Alaska Native Government & Policy

The Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska can now receive reimbursements for providing child welfare services directly from the federal government. Both governments finalized the agreement last month.

That means the tribe’s reimbursements no longer need to go through the State of Alaska. Tribal officials say the agreement gives them more flexibility in handling cases where child abuse and neglect may be happening. 

Mary Johnson is the senior director for family services at Tlingit and Haida. She said the tribe will continue working with the state on child welfare services, but it can now look into ways to expand its services.

“What do we need to get into place to license our own foster homes? What do we need to get into place if we do want to initiate a child welfare case within our own tribal court? And how do we go about putting that into action?” Johnson said. “Now we have the resources to make that happen with a lot of work.”

Alaska’s Office of Children’s Services has agreements with tribes across the state to serve Alaska Native children placed in the system. Tribes assist in Indian Child Welfare Act cases. The law sets standards for children’s services agencies to place Alaska Native and Native American children with family members or to keep them in their home communities if they are removed from their family.

That means Tlingit and Haida works with the state to find a suitable place for children to live after they’ve been removed. In the past, federal reimbursements were distributed to tribes from the state. With the new agreement, Johnson said the tribe can now receive reimbursements directly from the federal government.

Johnson said the tribe’s family services generally have a better understanding of a referred family’s cultural background.

“If you are working with a caseworker at Tlingit and Haida, the chances of them being Alaska Native or even a tribal citizen are pretty high,” she said. “So you’re going to be connecting with someone that just tends to know your way of living a bit more than someone who doesn’t. So that makes a huge difference when working with our families.”

Data from OCS shows that more than two thirds of the children removed from their home last year in the state were Alaska Native.

Tlingit and Haida worked on more than 233 cases in 15 states last year. The tribe serves all of its tribal citizens, including those that live outside of Alaska.

Johnson said the tribe hopes to expand its abuse and neglect prevention services through the agreement as well.

“We have communities that are really strong in one area, and that could be a great area to build off of to do a prevention activity so it can be individualized to a community based on their strengths and their needs,” she said.

The tribe will now go into an implementation phase, where officials will continue developing its child welfare and monitoring program to be approved for reimbursements. Johnson said in an email she anticipates the tribe will need six to 12 months to go through the approval process.

For thirty-five hours each week at the Klukwan Library, people study, check out books, and take workshops on everything from paddle making to Chilkat weaving.

Or at least they used to. The Trump administration recently notified the tribal library that it was canceling two grants that account for the vast majority of its budget. That left the staff no choice but to cancel all future events – and dramatically reduce their hours.

“The letter said that our grant is, unfortunately, no longer consistent with the agency’s priorities, and no longer serves the interest of the United States,” said Jamie Katzeek, the library’s co-director.

The money comes from an agency known as the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which provides funding to communities across the country, including libraries in Native villages. In Alaska alone, the agency awarded library-related grants to dozens of tribes over the last two years.

It’s not yet clear how widespread the cancellations are across Alaska – or the country more broadly. But Theresa Quiner, the president of the Alaska Library Association, has been doing her best to track what’s happening.

“My perception is that most people who are Native American Library Services grant recipients, I have a feeling that most libraries have gotten the cancellation notice at this point,” Quiner said.

Library hours go from 35 to 4 in Klukwan

The Chilkat Indian Village in Klukwan was among them. In 2023, the tribe was awarded a two year grant – called an enhancement grant – of nearly $150,000. The money helped fund a project that aims to both reclaim and sustain traditional knowledge.

Then, in 2024, the tribe also received a much more common, $10,000 basic grant, which can be used to pay for staff hours and other budget items.

But in mid-March, President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at eliminating the agency. The order dubbed it – alongside six other federal entities – an “unnecessary” element of the federal bureaucracy.

By early April, the large grant was canceled even though the library still had nearly $100,000 to spend. Three weeks later, the smaller one was terminated, too. That left the library with just one source of funding: an annual $7,000 grant from the state that’s set to wind down next month.

That means Katzeek will work four hours per week until the end of June. She said she will likely use that time ensuring the library spends down the rest of the state grant according to their application.

It all means the library will no longer be able to offer programming and events meant to preserve traditional knowledge – or provide library services to students and other community members during the weekdays and weekends.

“The biggest loss is probably the programming that we offered. We would partner with other organizations and offer instructors for paddle making, moccasin making, beading, Chilkat weaving,” Katzeek said. “A lot of those programs were important to the people that live here in Klukwan, even people from town.”

The cancellations also threaten the library’s ability to apply for the state grant in the next round, given that it typically uses federal funds to meet a state matching requirement.

“That basically makes us ineligible to apply for the next PLA grant, which is supposed to start July first,” Katzeek said.

Library cuts have big impacts in small communities

At least five other tribes that have received IMLS funding could not be reached for comment. But Quiner, of the Alaska Library Association, provided a few additional examples of libraries that have lost funding so far.

Among them is the Kuskokwim Consortium Library, where Quiner serves as library director. She said the library partners with the Orutsararmiut Traditional Native Council in Bethel to get the same $10,000 grant as Klukwan. And they got the cancellation notice, too.

It’s a smaller sum than the agency’s much larger enhancement grants, which go to fewer recipients but often exceed $100,000. But they still matter, Quiner said, particularly in places where $10,000 can be the difference between having some library services or none at all.

“I did hear from the Pedro Bay Village Council that they’ve had to lay off a library worker because of this grant cancellation,” Quiner said. “And so it’s a small amount of money, but it has a pretty big impact in a small community.”

Other libraries, such as the Tuzzy Consortium Library in Utqiaġvik, aren’t as reliant on federal dollars.

The library is part of Iḷisaġvik College – Alaska’s only tribal college – and supports the school’s students and staff. It also provides public library services to seven communities across the North Slope Borough.

Teressa Williams, the library’s director, said the library has received the $10,000 grant for each community for years. And as is the case in Klukwan and Bethel, those grants were cancelled.

She said the loss is a “significant hit” to the library. But she emphasized that the federal grant amounted to just 7% of her overall budget, which means the library won’t be as affected as others. She added that she also doesn’t have to worry as much about the matching requirement for the state grant.

“Thankfully, I’m able to use my local funds to be able to afford the match,” Williams said.

Still, she’s concerned about the broader ramifications of Trump’s effort to dismantle an agency that so many libraries rely on for funding. That’s especially the case, she said, given Alaska’s low literacy rate – and the role libraries play in getting early literacy resources to families in rural areas.

“Libraries provide not only just books, though,” she said. “There’s people in communities that don’t have internet at home. They don’t even have a computer at home. When they need services to apply for the PFD, to file their taxes, where are they going to go, if not the library?”

Further complicating the picture is a federal judge’s decision last week to halt the executive order amid ongoing litigation. Even so, neither the Klukwan Library nor the Tuzzy Library have received any indication that their grants may be reinstated.

In Klukwan, Katzeek said she’s working with the tribal administrator to appeal the cancellations. But for now, her options are limited.

“We don’t yet know what the what it’ll look like for the library after June 30,” Katzeek said. “But we may have to close temporarily.”

Editor’s note: This is the second part of a two-part series about the Red Chris Mine in Canada, which could contaminate Southeast Alaska waters. Read Part 1 here.

Red Chris Mine sits 25 miles from Alaska’s border in the Stikine River Watershed. It has operated for a decade, but its ownership changed two years ago.

Before the new company, Newmont, bought the mine, conservation scientists conducted research over a seven-year span. Newmont has made some environmental adjustments since it acquired the mine in 2023.

But Newmont is also hoping to expand the copper and gold mine, which is already bigger than Wrangell Island. That’s even after an environmental report was published in March.

It shows heavy metals have leached into a transboundary Alaska and British Columbia watershed. Communities downstream of the Stikine River are concerned about this, including Wrangell’s tribal government, the Wrangell Cooperative Association.

“It’s very difficult when you have colonial constructs imposed on you,” said WCA Tribal Administrator Esther Aaltséen Reese. She’s the president of Southeast Indigenous Transboundary Commission, which represents 15 tribal groups in Alaska and Canada. “We view the border as a colonial construct.”

She said downstream tribes are the ones that will get the ill effects of mining and they should have a say in how safe the mines upriver are.

A March report by SkeenaWild Conservation Trust researched the mine’s impacts over the first seven years of operation. It said that numerous contaminants from the mine, mainly selenium and copper, are elevated in the surrounding creeks and lakes. These levels are high enough to impact aquatic life, according to the report. Reese said she’s worried about the Stikine River salmon that so many rely on.

“Any kind of failure would just have a huge risk to downstream human populations – us here in Wrangell,” she said. “This is a very critical issue.”

Reese said they have requested to meet with Canada’s Tahltan Central Government since the mine is in its territory and the government co-manages it with Newmont. KSTK reached out to the Tahltan Central Government and hasn’t received a response.

Researcher hopes report will influence similar B.C. mining projects

Adrienne Berchtold is the primary author of the environmental report. She’s an ecologist and mining impacts researcher with SkeenaWild Conservation Trust.

She said her team made the report as a model for other similar proposed mining projects in British Columbia. Currently, there are eight active copper mines operating in the province.

The report states that the leaching contaminants have affected rainbow trout in the mine’s surrounding lakes, which are part of the Stikine River Watershed. Berchtold hopes the findings will encourage B.C. to improve policies and regulations.

“Our concern is that the provincial government has not required mine owners to address that and to really look into what impact those trends might be having on fish in the receiving lakes,” she said.

Newmont spokesperson Kievan Hirji said since the company acquired the mine in 2023, it has established a relationship with the Tahltan First Nation, co-managing the mine under an Impact Benefit Agreement.

“We’re very proud to be going through that process,” he said. “(We) have been working very, very closely with the Tahltan Nation since acquiring Red Chris in 2023 to build a really positive and strong relationship that’s really predicated on that consent as well as transparency and trust and a shared vision for the future.”

According to Hirji, about 15 percent of Newmont workers are members of the Tahltan Nation.

“We also pay royalty payments to the Tahltan Nation,” he said. “That mine is reaching its end of life within the next couple of years, and if that economic success is going to continue, the mine requires an extension to the life of mine.”

That extension, he said, would be an underground mine, or block cave mine. It would sit within the footprint of the existing open pit mine and is expected to last 13 years.

‘We will leave it to the province of British Columbia to continue with that engagement’

First, Hirji said, British Columbia and the Tahltan Nation must assess Newmont’s proposal. The tribal consortium testified this spring against the project.

As for the tailings dams, which hold the mine’s waste, there have been links drawn between the Mount Polley dam and Red Chris’s. Mount Polley’s tailings dam broke in 2014, contaminating nearby waterways. But Hirji said Red Chris’s is constructed differently, even if some of the materials are the same.

“We’ve looked very carefully at the structural integrity of the dam at the Red Chris Mine with Tahltan Central Government, and there is no concern with respect to structural integrity,” he said. “That dam is structurally sound, safe.”

An ongoing concern of downriver tribes is that they haven’t had much say in the mine’s operation. Hirji said that’s not the company’s fault – it’s up to the British Columbia government.

“We will leave it to the province of British Columbia to continue with that engagement,” he said. “We’re really focused on the relationship that we have with Tahltan Nation through the Impact, Benefit and Co-management Agreement, and really building a shared vision with Tahltan Nation.”

Shawn Larabee is the communications manager of BC’s Ministry of Mining and Critical Minerals. He said British Columbia takes environmental protections seriously. He wrote in an email that QUOTE “the scope of consultation the Province undertakes with U.S. Tribes may be different from its consultation with First Nations in B.C.”

Last year’s annual reports of Red Chris Mine are expected to be made available by the B.C. government in the coming weeks.

A proposal that would create and fund tribally-run public schools inched closer to reality on Thursday. The House Tribal Affairs Committee moved House Bill 59 over to the Education Committee. 

If the Alaska Legislature passes it, five tribes would get close to $17.5 million for the first year to run pilot programs for tribally-compacted schools across the state. Despite the short amount of time left in this year’s legislative session and a nearly $2 billion deficit in the budget, bill authors and supporters are hopeful the program will happen eventually.

Mischa Jackson is a tribal education liaison for the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. She said she hopes public support during the legislative process highlights the importance of kickstarting the program sooner.

“I am really hopeful. I think I’m just so passionate about education,” Jackson said. “I truly believe anything is possible, especially as an educator, we can seem to do anything on a whim’s notice and get it done and do it really well.”

Jackson said Tlingit and Haida will move forward with plans for its own education campus even if the Legislature doesn’t approve tribal compacting this year.

The House Tribal Affairs Committee updated the bill with an amendment to shorten the timeframe of the project from Rep. Rebecca Schwanke, R-Glennallen, and sent it to the House Education Committee for consideration.

Rep. Andi Story, a Juneau Democrat, is on both committees and laid out next steps.

“We’d like to bring in some of the school districts from the area where the tribal schools will be, and just talk about issues, about how it will affect districts and if anything should be done,” she said.

Joel Isaak is a consultant for tribal compacting with the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development. He said the state and tribes will continue working on the program even if the bill doesn’t pass this year.

“We’re hoping the Legislature will keep this moving forward, and we’re also willing to keep working at this to make it be the bill that it needs to be – which we feel very strongly, that this bill takes us there, and that the Legislature can keep supporting this effort,” he said.

Washington is the only state that has tribally-compacted public schools. The New Mexico Legislature also passed a bill to create education compacts that was vetoed by its governor last month.

House Bill 59 is expected to be heard by the House Education Committee next Wednesday.

Springtime is herring egg season in Southeast Alaska. Usually that means that the region’s largest tribal government would be setting up to deliver tens of thousands of pounds of the traditional food to tribal citizens across the region and beyond. 

But this year, those distributions won’t happen. 

The Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska announced this week that its annual traditional food distributions were canceled this year. In March, the federal government canceled a funding agreement with the tribe. 

For the last three years, the tribe distributed herring eggs, salmon and black cod to tribal citizens in each of its recognized communities — from villages in Southeast to cities like Anchorage and Seattle. 

But the U.S. Department of Agriculture canceled funding that provided the tribe’s food assistance program. A USDA notice to Tlingit and Haida said that the tribe’s community food distributions “no longer effectuates agency priorities and that termination of the award is appropriate.”

Aaron Angerman is Tlingit and Haida’s food security program manager. He said the community distribution program started in 2022 to promote self-sufficiency, and to reduce reliance on food shipped from the Lower 48.

“Our answer to that, and then our heavy reliance on barge systems and things like that, was to turn back the clock a bit about food sovereignty, which is something that our people have relied on since time immemorial,” he said. 

The tribe planned to use more than $500,000 from the USDA for the distribution. The money was allocated to the tribe in January, but USDA sent Tlingit and Haida a notice in March that said the agreement had been canceled. 

The money was part of a program called the Local Food Purchase Assistance Agreement which was intended to encourage local governments to buy from farmers and food producers.

And that aligned with the tribe’s goal to keep more traditional foods that are harvested in Southeast Alaska in the fridges and freezers of tribal members. 

“For us to be able to take a food that was purchased from commercial vendors, to contract those vendors who are tribal citizens, to keep not only that funding within the tribe and the region,” Angerman said. “But also take a food source that was harvested in our area and typically sent overseas to bring that food back to our people and to be shared.”

The herring egg distribution is special for this reason: because of overfishing and exporting of herring and herring roe, the fish now only spawn in very limited areas.

Angerman said his team is working to get more secure funding. But there’s a lot of other work they are doing to further the understanding and use of traditional foods in the meantime.

“We need to work with elders and those with traditional ecological knowledge to see why and where and how we harvested previously,” he said. “Then to not only do that, but to teach people how to harvest themselves, how to process that food, how to put up or prepare that food.” 

Because, he said, if a salmon ends up on someone’s doorstep, and they don’t know how to process it, that isn’t food sovereignty.

Angerman said Tlingit and Haida was able to purchase enough herring eggs to bring to some of their tribally-run and federally-funded Head Start preschool classrooms this year, so the youngest tribal citizens can still learn about the importance of traditional food and land stewardship. 

And some distributions in Washington and Oregon will still happen, according to the tribe’s release. The local tribal council in Seattle used different funding sources to set aside money for distributions to reach elders outside of Alaska. 

Southeast Alaska’s largest tribal government approved a rule change Friday that greatly reduces the number of representatives from communities outside the region.

Delegates from places like Seattle and Anchorage say the amendment limits the voices from some of the largest communities of tribal members, but delegates from Southeast say this gives rural tribal members more of a voice. 

Friday was the last day of the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska’s 90th tribal assembly in Juneau. The majority of delegates approved an amendment that reduces the maximum number of delegates from urban communities like Anchorage, Seattle and San Francisco to four delegates each. 

One of Sitka’s delegates, Gerald Hope, said a larger proportion of representation from tribal villages would show support to those communities. 

“The village communities are hurting really badly. How can we stand with them?” Hope said. “One of the things in this kind of form of government is to give them a modest increase in voice.”

The five-hour debate brought up questions of representation and belonging, and what leads people to leave their home communities. 

“Those of us who live in urban areas are there for things that are out of our control,” said Anchorage Delegate Tasha Hotch, who said she left Southeast because of domestic violence. 

“I’ve tried to move back to Juneau, I’ve tried to move back to Klukwan,” she said.

Other delegates who live in Anchorage and Seattle said that lack of opportunity and financial stability led them to leave their villages as well, but this shouldn’t limit their voice as tribal members. 

According to representatives from Tlingit and Haida, the amendment is part of a broader plan to review the structure of government to better reflect the tribe’s citizenry. 

It would also reduce Juneau’s delegation — and any within Southeast Alaska — to 20 people. Even with the reduction, Juneau will be allotted the most delegates in the assembly. 

Before the amendment passed, Seattle was tied with Juneau with 25 delegates that represent the community’s interests to the broader tribal government. Communities elected one delegate per 200 tribal citizens. But this resolution raises that threshold to 275 citizens. 

Seattle has the most enrolled tribal members of any community, with more than 9,000. Juneau has more than 7,000.

The resolution doesn’t propose any changes to tribal services in communities like Anchorage and Seattle, where Tlingit and Haida has offices, but the delegates that came from those communities said representation itself matters too.

Karen Elliott-Lauth, from Seattle, asked for more time to compromise on the resolution. 

“So I’m just asking you guys to table this,” she said. “Let’s get together and make solutions instead of being so divided, that’s all I ask.”

Wrangell Delegate Mike Hoyt grew up in Seattle, so he empathized with what tribal members from urban areas are feeling about the loss of their delegates. But he says it’s vital that voices in the villages are heard too. 

“I think what people are feeling, and the concerns that you guys have in terms of silencing of voices or having maybe a lack of that balance, is what the villages currently are feeling,” Hoyt said. 

Despite the emotional testimony, speakers expressed respect for the other delegates present.

The amendment passed 63 to 52, and it takes effect immediately.