Wrangell's Native community continues advocating for corporation lands

Advocates of the longstanding effort to create five new Southeast Alaska Native corporations say it's about ancestry, economic value and correcting a five-decade-old wrong.

This year, legislation before Congress would grant each of the five corporations, including Wrangell, about 23,000 acres of land from the Tongass National Forest. The proposed land selections for a Wrangell corporation are spread over about a dozen blocks around the area, as far south as Coffman Cove on Prince of Wales Island.

Similar legislation has been introduced unsuccessfully multiple times in the past 50 years.

Richard Rinehart, CEO of Tlingit & Haida Business Corp. and an advocate for the landless legislation, has ties to Wrangell dating back generations. "We've been there forever," he said last week. "Over 10,000 years. ... To have some of our original land back has a really deep cultural meaning to us."

The legislation could also provide material benefits to Alaska Natives in Wrangell. "You only need to look at the other 12 (Native village and urban corporations) in Southeast Alaska and see what the benefits have been to those communities," Rinehart said. These corporations "have had their land and have been able to develop it and have been able to provide more benefits, more scholarships, more jobs ... that we never could."

He anticipates that a Wrangell corporation would generate jobs, provide dividends and scholarships to shareholders and invest in economic opportunities such as government contracting, smaller-scale tourism and selling carbon credits for leaving timber untouched, though these decisions would be up to its board.

The legislation's proposed land selections for a Wrangell corporation include 2,091 acres on the mainland near the Garnet Ledge, 3,168 on the north end of Wrangell Island around the Shoemaker Bay overlook and Chichagof Peak, 3,275 acres around Lower and Upper Salamander Creek, about 2,000 acres near Turn Island Beach on the southern end of Wrangell Island, almost 5,000 acres on the east side of Zarembo Island near Round Point, and several other blocks in the area.

"We would prefer it (the land selections) to be on Wrangell Island, on the water or really close to the water ... (and) on the road system, so we don't have to build roads to it," said Rinehart. "Yes, that makes it more valuable, but that's kind of the point."

Wrangell business owner Lovey Brock has advocated for the legislation for years. Though she's an avid supporter of a possible urban corporation for Wrangell, she is not certain whether she will get to see one established.

"Other people that have gotten land, that were included in the land claims, they're making money off of their land," she said. "We're still waiting for land. It's been 51, 52 years we've been fighting for this. ... We saw no real reason why Wrangell was left out."

According to an April 2021 letter from the Alaska Natives Without Land Campaign (ANWL), Congress never offered an explanation about why the five communities were excluded under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971. The group points to political influence from the logging industry and the large non-Native population in Southeast as factors that may have influenced the decision.

Under ANCSA criteria, communities had to have a majority Native population to be eligible for a corporation and land selections, but many communities which did not meet that requirement were included in the legislation, including Kenai, Sitka, Juneau, Kodiak and Nome.

"Unlike most regions of Alaska, a large population of non-Native settlers had moved into the Southeast region by the early 20th century to exploit the natural resources of what is now the Tongass National Forest," the ANWL letter states. "It is our hope that this historical reality - the arrival of non-Native settlers into the region and their settlement in what were originally Native communities - will not be held against us."

Landless Native communities have been advocating for their cause since the 1970s. Legislation to grant land to the communities was first introduced in the 1990s - always without success.

However, Rinehart is hopeful that the political climate is changing. National environmental groups that have resisted the land transfer in the past have switched to neutral stances. "It's starting to feel like things are lining up," he said.

Brock is less optimistic. "I thought it would happen in my lifetime, but now I'm not sure," she said. "I don't know if it will happen in my children's lifetime, but maybe my grandchildren."

In 2022, the Petersburg borough assembly sent a letter opposing land transfers from the Tongass National Forest to create new Native corporations. Assembly members cited the fragmentary distribution of the parcels and fears about moving public land into private ownership.

In recent years, the Wrangell borough has not taken an official stance supporting or opposing the legislation.

The assembly discussed the issue with Rinehart at a work session in 2021 and "we in general did not feel the need to vote an approval or disapproval on this subject," Mayor Patty Gilbert said last week. "We ... wanted to understand the process and, more importantly, the possible implications to our borough and our community."

Assembly members were concerned about land access, and that transferring land from the Forest Service to a Native corporation might decrease federal funding to Wrangell, since this funding is dependent on the amount of federal acreage in the borough's taxable boundaries.

Rinehart suggested that once the land had been developed, other tax revenue could offset the lost federal dollars. At the work session, neither he nor the borough had exact numbers on how much money would be lost or gained if a corporation were established.

At a previous town hall meeting with borough representatives and members of the public, "one of the things that was stressed ... was concern about access to our traditional use of lands," said Gilbert. "The roads and the streams and the views and the fishing and the picnic spots and the secret berry picking spots and if we would somehow be prohibited from enjoying those activities."

The legislation mandates that the proposed corporations would provide public access to the lands they were granted, with a few exceptions. The corporations could limit access to protect cultural resources, conduct scientific research, provide environmental protection, minimize conflicts between recreational and commercial uses and ensure public safety -- by preventing people from entering an active construction zone, for example.

Corporations would not be able to arbitrarily put up "no trespassing" signs, Rinehart explained.

Despite her land-access concerns, Gilbert believes the legislation could have advantages for tribal citizens and the borough. "I can see a really beneficial aspect to this," she said. "I can see them developing lodges and ecotourism activities. I think that could entice a lot of visitors here to Wrangell and make Wrangell a destination. I see a lot of possibilities, but I also see and hear concerns from citizens."

She said she is taking a neutral stance on the issue.