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Brief History
This issue began with the 1971 Alaska Native
Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) This is the bill
that passed through congress that settled
aboriginal rights with Alaska Natives. There was
in short a process that set eligibility for the
Native Communities of Alaska to be apart of
ANCSA. There were 5 Alaska Native Communities
that were left out of ANCSA for unknown reason,
even though they qualified. These communities
are Haines, Ketchikan, Petersburg, Tenakee and
Wrangell.
To: Sealaska At-Large Shareholders of Ketchikan
The Landless Natives of Ketchikan, Alaska Inc.,
was formed under the State of Alaska Laws as a
Non-Profit Entity to represent the Ketchikan
Native community with its 1,862 original
at-large members of the Regional Sealaska
Corporation, that were left out of land claims
in the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act
(ANCSA) of 1971 (Public Law 92-203).
This Year, Senator Lisa Murkowski introduced
SB784 that includes the land claims of the five
Southeast Alaska Native Communities that were
left out of the 1971 ANCSA. Additionally,
Congressman Don Young introduced H.R. 2018 that
similarly addresses the land claims of the five
Southeast Alaska Native Communities.
Regardless of why and how we were dropped from
ANCSA, the bottom line is that our five
communities were on the Bill when it went in to
Conference Committee but when the Bill came out,
we were left out, and not one person ever
explained why until 1994, 23 years later when
they presented all kinds of studies and
gibberish stating nothing solid and a whole lot
of “there are no reports“ available. In our
opinion, their Study was formulated to “spin”
the issues to justify their political actions of
dropping the five communities out of the ANCSA
Legislation. As far as we are concerned, their
one-sided reports never presented compelling
arguments to justify our exclusion from ANCSA.
Alaska Natives have watched much of their land
be sweep up in the name of putting it under the
Nations’ protection over the years, as an
example, the Misty Fjords National Wilderness
extracted 2,294,343 acres from Traditional
Native Lands of Southeast Alaska Natives for the
American Public. This large Southeast Alaska
area is the ancestral land that once contained
the Villages of many different area Native
Tribes and Clans, and still has the bones of all
of our Alaska Native ancestors buried on them.
We are respectfully requesting that our
Southeast Alaska Native claims be validated and
we be allowed to claim a “small piece” of our
historical homelands to call our own, for our
children and our grandchildren for generations
to come. We will cherish this land, develop it
to support our people, use it to teach our young
people on the ways of their ancestors, and we
will continue to be good Neighbors in the
Communities surrounding us, as we always have
been.
Gunalcheesh! Hawa’aa! Way Dankoo! Ndoyk.shn!
Thank You!
Joseph Reeves, President
Landless Natives of Ketchikan, Alaska Inc.
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