Alaska Native Government & Policy

Time is running out for the Alaska Legislature to pass a bill recognizing Alaska’s 229 federally recognized tribes. House Bill 123 faces just one last committee before it can be voted upon on the Senate floor. Most Democrat and Republican legislators have a reason to try to get the bill passed before the session ends.

If the bill passes, the State of Alaska will have to start recognizing Alaska’s tribes as sovereign nations. Tribes are inherently sovereign, and the United States federal government already recognizes them as such. The federal government engages with tribes on a nation-to-nation basis, but the state does not.

Bethel Rep. Tiffany Zulkosky authored the bill. It passed the House in January, but it’s been stuck in its final Senate committee since Feb. 10. It has been heard five times in the Senate State Affairs Committee, which is many more times than it was heard in other committees. It will be heard once more Thursday afternoon.

The bill must pass out of committee this week or the next to get heard on the Senate floor before the session ends. That requires the majority of the five committee members to approve the bill. The committee chair, Sen. Mike Shower, has expressed support for the bill. His aide told KYUK that there have been multiple committee hearings because Shower wants to make sure the other committee members understand it.

The most opposition has come from committee member Sen. Lora Reinbold. She said that she thinks 229 tribes is a lot, and she’s not sure about granting them sovereignty because she doesn’t understand how they get their members.

“AFN general counsel talked and I asked her, ‘How is a tribe defined? Is it a bloodline, etc.?’ And basically what she said is they’re moving away from the bloodlines. They’re moving away from the regional, but again, no one could tell me how exactly tribal members were chosen,” said Reinbold during a floor session on April 4.

Tribal sovereignty means that each tribe has the inherent authority to govern itself and make its own decisions about membership.

Sen. Scott Kawasaki is the lone Democrat on the committee. He said that Reinbold is a fringe voter and doesn’t represent the other three Republicans on the committee. The bill could still move out of committee without her support. Kawasaki said that it’s important that the Legislature pass this bill before the session ends. If they don’t, the bill will become a ballot measure.

The ballot measure could draw more Democratic voters to the polls during the midterm elections, which Republicans don’t want.

“If there were a large Native Alaskan contingency that went to the polls, that typically votes blue, then there could be the potential for some upset elections in certain regions. I think that that is on the minds of most of the Republican folks,” said Kawasaki.

But Kawasaki said that it could also work against Democrats. The ballot measure could draw voters who don’t support tribal Sovereignty and would vote against it.

An aide for Shower said that his office won’t say whether or not he intends to try to move the bill out of committee on May 5.

Kawasaki said that Shower is usually very diligent about telling committee members ahead of time whether or not he intends to move a bill. But Kawasaki said that there has been radio silence on HB 123 so far.

Republican and Democratic legislators from both the House and Senate have signed on to co-sponsor the bill, including Y-K Delta Sen. Lyman Hoffman.

Petersburg’s borough assembly on Monday voted to send a letter opposing a bill that would create five new urban Native corporations in Southeast Alaska and transfer land from the Tongass National Forest to those corporations. Some on the assembly thought there should be more chance for public comment.

Alaska’s congressional delegation has repeatedly introduced legislation that would change the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. It would provide new urban corporations in Petersburg, Wrangell, Tenakee, Haines and Ketchikan each with just over 23,000 acres of national forest land.

Petersburg’s vice mayor Jeigh Stanton Gregor proposed a letter opposing the bill.

“I have a real heartache with taking for any reason lots and lots of public land and giving it to private business with the sole goal of for-profit use,” Stanton Gregor said. “That’s the goal of that land if this goes through will be to maximize profit that’s what that does.”

The five communities did not meet certain requirements for corporation status under the landmark 1971 law. However, other places that also did not meet those requirements were allowed to form corporations and granted land.

Supporters say the legislation would return a tiny fraction of aboriginal territory taken from Alaska Natives. Future shareholders say the new corporations would spur economic development with possibilities for tourism and carbon credits or other uses like food or cultural activities. The sub-surface or mining rights would go to Sealaska, the regional Native corporation. Natives in the five communities have identified the parcels they’d select.

Petersburg assembly member Dave Kensinger said he’s against the legislation because of those selections.

“I’d have a lot easier time supporting this if it was one block of land but it makes your head crazy if you look at all the selections they’ve made,” Kensinger said.

He also thought those land choices could impact the U.S. Forest Service’s ability to offer timber sales in the area. Other opponents have been concerned about the potential for logging on the land or loss of access. There’s language in the bill that would allow public access but also allow a corporation to restrict access in certain situations.

Mayor Mark Jensen requested the assembly take a position on the bill and thought it could have a hearing in a Senate committee. Two years ago, local elected officials asked for more time to learn about impacts. Since then supporters and opponents from Petersburg and elsewhere testified at multiple assembly meetings. The assembly also drafted a long list of questions about the bill’s impacts. Supporters of the legislation provided detailed answers.

Assembly member Jeff Meucci wasn’t ready to take a position and said he still had unanswered questions.

“It’s a real emotional issue in Petersburg and I get that and I want to make sure before I vote one way or the other that I’ve had the opportunity to listen to the folks in town and some of the folks who are involved with it who don’t live in Petersburg but just hear what they have to say and see what we can do,” Meucci said.

The vote was 4-3 to send a letter opposing the bill. Bob Lynn joined mayor Jensen, Stanton Gregor and Kensinger voting “yes” to send that statement of opposition.

Meanwhile, landless communities last month advocated for action at Tlingit and Haida’s Tribal Assembly.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene Monday in a case over Alaska’s authority to regulate fishing near Annette Island. The legal fight centered on a Metlakatla man charged with illegally fishing in waters just outside the state’s only Native reservation. But it’s not the end of the line for the tribe’s legal efforts to exempt its fishermen from state regulations.

Metlakatla tribal member John Scudero Jr. was fishing for coho salmon near his home on Annette Island south of Ketchikan. He says his recollection remains as clear today as it was eight years ago when he was picked up.

“I was taken in by the Coast Guard, because I was so-called outside of our boundaries,” Scudero said in a phone interview Monday.

He was charged with illegal fishing — Scudero didn’t have a permit to fish in state waters outside the boundaries of Alaska’s only Native reservation. He was convicted and fined $20,000.

Scudero took his case to the Alaska Supreme Court. He argued that the state didn’t have the authority to prevent him from fishing in traditional territory of his tribe. It’s part of a long-running dispute between Metlakatla tribal members and state authorities.

Metlakatla Indian Community members like Scudero argue the 1891 law that created the Annette Islands Reserve guaranteed the tribe a self-sustaining home — and that the tribe can’t sustain itself without fishing in areas near Ketchikan and Prince of Wales Island outside the reservation’s boundaries.

“We’ve been a fishing tribe for the last 120 years, and we continue to fish,” Scudero said.

He says Metlakatla’s citizens never ceded rights guaranteed by the 19th-century law creating the reservation.

Michigan State University law professor Matthew Fletcher has been tracking Scudero’s case. He’s an expert on Indigenous legal affairs in the United States.

“It’s not surprising at all. It is disappointing, because I thought the Alaska Supreme Court did a particularly superficial job in analyzing the arguments in this case, most notably the principle of conservation necessity,” Fletcher said by phone Monday.

That’s a principle that says states can regulate tribal hunting and fishing in an effort to preserve fish or game for future generations.

“It’s a really high bar. Nobody — no state’s ever met it before. And the Alaska Supreme Court basically just said that the state of Alaska has an interest in maintaining the resource, and that’s enough,” he said.

But Fletcher says Scudero’s case is far from the last word. The tribe itself, Metlakatla Indian Community, has a similar case pending in the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. That case challenges the state’s right to regulate tribal members’ fishing outside the reservation.

“I’d say, as a general matter, it is very much a better vehicle to review these questions,” Fletcher said.

State attorneys argued late last year that holding Metlakatla tribal members to the state’s fishing permit system is essential to maintaining sustainable wild salmon runs.

Fletcher says that case could have far-reaching consequences for tribes in Alaska and up and down the West Coast under the court’s jurisdiction. It could give states more power to regulate Indigenous hunting and fishing rights or offer stricter protections for traditional harvesting.

Reflecting on the high court’s refusal to take his case, Scudero says he’ll be watching for the appeal court’s decision in his tribe’s case. He says it’s about holding the U.S. Congress to the law it passed more than a century before.

“I just want everybody to know, I’m just a messenger. The rights are already there, whether the state or the United States government wants to abide by what they had written,” Scudero said. “Otherwise, their word means nothing.”

A decision in the tribe’s Ninth Circuit case is expected later this year.

Delegates voted last week for their executive council and considered resolutions in the annual Tribal Assembly for the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Tribes of Alaska. 

They elected the tribe’s president, six vice presidents, an associate justice, a citizen of the year and an emerging leader. 

President Chalyee Éesh Richard Peterson was reelected for a fifth term at the tribe. This year he was running against Tasha Hotch, a vice president of the tribe. 

There were some changes to the tribe’s vice presidents. The first vice president is now Jaqueline Pata, the CEO of Tlingit and Haida Regional Housing Authority. The previous first vice president, Catherine Edwards, is now the third vice president.

Some resolutions the delegates passed include protecting citizens from sexual violence, reducing bycatch, amending laws so Alaska Native veterans can select lands in the Tongass National Forest and mandating cultural trainings for educators in Alaska.

The full list of resolutions will be made available on the tribe’s website.

The full Tribal Assembly is available to watch on Tlingit and Haida’s Facebook page. 

Five communities in Southeast Alaska were left out of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act: Ketchikan; Wrangell; Petersburg; Haines and Tenakee Springs, and it’s left more than 4,000 Native people in the region without land.

Getting land to these communities was a big theme during the 87th Tribal Assembly meeting of the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska this week.

Cecelia Tavoliero is from Petersburg and part of the organization Alaska Natives Without Land. She said getting Native land into Native ownership is a win for all Native people. And the land back movement has helped the cause. 

“Land back has highlighted important issues like ours and has helped us build awareness, and even support, from among groups historically opposed to a land solution,” Tavoliero said.

The controversy is around the land selections landless communities have made. The communities want to get land as close to home as possible, but selections are limited and people in neighboring communities — and groups outside of Alaska — have doubts about some of the selections.

But Tlingit and Haida citizens want progress to be made. Delegates repeatedly brought the issue up with the tribe and with Sealaska, the regional Native corporation. 

Delegate Joe Williams Jr. of Saxman urged the tribe and the corporation to make this the year that the landless people get their land. 

“As the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in 1971 was made history, we once again need to make history for our very own people,” Williams said.

Jaeleen Kookesh is a vice president at Sealaska. She said that this issue has been a top priority for Sealaska and that the lack of success isn’t from a lack of trying. 

She has met with legislators and groups concerned with the land selections. She said that they need the help of tribal citizens in key states that have representatives in the Natural Resources Committees in the House and Senate. Especially Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington and Representative Raúl Grijalva of Arizona.

“Mainly because they want to protect the Tongass and keep those lands in public ownership as opposed to Native ownership,” Kookesh said.

And she hopes that whoever gets elected to Alaska’s Congressional seat in the House understands the landless issue and continues to be an advocate in D.C. as late Congressman Don Young was.

Alaska’s congressional delegation has been working on the issue for years, and there are currently bills in the House and Senate. Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan spoke about their continued commitment to the issue in their addresses to the Tribal Assembly. 

Getting land to the five communities will require an amendment to ANCSA, a law that has been amended over 100 times. 

Everyone who spoke at the Curyung Tribe’s talking circle on Saturday supported changing the name of a stream that runs through Dillingham.

The current name includes a slur against Indigenous women. The proposed replacement that gained broad approval was “Al’a Creek.” Al’a means older sister in Yup’ik.

“The creek, in a way she is our al’a,” Katirina Mowrer said. “The land ultimately takes care of us.”

Those gathered in person and via Zoom discussed variations on the form and spelling of “al’a,” but they agreed the new name should honor Native women.

“I think this is the beginning of some healing and boldness that we, as a tribe and members, can begin to see,” said Carol Luckhurst, a member chief of the Curyung Tribal Council.

Tribal administrator Courtenay Carty said in the meeting that the Choggiung Limited board of directors and the Bristol Bay Native Corporation also support changing the creek’s name to one the Curyung Tribal Council recommends.

Dillingham elementary students, Alora Wassily, Trista Wassily and Harmony Larson, began advocating to change the creek’s name last year. Separately, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland established a federal process last fall to review and replace derogatory names for geographic features, including streams.

In February, the Department of the Interior proposed replacement names for 660 places across the country. For the creek in Dillingham, DOI suggests naming it after nearby features–Grassy Island, Snag Point, Sheep Island, Picnic Point or Bradford Point. Those names didn’t gain any traction at Saturday’s talking circle.

The Curyung Tribal Council will finalize the name it supports for the creek next week, taking into account input from the talking circle. Then it will consult with the U.S. Board on Geographic Names about renaming the creek on April 19.

“That’s something our tribe takes very seriously is our government-to-government relationship with the feds,” Carty said. “Our tribe also takes very seriously our relationship here with our own people. And so we wanted to make sure we have this opportunity to hear from our people, to make sure that the message we’re sending up is really our community’s message.”

DOI is accepting public comment on the replacement names for the creek through April 25 online and by mail.

Changing the name of the creek would not change the name of other features around Dillingham that share the name, notably the private road.