'Landless' Natives try for redress

Murkowski reintroduces bill to compensate Southeast communities left out of settlement.

Murkowski reintroduces bill to compensate Southeast communities left out of settlement

In 1971, Congress settled the aboriginal claims of all Alaska Natives: It gave them 44 million acres, $1 billion and mandated the creation of 13 regional and more than 200 Alaska Native corporations. But for unknown reasons, it left out Natives from five Southeast communities.

Thirty-eight years later the Natives of Haines, Tenakee, Petersburg, Ketchikan and Wrangell are still trying to get in on the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Rep. Don Young, both Republicans, introduced the latest versions in the Senate and House this year.

"At this point, Wrangell people, they'll take what they can get," said Bucky Bjorge, representative to the Southeast Alaska Landless Coalition from Wrangell. "They've had nothing for so many years. They got their feelings hurt, culturally, because they (Congress) said, 'This is not an Indian community," But it is. It's the oldest one in Southeast."

This is not a new story. These Natives want recognition from Congress to form five new Alaska Native village corporations. They are asking for 23,040 acres of federal land each, or what the other villages got, and $650,000 in startup funds each. About 4,300 people, or 21 percent of the shareholders of Sealaska Corp., Southeast's regional corporation, would be eligible to join.

Get the complete story at the Juneau Empire.