KTOO

Impaired reception of KAUK (91.7), KRNN(102.7), and KXLL(100.7)

Juneau Afternoon

Thursday, December 9th, 2021: ANCSA from the Archives – Moments in Time.

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On this Thursday’s Juneau Afternoon, as part of our weekly series on the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, Rhonda McBride takes a look at a recently discovered film that may be the oldest footage of the ANCSA process.

It was shot by Lowell Thomas, Jr. – an Alaska pilot and filmmaker, who later became Lt. Governor in the Jay Hammond administration.

The footage is of a 1968 congressional field hearing in Anchorage — less than six minutes of black and white footage, completely silent – but speaks volumes about a moment in history that changed Alaska forever.

Footage of a 1968 U.S. Senate hearing on a draft bill for ANCSA was recently discovered after the death of Lowell Thomas Jr., who shot the film. It was part of a huge collection of films his family brought to the Alaska Moving Image Preservation Association for protection. AMIPA sent the footage to a film processing lab outside Alaska, with the expertise to handle archival film. Scans of the footage revealed well-known Alaska political figures, including Gov. Wally Hickel and Sen. Ernest Gruening, as well as key Alaska Native leaders in the land claims fight, which include Emil Notti and Willie Hensley, who are still alive today.

Also in this program:

  • Historians Steve Haycox and Paul Ongtooguk shed light on why this hearing played a pivotal role in the land claims fight.

Thursday’s program is a companion broadcast to KTOO’s 360TV series, ANCSA from the Archives: Moments in Time which airs at 8:00 p.m. on Thursday, December 9th.

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