Native Tribes in Southeast Alaska Await Owed Land

Lying on his deathbed in 1871, Joseph the Elder spoke to his son who would soon lead the Nez Perce tribe, whose lands once stretched through Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. “Always remember that your father never sold his country,” he said. “You must stop your ears whenever you are asked to sign a treaty selling your home.”

His son, Chief Joseph, famously replied, “I pressed my father’s hand, and told him I would protect his grave with my life. My father smiled and passed away to the spirit land. I buried him in that beautiful valley of Winding Waters.” Chief Joseph at first tried reasoning, then fighting, then fleeing, then negotiating for his land. He met with President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1879, and then with Theodore Roosevelt in 1903, but to no avail. He died in 1904.

By 1912, little hope was left among Native Americans for their former lands. The famous chiefs who tried fighting back were nearly gone. Sitting Bull died in 1890, Geronimo and Red Cloud in 1909, and many others had gone many years before that.

Yet, in 1912 three tribes gathered in Alaska, and leaders of the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian people formed the Alaska Native Brotherhood (ANB) in hopes of winning back their land. By this time, they could look and see what didn’t work. They saw that violence would only lead to hopeless war, that reasoning was futile, and that nothing would happen if they merely waited.

Then, in 1929, the ANB found a solution. They filed a lawsuit. This culminated in 1971, when President Richard Nixon signed the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA). This gave Alaska Natives 44 million acres of public land in Alaska, and $962 million in cash as settlements.

Yet, the last pieces of this land are only now heading to the Senate, under the Conservation and Economic Growth Act. Title III would give 65,000 acres of land in the 17-million-acre Tongass National Forest to the Sealaska Corporation, which aims to fulfill the outstanding claims. Yet, it is currently marred by controversy around logging of massive old-growth trees and some of the designations Native Alaskans have found themselves stuck in.

Native Corporations

Rather than pass the money directly to the tribes, “The Act established a system of village and regional Native corporations to manage the lands and cash payments, and made extensive provisions regarding the operations of the corporations,” according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“The Act also required the Secretary of the Interior to withdraw up to 80 million acres of existing public land for specific consideration as new national wildlife refuges, national parks, national forests, and wild and scenic rivers,” it states.

In the eyes of the Natives, however, there were several problems forming Native corporations under ANCSA. It formed 12 regional corporations and more than 200 village corporations. A 13th regional corporation was later formed for Alaska Natives living outside of Alaska.

According to Edward Thomas, president of the Tlingit and Haida tribes of Alaska, there were deeper reasons behind this approach. After the Tlingit and Haida tribe established that they have aboriginal land rights, other native groups in Alaska also stepped forward. “Congress did not want to have that process repeated. So when they did the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, they put a provision in there that they would not put them into federally recognized tribes, but into state-chartered corporations,” he said.

Also, according to “Haa Kusteeyí, Our Culture: Tlingit Life Stories,” the approach was hit-or-miss with different tribal groups. “Some corporations have done well; others have gone bankrupt,” it states, yet notes Sealaska Corporation was one of the few that did do well—it was listed in 1981 among Fortune magazine’s top 1,000 corporations in the United States.

With the current legislation heading to the Senate, the corporate designations made through ANCSA are the reason behind Sealaska Corporation receiving the land, rather than the tribes themselves.

Land Dispute

Another problem found by the Tlingit and Haida tribe is a large portion of land passed to them by ANCSA was underwater. The land granted through the Conservation and Economic Growth Act is meant to resolve these claims.

The Tlingit and Haida tribe is located in the Tongass National Forest, which has more than 5,000 islands and more than 16,000 miles of shoreline, although it stretches approximately 500 miles from the Canadian border to Yakutat Bay, according to a report from Audubon Alaska, part of the National Audubon Society conservation organization.

When land was being designated, the area was divided by townships, which are square. “Well, our coastlines are not square,” Thomas said. “So it breaks up that if you’re given one component of a township and part of it’s underwater, it doesn’t matter and you still had to count that in the original distribution of the land.”

“The government, itself, realized that after a while,” he said. “They did another assessment of the land and came to a conclusion on what Sealaska was eligible for.”

Logging Old-Growth

Logging of old-growth is of the main controversies around giving land to Sealaska Corporation. An open letter from 300 scientists who specialize in conservation and management of natural resources states that the “vast majority of these lands would be subjected to clear-cut logging, including some of the most biologically rich, large-tree old-growth rainforest remaining in the Tongass.”

Thomas, however, said this is not true. Clear-cutting is not possible for them on most of the land. “In the early days, it was easier for ANCSA, Sealaska, and the village corporations were able to do clear-cutting because we were able to sell the low-grades to the pulp mills, in the form of chips or even in the raw log. But now that they are not purchasing those,” he said.

Also, due to various road laws in Alaska, they aren’t able to log land without road access. This is why they’re looking into high-grading, where “they target specific trees where the timber could bring in enough profit to make it worth logging then flying them out by helicopter,” he said.

The real irony behind all of this, however, is that the land is already designated for logging—whether the Natives get it or not.

The land in the Tongass was mapped out based on best use under the Tongass National Forest Plan—some areas designated for logging, others for tourism, industries, mining, recreation, and other purposes. According to the U.S. Forest Service website, 4 percent of the land in the Tongass has been designated for timber harvest over the next 100 years.

The U.S. Forest Service is in charge of selling this land through stumpage sales. This was included in the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), which gives funds for a constant supply of timber from the Tongass. The U.S. Forest Service auctions off the land to logging companies. Contracts often come along with deals to build roads, which allow for clear-cutting in areas otherwise unreachable.

“They’re clear-cutting everything on the land that they’ve gotten from the Forest Service, and Sealaska can’t afford to cut everything because they’re not sellable, and in some places you can’t build a road,” he said.

When all is said and done though, Thomas said the Natives see the act as “the only opportunity that we’ll ever get the land back. It’s the end of the story. Everything is closed in the Tongass right now, so it’s kind of like a last chance—if you’re not going to do it now, you’re never going to do it.”

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