KNBA - Anchorage

The Chin’an Gaming Hall is in a doublewide trailer off the Birchwood exit on the outskirts of Anchorage, a far cry from a Las Vegas style casino, but there are often long lines of people waiting to get inside. Since it opened in January, its 85 electronic bingo machines stay busy.

This picture could change if the state is successful in its bid to shut down the gambling operation. Last Wednesday, the Alaska Attorney General asked a federal court in Washington, D.C. to issue a preliminary injunction against it.

This latest motion follows a lawsuit the state filed in February, after the federal government approved the project in the final days of the Biden administration.

The outgoing assistant secretary of Interior, Bryan Newland, gave the Eklutna Tribe final approval for the gambling operation on Jan. 16, one of his last acts before the Trump administration took the reins of power.

The tribe immediately went to work. In four-and-a-half days, it bolted together several modular buildings and opened its doors to limited gambling operations. The building, it said, was temporary and would eventually be replaced by a permanent gaming hall with about 700 machines and restaurants.

The project had been on the fast track since February 2024, when the U.S. Interior Department’s solicitor, Bob Anderson, issued a new opinion on the legal status of Native allotments in Alaska.

Anderson’s opinion upended previous court decisions on Native allotments in Alaska. He said under certain conditions Alaska tribes could operate gambling establishments, just as tribes do on Lower 48 Indian reservations.

After the new legal interpretation, the National Indian Gaming Commission and the Bureau of Indian Affairs green-lighted the Eklutna tribe’s proposed gaming hall. Anchorage Mayor Suzanne LaFrance also endorsed the project in her comments in a federal environmental review, despite a lawsuit filed by a group of neighboring property owners to block the gaming hall.

The neighbors claim it will change the rural character of their community and force them to pick up the costs of the new development, such as increased public safety services and road upgrades, because Native allotments are not subject to state and local taxes.

The tribe has promoted its gaming hall has a boon to the region, that could eventually bring 400 jobs and 70 million dollars in economic activity on an annual basis.

In a statement, Aaron Leggett, president of the Native Village of Eklutna, called this latest court filing against his tribe disheartening, a sign that Governor Mike Dunleavy is escalating his attack on tribal sovereignty.

“If Governor Dunleavy and Attorney General Treg Taylor are successful in their quest to preempt the Native Village of Eklutna’s tribal sovereignty and self-determination, it could mean an end to the Chin’an Gaming Hall and the permanent facility that the Tribe intends to develop,” Leggett said. “It will undoubtedly discourage other Tribes across our state in our communities.”

The Chin’an Gaming Hall sits on about eight acres of Native allotment land near the Birchwood Airport. Although it’s a tiny sliver of the 1.5. million acres of Native allotments in Alaska, it has become a huge test case for the state.

In a statement, Deputy Attorney General Cori Mills said the state’s jurisdiction over these lands is at stake.

“We are asking a court to reaffirm what it has already said—the State maintains primary jurisdiction over Alaska Native allotments. A solicitor’s opinion cannot convert them into Indian reservations,” Mills said. “We are asking for the court to make sure the issues can be resolved before further development occurs—we believe keeping the status quo best protects all parties involved. Once the litigation is completed, then everyone will know where their lane is.”

For now, the Native Village of Eklutna is staying in its lane and will continue to operate the gaming hall. The profits will be used to fund tribal health programs and create jobs for its members. Leggett said the tribe has struggled in the past to help its members but calls its gambling establishment an “incredible success.”

The North Slope Borough clerk has issued a recall petition for the borough mayor, Josiah Aullaqsruaq Patkotak. It comes after months of efforts from residents over what they say were “lavish travel expenses” by the mayor and his family.

The petition authors said the mayor should be recalled for “misconduct in office, incompetence and failure to perform prescribed duties” because he used borough funds to pay for his family’s travel.

After several recall applications and a legal complaint from the group, the clerk, Sheila Burke, issued the petition on March 21.

Forrest Deano Olemaun, a former assembly president and one of petition sponsors, said public officials need to exercise transparency and honesty in how they treat public funds. He said the money used for the mayor’s travel could have been spent to support residents instead.

“It may not be much to those that already have, but it certainly is a lot to those that don’t have anything to begin with,” Olemaun said. “When you add it all up, it makes a huge difference.”

The borough assembly voted in December to allow officials to receive compensation for bringing their family on business trips. The prior code allowed for travel with family but did not specify whether the borough would pay for family travel costs.

However, Patkotak had already received compensation for taking his wife and children on at least 15 trips across the state and country, as well as overseas, before the code changed. Those travel expenses amounted to tens of thousands of dollars and included flying first class and staying at luxury hotels.

Patkotak did not respond to calls and emails asking for comment. Angela Cox, the borough’s director of government and external affairs and the mayor’s cousin, responded to questions about petitioners’ concerns last month via email. She said that former mayors also traveled on business with their families. Besides, she said, Patkotak has small children, and bringing them on trips is crucial.

A recall petition was also issued for Assembly President Crawford Patkotak, who is the mayor’s father. Petition authors said that when Crawford Patkotak voted to approve the ordinance allowing compensation for officials’ family travel, he did not disclose his personal interest in protecting his son.

Crawford Patkotak said in a phone call Thursday that traveling with family has been a common practice for borough officials. He also said that the assembly voted to simply clarify the code.

“We have tried our best to be transparent at the assembly level, working closely with the mayor and his staff,” Crawford Patkotak said. “We disclose through the process who we are, and the fact that our people, the voters of the North Slope Borough voted to put us in these positions.”

No other borough code in the state mentions compensating officials for bringing their family on business trips. Officials in at least eight Alaska boroughs are not allowed such practice, according to borough clerks. In most boroughs, officials are asked to use the most economical fare.

Residents filed their first application for a petition in February, but the borough denied it, stating it didn’t meet grounds for recall. After the authors filed their second application on March 4, the borough clerk Sheila Burke requested to adjust the petition to only keep the grounds that she deemed recallable. She said she issued the petition with those adjustments on March 21, though the group said they only received it this week.

The latest petition describes the mayor’s decision to use public funds on his family’s travel as improper and unethical. But the document omits some recall grounds the authors originally listed. Those include using the borough medevac plane for non-medical errands, approving too many nepotism waivers and misusing public funds to open an office in Anchorage.

Olemaun said the authors were disappointed the petition was edited but reluctantly accepted the changes.

Burke, the borough clerk, said residents have until mid-May to collect 371 signatures for the petition to recall the mayor, and 261 signatures to recall the assembly president. After that, the petition would be submitted to the assembly, and an election would be scheduled within 90 days.

A group of education leaders from tribal organizations spoke Wednesday at a U.S. Senate hearing against the dissolution of the federal Department of Education – and for protecting programs that support Indigenous students.

The hearing followed an executive order President Trump signed last month that aims to close the department.

Advocates outline benefits of culture-based programs

Rosita Yeidiklasókw Ḵaaháni Worl, the president of Sealaska Heritage Institute, was one of the witnesses at the hearing. Worl, who is Łingít, spoke about the persistent lack of education funding, especially in Alaska, given the state’s fiscal situation.

“Despite these challenges, we can confidently state that through our culture-based programs that we have integrated into schools with DOE funding, we have witnessed measurable educational achievement among Native students, as well as improvements in their social and emotional well-being,” Worl said.

Examples of programs funded by the department include Baby Raven Reads, Worl said. That’s an early literacy initiative that helps Alaska Native students see their culture and lifestyle – such as picking berries and fishing – reflected in educational materials.

Nationally, Native students’ scores continue to trail behind reported averages for all students. Worl noted that since Baby Raven Reads’ implementation in Southeast Alaska, students’ reading scores have improved. Juneau students who attended another culture-based program funded by the department – Tlingit Culture, Language, and Literacy – also showed better scores than those who didn’t attend it, she said.

Another speaker at the hearing was Sydna Yellowfish, the director of Indian Education at Edmond Public Schools in Oklahoma. She said that funding through the department is important for addressing high rates of suicide and sexual assault among Native students, as well as experiences such as homelessness, foster care and substance abuse.

“I feel like we are obligated to address these challenges and work with our students and our families as the best that we can,” Yellowfish said.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who co-led the oversight hearing, highlighted programs that fund tutoring, language initiatives and post-secondary education opportunities for Native students. She also pointed to the Alaska Native Education Program that supports curricula and cultural activities.

“(There are) so many of the programs that have been directed to and really intended to benefit our Native students, whether it’s at the Baby Raven Reads level or all the way up to our tribal colleges,” Murkowski said. “We need to make progress on the ground, and we owe it to our Native kids across the country.”

A legal obligation

Murkowski said that the department’s programs help the government fulfill its federal Indian trust responsibility – a legal obligation to protect Indigenous people’s rights and well-being. She said that it includes Native students across the country, more than 90% of whom attend public schools.

Sen. Brian Schatz, a Democrat from Hawaii who co-led the hearing with Murkowski, said that if the Education Department is dismantled, Native students “will be at the mercy of state governments that have no trust and treaty responsibility to meet their unique needs.”

“Eliminating the Department of Education would lead to fewer choices and tremendous instability, high poverty and smaller schools, especially those in rural Native communities,” Schatz said. “This is not permissible under the law.”

Murkowski said one proposed workaround is to transfer the department’s programs to other agencies and to administer funding through the states. But she and several speakers noted that such a transition could be detrimental to tribal sovereignty and lead to additional bureaucratic hurdles and delays.

Worl pointed out that in Alaska, a group of Native students sued the state in the 1970s saying that it failed its constitutional responsibility to provide education to Alaska Natives. While the state built schools in rural communities as a result of the Molly Hootch case, Worl said today, many of the rural school facilities are falling apart.

“We have schools that have been in disrepair. Students should not be in those schools,” Worl said. “I just don’t think Native education is a high priority there. I would not support it going to the state.”

President Trump last Tuesday issued an executive order to reshape U.S. elections.

The order, among other things, mandates absentee and mail-in ballots to be received by Election Day. It also requires proof of citizenship for registering to vote in federal elections.

The changes might further disenfranchise voters in rural communities and lead to a drop in voter turnout for Alaska Native residents, said Jackie Arnaciar Boyer, program adviser for the Rural and Indigenous Outreach Program, which focuses on civic engagement.

“I think it’d be pretty devastating to rural vote,” said Boyer, who is Cup’ig and has roots in Mekoryuk.

In Alaska, mailed ballots must be postmarked no later than Election Day, and can be received up to 10 days later – or 15 days for voters overseas. The timeline is helpful because hundreds of communities – predominantly Alaska Native – are accessible only by air.

Denise Louisaac is a poll worker in Dillingham who oversaw early absentee voting there for the last two presidential elections. In 2020, she said it took 10 days after Election Day for the last batch of early voting ballots to get from Dillingham to Anchorage to her regional election office in Nome. She said the new federal voting timeline would be tight for Dillingham – and even tighter for smaller villages that need to get their ballots to their hub community first.

“If early absentee voting goes until the Monday before Election Day, there is no way possible for the mail to deliver that ballot to Nome in time,” Louisaac said. “It will definitely disenfranchise smaller rural communities.”

Louisaac said she saw most absentee ballots cast in the week before the election. She said that an earlier cutoff would mean that some residents have less voting time – and less time to decide who to vote for.

“If we at villages don’t have the same access, then their voice is diminished,” she said. “If they don’t want those people to have a vote, you make it harder for them to vote. If you want them to have a voice, then you make it easier for them to vote. That’s democracy.”

Rural Alaska Native villages regularly experience challenges during elections. Storms can prevent planes from coming in and out of the villages for days or weeks, and ballots often arrive late – first, to villages and then to an election office. With the lack of volunteers, training and outreach to residents, polling places sometimes open late or don’t open at all, and mail-in votes get rejected.

The president of the First Alaskans Institute, who goes by both Apagzuk Roy Agloinga and Apagruk Roy Agloinga, said the combination of challenges makes it difficult to count votes from the rural Native communities.

“It’s just not fair, right?” Agloinga said. “I mean, to exclude an entire population because of where they live in the country, and to make it difficult for them to participate in this really important process that is a part of our civil liberties.”

The voter turnout for Alaska Native residents – who represent about 20% of the state population – peaked back in the 1980s at about 66%. It has been decreasing ever since, to about 28% in 2022, according to data that nonpartisan organization Get out the Native Vote presented at the Alaska Federations of Natives conference in October. This doesn’t match statewide turnout trends.

The new executive order also mandates people to show proof of their citizenship – such as a passport or state-issued ID – to register to vote in federal elections.

In Alaska, eligible residents are automatically registered to vote when they apply for the Permanent Fund Dividend. Agloinga said that many Alaska Natives use tribal IDs because there’s nowhere in their village or region to get a passport or state ID. The state Division of Elections does not track how many residents use tribal IDs to register to vote.

“Any number of voters that you miss in a community makes a big difference,” Agloinga said.

Democratic Rep. Robyn Niayuq Burke, who represents the North Slope and Northwest Arctic boroughs in the Alaska Legislature, said she’s looking into the legality of the executive order.

Alaska Division of Elections spokesperson Stephen Kirch said in an email last week that the division is reviewing the new executive order and will work with the state Department of Law on any potential changes to policies. Kirch said that at this time, division staff don’t know if there will be any impact in Alaska.

Spring is a busy time at Tyonek Grown, a community farm on the west side of Cook Inlet. Local students come to plant seeds, water them and then harvest organic fruits and vegetables.

This summer, the farm managers had even bigger plans. They wanted to set up a community food forest that would include Indigenous plants and fruit trees.

But the forest – and many more of Tyonek Grown’s plans – are now up in the air. That’s due to federal staff and funding cuts, said Laurie Stuart, the executive director for Tyonek Tribal Conservation District, which manages the farm.

“The loss of those funds in the coming years is going to have a big impact on the growth that we were building,” Stuart said. “The future of the garden is having to be rethought.”

In Alaska, nearly all produce is imported, which makes the food supply vulnerable, especially in rural areas. Some support for local producers comes from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is one of many agencies that are cutting employees and programs in response to Trump’s executive orders.

In recent weeks, the agency reinstated some of its terminated employees but then put them on administrative leave.

That’s the case for Amanda Compton, who lives in Palmer and works in the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service. The program helps landowners – in Alaska, mainly tribes – to sustainably manage their natural resources. It’s helped villages set up fish passages, reindeer ranches and programs like Tyonek Grown.

That changed with the layoffs and disruptions, Compton said.

“We lost our entire team of people that are working to get Native communities greenhouses, our team that’s getting the Native entities fish passages,” Compton said. “We lost our entire team that communicates between the engineers and tribal entities.”

Tyonek, an off-the-road community of about 300 people, is about 40 miles southwest of Anchorage as the crow flies. Produce needs to be flown in, so fruits and vegetables grown at the Tyonek farm give locals a rare chance to enjoy affordable fresh food.

The USDA’s Forest Service, through the Arbor Day Foundation, awarded $900,000 to Tyonek Tribal Conservation District in December. The grant was meant to grow their team and set up a quarter-acre community food forest next to the farm that would promote food sovereignty and traditional ecological knowledge, Stuart said.

“It’s kind of a community, cultural harvesting space,” she said.

The Forest Service terminated the award, in an effort to comply with Trump’s objectives.

Another terminated USDA grant is the Local Food Purchase Assistance Program. It’s meant to provide money to schools and food banks to buy produce from local farmers and fishermen, said Cayley Eller, Tyonek Grown’s programs manager.

“In Tyonek that meant that we were able to support our local farm operation and compensate the farm for the food that we’re growing and feed community members at low costs, as well as supporting local fishermen and supporting other tribal producers,” Eller said.

Overall, Tyonek Grown has funds to operate now, but the near future is uncertain.

“It’s a food security farm production space, and that means we’re not making a profit on our produce,” Eller said. “Our goal is to feed the community, and that means we’re heavily reliant on grant funds.”

Reindeer herders in limbo

Meanwhile, about 500 miles northwest, around Nome, reindeer herders are wondering about their future, too. Tribal liaisons used to help herders apply for grants and establish rotational grazing plans, said Nathan Baring, director of the Reindeer Herding Association, which provides technical assistance to herders in Bering Strait communities.

The Trump administration also halted a USDA grant meant to support Indigenous peoples’ animal harvests and help communities expand their meat processing, he said.

“Having all of that kind of just thrown either into the air or outright eliminated just simply means that we start over in terms of shopping those projects around again, which then further delays what I would describe as Alaska’s untapped potential in a pre-existing livestock industry,” Baring said.

Bonnie Suaŋa Scheele is an Iñupiaq reindeer herder at the Midnite Sun Reindeer Ranch near Nome. She said that for herders like her, interruptions in federal programs mean that it’s harder to find funds to build temporary housing for workers and corrals for holding animals.

Scheele said she should be at her ranch now, but she can’t be. She was counting on another frozen grant — this one from the Bureau of Indian Affairs — to help pay for upgrading her power source.

Despite the challenges, Scheele said herders will figure out a way to continue the practice, even if it means providing food for just their villages instead of expanding their operations.

“We’ll overcome it. We’ll figure it out,” she said. “It’s going to come back around, and we’re still, we’re still here, we’re still herding reindeer. We’re still providing for communities.”

A report that highlighted the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people was removed from several federal websites last month, to the disappointment of some Alaska Native advocates.

The final report by the Not Invisible Act Commission was a joint effort of the U.S. Justice and the Interior departments completed in November 2023. It focused on the disproportionate rates of assault and murder in Indigenous communities across the country – as well as unique issues faced by Alaska Native people. President Trump signed the law that mandated the report during his first term.

In February, the report’s authors and advocates noticed that the link had been deleted from several federal websites, including the Department of Justice website. The reason for the removal wasn’t immediately clear, though some federal agencies have acknowledged scrubbing material to comply with Trump’s executive orders to remove “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility policies.”

Michelle Demmert, a longtime tribal judge and the University of Alaska Fairbanks professor, was one of the report’s commissioners. Demmert, who is Tlingit and Haida and a member of the Klawock tribe, said she was deeply disappointed with its removal.

“It’s like a slap in the face,” she said. “It just really saddens me to have the report removed like it doesn’t even exist.”

Over 18 months, the commission heard from people across the country, including in Anchorage, Bethel and Emmonak. Those stories were included in the final report.

Demmert said that more people showed up in Alaska than in other areas.

“People traveled far and wide to come give testimony about situations that involve their loved ones,” she said. “They trusted us with their stories, even though it was painful for them to have to retell these stories. But they felt like this might be the one opportunity that someone hears them and takes action, and for that to not have happened in any meaningful manner is really disappointing.”

 

Charlene Aqpik Apok, the executive director of the non-profit Data for Indigenous Justice, attended the commission hearing that was held in Anchorage. She said she liked that the commission did not limit the time for comments, allowing people to share their stories without interruption.

Apok also said she appreciated the report’s specific recommendations for Alaska. She said they spoke to historic violence against Alaska Native women, the landscape and structure of rural communities, and challenges with legal and public safety systems.

“They saw how Alaska stood out,” she said. “They had to make different recommendations that were situated for us.”

Apok, who is Iñupiaq, said she found it unsettling that the report was deleted from several websites, but she doesn’t want people to be discouraged. She said that organizations like Data for Indigenous Justice will continue to document and track cases of violence against Indigenous people in Alaska.

“We still know what was said,” she said. “We still know our stories, and they can’t take that away from us. Our knowledge and our truth is something that cannot be erased.”