kamchadal politics as more and more families turn to fishing and hunting as alternatives to jobs which do not pay and to supplement meager social service benefits. At the same time, Kamchadals^Ò indigenous status is questioned by state officials who claim that Kamchadals have lost their distinctive culture and have assimilated too thoroughly to be eligible for indigenous land grants. In this political struggle for recognition and status, Kamchadals typically articulate their identity through historical ties to land, and argue that it is constituted in large part via the social processes that surround fishing and hunting. Thus, this case incorporates both material and symbolic approaches to landscape into an examination of the discrepancies between Kamchadal discourses and those of the Russian state, on the subject of land, history and culture.