Contrary to the general assumption that sovereignty must rest in a single, monolithic entity, the indigenous population of Alaska is in the process of reconstructing sovereignty within the context of multiple, interrelated institutions, in which nearly 100,000 Native peoples, their cultures, and their general welfare are common denominators.
At base, sovereignty may be defined as a people's right to govern its membership and territory. From a Native perspective, however, sovereignty must include cultural and spiritual dimensions. Deloria (1979) maintains that sovereignty "can be said to consist more of continued cultural integrity than of political powers and to the degree that a nation loses its sense of cultural identity, to that degree it suffers a loss of sovereignty." Concurring with this proposition is another Native American, Gerald Alfred, a Mohawk political scientist. He reports (1995) that the Kahnawake Mohawk have abandoned the Euro-American concept of sovereignty "in favor of an indigenous reformulation that is based instead on mutual respect among communities for the political and cultural imperatives of nationhood -- a flexible sharing of resources and responsibilities in the act of maintaining the distinctiveness of each community." Alfred asserts that Mohawk sovereignty has to do with balance and harmony among the communities and between the Mohawk people and the land.
Alaska Natives maintained their own forms of traditional governments and sovereignty prior to the arrival of Westerners. But their encounters with Euro-Americans and subsequent encapsulation into the larger American society forced them to adopt new strategies and initiatives to protect their land and culture. They initiated a yet-evolving process to reconstruct their sovereignty within new and existing institutions to reflect and protect who they are and to maintain the integrity of their tribal groups. During the past 250 years, Alaska Natives have struggled to preserve and protect their relationship with the land, to enhance their general welfare, to control their destiny, and finally, to define their relationships with the larger society and with government institutions. While Native people did not have a word for sovereignty, their worldview, philosophies, and realities centered around land and ordered the universe. This worldview defined their sovereignty. It was not people who governed land, but rather the land and the spiritual beings of the land that prescribed relationships among humans as well as human relationships to the land. Calvin Martin (1999) has ably described the differences between American Indian and Western worldviews, managing to capture the Native perspective. His analysis provides evidence for why an indigenous understanding of sovereignty is necessary and how its interrelationship with the land differs from that of a Western concept of sovereignty. It was land that the Westerners coveted, and it was land that Alaska Native people sought to protect in order to ensure their cultural survival.
Our Land
Through their early and historical contacts with Westerners -- beginning in the mid-1700s until the 1970s -- Alaska Natives were relentless in their determination to protect the ownership of their aboriginal lands. The Tlingit and Haida Indians of southeast Alaska warred with the Russians who arrived and occupied their lands. They objected strenuously when Russia sold Alaska to the United States in 1867, arguing that they were the land's rightful owners. Most other Alaska Native groups were unaware of the transaction and land transfer between the two foreign nations. When the southeast Alaska Indians realized that they could not protect their land through military initiatives, they, along with other Alaska Native groups, took their campaign into the legal and political arenas. The indigenous populations of Alaska -- including the Inupiat, Yup'ik, Aleut, Athabaskan, Tlingit, and Haidai(1) -- never wavered in their struggles to protect their land base until Congress enacted the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) in 1971.
The Alaska Native leaders who pursued the enactment of ANCSA sought control over their lands. Land was central to their way of life. It formed the core and basis of who they were as a people. The land shaped their worldview and underlying cultural values and beliefs. They maintained a kinship with all living beings of the land. It gave rise to their social and political institutions. Land, above all, was to be protected to ensure the survival of the Real People. The Native peoples' perception of land was not shaped by Western conceptions of land nor by Western ideals or institutions. Native Peoples did not conceive of land as a commodity.
Though the Alaska Native leaders sought absolute control of their land, they were silent during their negotiations with Congress to resolve their land claims on the issues of sovereignty and subsistence hunting and fishing. Based on their own traditional ideologies and practices, it was perhaps inconceivable to the leaders that their sovereignty and hunting and fishing cultures could be alienated or exist apart from their lands. Conceivably they were reassured that their right to control their lives and communities was safeguarded by the Declaration of Policy in the Act that acknowledged their rights as Natives. A few Native leaders have simply stated that ANCSA was a land transaction between Alaska's indigenous population and the federal government and that it was not designed to address subsistence or sovereignty issues. Irrespective of ANCSA's original intent, it has been cited as the basis of the erosion of both subsistence and sovereignty rights of Alaska Natives.
Converging Objectives: Land Ownership and Assimilation
The objectives of both Alaska Natives and Congress in seeking the settlement of the land claims converged, but for different reasons. Alaska Natives wanted full control over their lands rather than having them subject to federal jurisdiction as are reservation lands. Congress, on the other hand, saw the land claims settlement as a means to assimilate Alaska Natives into larger American society. Both Congress and the Alaska Native leaders who worked to achieve a land settlement were adverse to the creation of Indian reservations as the means of resolving aboriginal land claims. Corporations became the vehicle for the resolution of these claims and for satisfying the conflicting objectives of Natives and of Congress.
ANCSA authorized the establishment of 12 regional and more than 200 village state-chartered corporations to receive title to 11 percent of their original land base (or 44 million acres) and a payment of nearly $1 billion for the extinguishment of aboriginal title to 330 million acres of land. The Native leaders achieved their goal of control of their lands with the transfer of their aboriginal title to fee simple title. Congress accomplished its goal to adopt an assimilationist vehicle. The detribalization and assimilation of Alaska Natives were to be accomplished through ANCSA's major components: land, capital, and corporations. Land that was formerly held by tribal groups was now to be held by corporations and individual shareholders. Yet contrary to its goal of economic assimilation, Congress developed a novel form of corporate socialism. It imposed a revenue-sharing formula that required regional corporations to distribute to all other Native corporations 70 percent of their profits derived from the development of subsurface resources and timber. The intent was to equalize the differences among the resource-rich and resource-poor regions inhabited by the Alaska Natives.(2) A University of Alaska study (ISER, 1991) reports that between 1976 and 1991, the revenue-sharing provision generated nearly $400 million among the regional corporations.
Subsistence and Sovereignty
While the language in ANCSA was explicit in stating that aboriginal hunting and fishing rights were extinguished, the congressional records were just as definite in establishing that Congress intended the federal government to protect Native hunting and fishing activities. This intent was formally incorporated into law in the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) of 1980. The federal law, however, diminished the safeguards for indigenous hunting and fishing by directing the federal government to protect "rural" rather than "Native" subsistence rights. It meant that subsistence protections were to be extended only to Natives and non-Natives living in rural regions.
Imperfect as ANILCA is in protecting Native subsistence rights, it does provide a means of protection. Natives, through the statewide organization Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN), have fought vigorously against amendments to ANILCA that would further erode these protections. They have successfully resisted multiple legal challenges to ANILCA in the federal courts, and are currently attempting to persuade the governor of Alaska not to appeal to the federal Supreme Court a case (popularly known as the Katie John Case) that could erode their subsistence protections on navigable waters.
In contrast to subsistence, sovereignty was not explicitly addressed under ANCSA. It surfaced as a focal point in the early 1980s. Again, the issue was land. Under ANCSA, the taxation exemption and restrictions on the sale of stock were to be lifted in 1991. Fearing that they would lose control and ownership of their land if shareholders were able to sell their stock and if their lands became taxable, AFN convened a series of statewide meetings to seek resolution to these problems.
Although a minority believed that they should be able to sell their ANCSA stock, the Native community's prevailing sentiment was to extend the restrictions on the sale of stock. But some village leaders offered a different alternative. They proposed that ANCSA lands be transferred to tribal governments. Dissatisfaction with the corporate model, fears about the loss of Native land under ANCSA, threats to subsistence hunting and fishing by a growing non-Native population coupled with increasing governmental restrictions on subsistence activities, an increasing multitude of institutions in the villages exacerbated by high unemployment, and a myriad of social problems plaguing Alaska Native villages combined to contribute to their demand to dissolve Native corporations and to transfer the lands to tribal governments.
The 1991 discussions gave birth to the tribal movement. Its leaders argued vigorously for the retribalization of ANCSA land as a means to protect Native land from alienation and taxation. A small but persistent group of Natives, who organized themselves as the Alaska Native Coalition, rallied around this concept and proposed the transfer of ANCSA lands to qualified transferee entities (QTEs) which were assumed to be traditional councils or tribal governments created under the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) of 1934. But the discussions raised controversial questions about the existence of tribal governments and Indian Country in Alaska.
The Department of the Interior and the Alaska congressional delegation -- along with national and state sports hunters -- opposed any language in the 1991 amendment that would allow the transfer of ANCSA lands to tribal governments. Such action was deemed contrary to ANCSA's initial intent. That ANCSA was designed as an assimilationist model became exceedingly evident.
Also telling was the Secretary of the Interior's insistence that dissenters' rights be mandatory, meaning that corporations would be required to buy back stock from those who disagreed with the majority decision to keep it. Secretary Hodel raised the subject of individual rights over group rights and claimed that the proposed amendments advanced by the Native community were unfair to individuals wanting to sell their stock. AFN supported the group's collective interests rather than the rights of individual dissenters and resoundly rejected his position. Contrary to the compromise position adopted in the Native community that called for the restrictions to be automatic unless shareholders voted to lift them (Leask, 1987), the Department of the Interior opposed the automatic extension of stock restrictions after 1991 unless shareholders voted to reinstate them.
The politics of sovereignty and the QTE proposal were simplistically cast in terms of conflicts between corporate and tribal Natives. It was Alaska's congressional delegation, however, that opposed tribes and forestalled legislation without a strongly worded disclaimer weakening tribal political rights and precluding the recognition of Indian Country in Alaska. (Morehouse, 1988-89) The corporate leaders argued that the primary purpose of the "1991 amendments" (as they came to be called) was to keep Native lands under Native control and ownership. The tribal leaders wanted clear recognition of Native governments in Alaska and ownership and control of ANCSA lands. To ensure passage of the 1991 amendments, the tribal advocates reluctantly agreed to support amendments that extended the restrictions on stock alienation and taxation exemption for undeveloped land.
Alaska Natives were also intent on protecting the rights of their children. They supported an amendment that would allow for the enrollment of "New Natives" -- those born after 1971 -- and Alaska Natives left out of the initial enrollment. The cumulative effect of the 1991 amendments sought by the Native community -- restricting the sale of stock, authorizing the issuance of new stock, and strengthening land bank protections for undeveloped land -- resulted in the dilution of the value of corporate stock.
The "1991 amendments" were enacted in 1987. The Native community was successful in convincing Congress to amend ANCSA. They had abandoned a strict profit-making corporate model and legislatively transformed the corporate structure to reflect their cultural values. The 1991 legislative process also set the Native community on two divergent paths: one that sought to strengthen tribal governments and one that continued to transform the corporate form to promote the social and economic welfare of Alaska Natives and to accommodate the needs and values of Native peoples.
The tribal leaders, despite the failure of the 1991 amendments to adopt a QTE provision, continued to seek clarification of the uncertainties surrounding Alaska Natives' status. In 1993, the Solicitor of the Department of the Interior concluded that tribes in Alaska existed but expressed doubt that tribes had any territorially based jurisdiction after ANCSA. This position was confirmed in part by the U. S. Supreme Court Decision in 1995 in State of Alaska v. Native Village of Venetie Tribal Government, which held that ANCSA lands did not constitute trust lands or Indian Country.
Although the state has taken a strong position against Indian Country, it has not consistently opposed tribal governments. In 1988, the State of Alaska under Governor Cowper adopted a Native Policy Statement, which was codified in 1992 as Administrative Order 123, that acknowledged the existence of tribes in Alaska. A 1988 study that identified federal government appropriations of $300 million annually for Native people -- based on their political status as tribes -- undoubtedly bolstered state support for the recognition of Alaska Natives' special political status.(3) The tenuous nature of administrative orders was demonstrated in 1991 when the succeeding governor of Alaska, Walter J. Hickel, rescinded Administrative Order 123 and replaced it with Administrative Order 125, which opposed the expansion of tribal governmental powers and the creation of Indian Country in Alaska. In 2000, Governor Knowles signed yet another administrative order, which recognized the existence of tribes in Alaska and made a commitment to work with Alaska's tribes. He expanded on these principles in a Millennium Agreement signed in 2001.
Growing public support for the recognition of Native sovereignty has also been apparent in Alaska. Regrettably, it is based on the tragic socioeconomic status of Alaska Natives. Their plight was highlighted in a series of news articles in 1988 and in a 1989 AFN report that focused on alcohol and drug abuse, cultural dislocation, poverty, and their never-ending struggle for self-determination. The AFN study led to the creation of a joint federal and state Alaska Native commission. Its 1994 report attributed the Native crisis to the proliferation of non-Native laws and money which produced both a generation of people dependent on public services, subsidies, and external control, and a self-destructive culture of powerlessness. Deloria and Wilkins (1999) attribute the basis of Indian dependency to the United States and its historical power "to pass laws dealing with Indians and Indian affairs." They assert that this dependency engenders"...an equity argument in which the United States must accept responsibility for Indians because they are helpless -- rendered helpless by federal policies."
The tribes -- initially through the Alaska Native Coalition and later through the United Tribes of Alaska, which has now been replaced by the Alaska Intertribal Council -- struggle for the recognition of tribal governments and their political rights as a means of regaining control of their communities. They point to the proliferation of institutions within their communities and stress the need to decentralize the multitude of regional institutions that had initially been organized to address specific community needs. A number of tribes are now administering services that were initially provided by the federal government and then by the regional Native nonprofit organizations. Some communities have dissolved their municipal governments, which were created under the state government, and have transferred responsibilities to tribal governments. A few village corporations have also transferred portions of their land to the tribal governments. These lands are without the ANCSA land protections, however, and the Secretary of the Interior has yet to take them under trust status.
Despite the setback of the 1995 Venetie Supreme Court decision, tribes continue to seek measures to establish that Indian Country exists in Alaska. AFN has also been working on federal legislation that would give broad governmental powers to tribes in a narrowly defined scope. The proposed legislation would in essence create Indian Country in unincorporated villages on lands identified as core townships under ANCSA. Tribal governments would have the authority to ban the possession, importation, and sale of alcohol within these boundaries. In incorporated villages, where municipal governments are present, this authority is limited to Natives, and transactions involving Natives and the tribal law could not conflict with any city local option law.
Retribalization of the Corporate Structure
The Native leaders who pursued the settlement of the land claims were reared on the land and steeped in the values of their ancestors. They were hunters, fishers, and whalers. Most had some formal education in Western schools; probably less than five had college degrees. But they were astute political leaders who knew that the world around them was changing. They accepted as the vehicle for their aspirations the corporate model and the concept of fee simple title rather than reservation lands held under trust by the federal government and subject to the control of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In their implementation of ANCSA, they also embraced its profit-making objectives. But it is clear from their pursuit and implementation of congressional amendments to ANCSA that their vision of corporations contrasted significantly with the standard one of a profit-making entity.
The ANCSA political leaders were expected to transform themselves into business managers. For the first 10 years of ANCSA, they were devoted to the cumbersome and complex process of organizing the corporations, enrolling Native people as shareholders, and selecting land. And although some corporations pursued resource development despite adverse impacts to the environment, traditional perceptions of land continued to affect corporate decisions, as was evident in their decision not to book their lands as assets.
Although the leaders were working under a corporate model, they were also intent on maintaining their tribal status. They secured an exemption from the Civil Rights Act under an ANCSA amendment in order to provide a shareholder employment preference. Nearly every corporation adopted and implemented shareholder hire policies even when shareholders in some cases lacked the management experience or training required for the job.
Native people were successful in obtaining the right to set up settlement trusts to give elders benefits not extended to other shareholders and to provide cultural and educational benefits for both their shareholders and Native descendants who may not be shareholders of Native corporations.
Regional nonprofit organizations were the precursors of the ANCSA regional corporations. These nonprofits initially represented their regions in the land claims effort. After the enactment of ANCSA, they began to focus on providing governmental services to their constituents. They were viewed as affiliates of the profit-making corporations and continue to maintain close relationships to the regional for-profit corporations, but they remain independent and autonomous.
In addition to the regional nonprofit organizations, ANCSA regional and some village corporations established new nonprofit organizations to protect and maintain their culture and to support the educational pursuits of their shareholders and shareholders' children. These foundations provide scholarships to shareholders and Native descendants who may not be shareholders. The scholarship funds are derived from corporate earnings or endowments established by the profit-making corporations. The foundations are also engaged in a host of cultural activities, such as restoring Native languages, protecting sacred and historical sites, recording and publishing oral traditions and songs, and promoting Native arts and crafts. In addition to providing scholarships, a number of the Native corporations have established internship programs to train Native college students for corporate positions.
ANCSA corporations' commitment to supporting the educational and cultural goals of their foundations is evident in the remarkable action of the CIRI regional corporation (originally known as Cook Inlet Regional, Inc.). It recently contributed stock worth more than $30 million that is expected to help the CIRI Foundation reach its goal of an endowment of $50 million. (Marrs, 2001) CIRI corporation also spearheaded, with the support of other ANCSA corporations, the establishment of statewide organizations -- such as the Alaska Native Heritage Center, the Alaska Native Justice Center, and Koahnic Broadcasting -- benefiting the Native community. In 2000, the AFN's First Alaskans Foundation (FAF) organized the regional foundations under the ANCSA Education Consortium to administer its scholarship funds and to address general educational issues in the Native community.
The ANCSA corporations devote a significant portion of their resources to non-business ventures. Sealaska Corporation, for example, devotes up to 20 percent of its corporate budget, which averages an estimated $10 million annually, to social and cultural advocacy on behalf of its shareholders. (Worl, 1994) Perhaps the most important of ANCSA corporations' activities has been their continuing financial and political support for the protection of subsistence hunting and fishing. Most of the funds are channeled through the AFN which itself is largely supported by the annual dues of the regional ANCSA corporations. Because subsistence and other issues affecting the lives of Native people are influenced by government actions, the corporations have taken an active interest in state and federal elections, promoting increased Native participation in elections and supporting candidates who are sympathetic to Native issues. Through the AFN, they endorsed Tony Knowles, and the corporations contributed to his gubernatorial campaign. Knowles was elected governor by a mere 500 votes.
The federal government has also recognized the unique status of ANCSA corporations. Though they were dropped from later lists, the 1988 BIA list of federally recognized tribes included ANCSA corporations. Congress has at all times maintained its federal plenary power and jurisdiction over ANCSA corporations and their tribal lands. No single act of Congress suggests that it intended to disqualify ANCSA corporations or their lands from the benefits of the unique constitutional relationship between the federal government and Indian tribes. Of the 201 statutes that define tribes, 117 include ANCSA corporations as tribes for specific statutory purposes. Seventy-eight statutes do not specifically reference ANCSA corporations, and only six specifically exclude them.
And though the ANCSA corporations have not generally sought any of the classic tribal governing powers or programs that remain with tribal governments, they have been successful in utilizing their special status to pursue federal legislation that benefits their Native shareholders and descendants. Perhaps their most notable success was the 1986 legislation -- available only to Native corporations -- that allowed them to sell their net operating losses. Under this act, $426 million were brought into ANCSA corporate coffers. This windfall rescued at least two of the corporations from financial failure and greatly improved the financial status of others. (ISER, 1991) More recent legislation recognizing the special status of Native corporations has allowed several corporations to reap the benefits of the wireless industry.
Native corporations' financial success has varied. Some have teettered on the brink of bankruptcy while a few have been wildly successful. A recent report compiled by the Association of ANCSA Regional Corporation presidents/CEOs (2001) highlights the performance of 12 regional corporations and three village corporations for 1999. These corporations, with assets of $2.8 billion, generated revenues of $2.1 billion. They distributed $49.5 million in dividends and paid $392 million in payroll within Alaska. They employed more than 10,000 individuals, of whom 2,500 were Alaska Natives. The ANCSA corporations also donated $5.1 million to charitable organizations and scholarships that year.
Although the collective financial and operational performance of the ANCSA corporations is substantial, the CEOs readily concede that the corporations cannot by themselves address the myriad problems and poverty faced by many Alaska Natives. Yet they have demonstrated a capacity to utilize their economic stature in the political arena to successfully advocate for beneficial legislation on behalf of the Native community. More than $18 million was recently appropriated by Congress to support social and economic programs within the Native communities. Political advocacy by Native corporations may prove to be their greatest value, but their overall contribution to the state's economy should not be overlooked.
Despite their economic and political contributions and the high percentage of shareholders who participate in corporate activities, the corporations are not uniformly supported in the Native community. Most of the conflicts surround money paid out as dividends or salaries. Some shareholders are also distressed about the environmental impacts associated with the corporations' development activities. A common complaint among tribal advocates is that Native lands are held by ANCSA corporations rather than tribes.
Some of the conflicts within the Native community can be attributed to emerging differences in socioeconomic status among Alaska Natives. During the 1990 U.S. Census, almost a quarter of Alaska Natives had incomes below the poverty level. At the other end of the spectrum were corporate managers earning six-figure salaries. An often-heard complaint is that the Native corporate managers, directors, and employees are the only ones getting money out of the corporations. The contrast between corporate salaries and many shareholders' standard of living is what bothers dissidents, said Emil Notti, a former CIRI board member, who is a vocal critic of high corporate salaries. (Juneau Empire, 1999) In some villages, corporation employees and government workers are the only individuals who have jobs.
Conclusion
Tribal leaders have asserted their rights to be self-governing, and they continue to pursue the return of ANCSA lands to their jurisdiction. The holding of lands under ANCSA corporations rather than tribal governments has been represented as the basis of the division within the Native community. The articulation of this conflict, however, is not reflected in the collective action of the Native community as evidenced during the statewide AFN 2000 Convention. Of the 244 villages that are eligible for membership, 78.3 percent were represented. Fifty-four of the villages were represented by tribes, and 41 were represented by village corporations. Ninety-six of the villages were represented by both tribes and corporations. In actuality, tribes outnumbered village corporations, suggesting that while a difference of opinion may exist as to which institution should hold Native land, people continue to work together.
That Natives are attempting to reconstruct their sovereignty in existing institutions is evidenced by their efforts to consolidate the functions of multiple institutions within the tribe or to decentralize some of the functions of regional nonprofits and transfer them to tribal governments. Alaska Natives are also trying to regain governmental functions, such as fish and wildlife management, that are now held by the state or federal government. As a consequence, they are redefining their relationships with these governments.
Through the deliberate decisions and actions of Alaska Native leaders, the 11 percent of aboriginal lands still owned by Native Peoples were placed within corporations. These leaders, perhaps unknowingly or without understanding the full consequence of their decision, separated their aboriginal lands from the tribal governments and sovereignty characteristic of other American Indian groups. They sought a form of sovereignty not limited by a Western concept or by the simplicity of a "government-to-government relationship." Alaska Natives are now utilizing a multitude of institutions -- including their tribal governments, ANCSA corporations, non-profit regional organizations, cultural foundations, and even, in two notable instances, the borough governments organized under state municipal laws -- to pursue a form of economic sovereignty that incorporates their cultural survival.
References & further reading
Alfred, G.R. (1995). Heeding the Voices of Our Ancestors: Kahnawake Mohawk Politics and the Rise of Native Nationalism. New York: Oxford University Press.
Association of ANCSA Regional Corporation Presidents/CEOs (2001). Native Corporations Building A Foundation For Alaska's Economic Destiny. Anchorage.
Deloria, Vine, Jr. (1979). Self-Determination and the Concept of Sovereignty. In Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, Ed., Economic Development in American Indian Reservations. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
Deloria, Vine, Jr. & Lytle, C.M. (1983). American Indians, American Justice. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Deloria, Vine Jr. & Wilkins, D.E. (1999). Tribes, Treaties, & Constitutional Tribulations. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Institute of Social and Economic Research (1991). Financial Performance of Native Regional Corporations. University of Alaska, Anchorage. Volume XXVIII, No. 2. Anchorage.
Juneau Empire (1999). Between Worlds: How the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act Reshaped the Destinies of Alaska's Native People. A Juneau Empire Special Report. Juneau:Morris Communications Corporation.
Leask, J. (1987, June; 1991). Update: Where Do We Stand? Alaska Native Magazine. Anchorage.
Marrs, C.H. (2001). A Word From The President: Good News for CIRI Shareholders. CIRI May 2001 Newsletter. Anchorage.
Martin, C.L. (1999). The Way of the Human Being. New Haven & London: Yale University Press.
Morehouse, T.A. (1988-89, Winter). The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, 1991. Alaska Native Magazine. Anchorage.
Wilkins, D.E. (1997). American Indian Sovereignty and the U.S. Supreme Court. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Worl, R. (1994). Alaska Natives' Changing Relationship to Their Environment. Keynote Address presented to the Opening General Session of the SAF/CIF Convention on September 18, 1994. Anchorage
(1). The Inupiat and Yup'ik, who are linguistically related, are generally referred to as "Eskimos." A group of Tsimshian Indians, who now inhabit Alaska, migrated from Canada in the late 1880s.
(2). The revenue-sharing provision has resulted in ANCSA corporations increasing their resource development activities twofold to accommodate a corporation's own financial needs and the revenue sharing requirement.
(3). The author served as Governor Cowper's special staff assistant for Native Affairs and oversaw the development of the Native Policy and the appropriation study.
Article copyright Cultural Survival, Inc.
