Wrangell Sentinel - the oldest continuously published paper in Alaska.

Sealaska representative says

bill could serve as precedent

Keith Chaplin

Sealaska Corporation representatives told a group of about 70 Wrangell citizens, including representatives from the Wrangell Landless, that if a controversial legislation that would allow Sealaska to select lands were to pass, it could serve as precedent for the Wrangell Landless in their goal of acquiring land.

The presentation, meant to explain Sealaska’s position and support of Senate Bill 881, and House Bill 2099, Thursday Apr. 8 was met with questions from the Wrangell Landless and others questioning the practices of Sealaska and its goals for the future.

Shareholder and Sealaska Corporation General Council Jaeleen Araujo was one of the presenters Thursday. Araujo explained the bill and its background before saying that it would be an uphill battle for the Wrangell Landless.

“Sealaska continues to have a remaining land entitlement that is owed under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA),” Araujo said.

Araujo said that it would be an uphill battle for the landless, especially with as much resistance as Sealaska is receiving for what she feels is owed to the corporation.

“We’re having a hard time with our bill and we’re talking about existing entitlement,” Araujo said. “Something that’s already owed to our native corporation.”

Araujo said she knows of the frustrations that the Landless have, and said that if this legislation passes it could serve as precedent in the future.

“A lot of land issues in Alaska have lost some traction, and we’re hoping with our bill to lay the foundation to get some things done on Alaska native land issues,” Araujo said.

Legal precedent involving this piece of legislation has been a hot topic. In March a member of Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s staff told Petersburg residents that this bill would not be used as precedent.

On Mar. 12, Charles “Chuck” Kleeschulte, a member of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources addressed the problem to a packed town meeting in Petersburg.

“We have talked to all of the heads of other native corporations. They have all agreed that they will not use this bill as a precedent to see that the lands act is re-opened,” Kleeschulte said.

There are three categories of land that Sealaska is seeking. Firstly, the corporation is seeking between 65,000 to 75,000 acres of what it calls “Economic Development Lands” which will be used mainly for timber operations. The majority of these lands fall on Prince of Wales Island.

“To be honest, most of Sealaska’s economic development to date has been in timber, and most of our timber has been on Prince of Wales,” Araujo said.

Rick Harris, executive vice president of Sealaska said these lands would bring jobs to Southeast Alaska.

Mayor Don McConachie asked how those jobs would affect Wrangell and its citizens.

“As I am understanding it, we have approximately 700 Sealaska shareholders in this community, which probably represents about one third of our total population,” McConachie said. “What I am wondering is if this finalization act goes through, what kind of job opportunities are there going to be within this community?”
Harris said that Sealaska has taken action to start a corporation to look into the issue of sustainable development of jobs.

Harris said that the corporation is in the final stages of setting up Haa Aani LLC, a corporation with a name that means “our lands” to generate jobs in rural communities of southeast Alaska.

That is where the second type of land requested by Sealaska comes into play, Harris said. Sealaska is seeking about 5,000 acres of what it calls Native Future Sites, some of which will be used to develop new industries, Harris said.

“I can say that we are changing the strategic direction to create this new company (Haa Aani) with the specific focus of trying to create new wealth and new jobs in these communities,” Harris said.

Araujo, who is from Angoon, said that her community along with all communities of Southeast need to have more opportunities for development.

One of the areas that Haa Aani will be addressing is aquaculture, specifically oyster farming.

Harris said that new sustainable economies are essential to the rural southeast. He said that some of the lands that would be acquired by Sealaska would be for the purpose of developing aquaculture.

“The (Sealaska) board of directors was very clear to us … ‘you’ve gotta start creating these jobs,”’ Harris said. “We can not have any more rural migration.”

“We’re not creating the opportunities to keep families here so what we started seeing is it migrating somewhere else,” Harris said.

Harris said that Sealaska is working to increase the amount of people in Southeast beyond just the few months of summer fishing.

“Southeast Alaska is worth visiting nine months of the year,” Harris said. “What we’re trying to do is see if we can create new kinds of business enterprise that bring people in.”

The last type of claim that Sealaska is making is for 3,600 acres of Sacred Sites.

Harris said he does not want to see issues between Sealaska and the Wrangell Landless.

“We worked with the landless communities in our land selections to make sure there was no conflict,” Araujo said

When asked about giving lands acquired in this legislation to the landless, Harris said that was not possible with a corporation.

“These five corporations are owed the land,” Harris said.

When asked about selling timber to domestic versus international markets, Harris and Araujo both said they would sell timber to the highest bidder due to regulations.

“If we harvest, we’ve got to get the maximum value,” Harris said.

“If we sell domestically versus export, we’ll get about a quarter, on average, of the price,” Araujo said.

Becky Koenig said that she wanted to know what Sealaska was doing with a newsletter. She also pointed out that she wanted to see Sealaska board members decrease their stipends and look at how funds are being spent.

“We’ve gotta look at the bigger picture. Our elders are in pathetic situations where their homes are falling down.” Koenig said. “They can’t get any help.”

As for the next action on the bill, Harris said that he expects it to go through a “mark up” as boundaries are reviewed before it is looked at by the senate energy and natural resources committee.