Judge dismisses Metlakatla Indian Community fishing rights lawsuit

A federal judge on Feb. 17 dismissed a lawsuit arguing that tribal members of Alaska’s sole Native reserve — on Annette Island, south of Ketchikan — should not need state permits to fish outside the reserve’s marine boundaries.

Public radio KRBD reported the story.

Metlakatla Indian Community sued Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration last year. Lawyers for the tribe said the 1891 federal law that established the Annette Islands Reserve was intended to create a self-sustaining community — and that the right to fish in waters within a day’s travel of the reserve was an essential part of that.

Metlakatla argued that the state’s commercial fishing regulations should not apply to tribal members fishing in those waters.

Attorneys for the state argued that Congress never intended to grant Metlakatla such fishing rights, and U.S. District Court Judge John Sedwick agreed. “Such a right simply cannot be implied from the language of the 1891 statute, the congressional record associated with its passage, and the history of the community’s relocation to the Annette Islands,” Sedwick wrote.

The order said the congressional record shows that 19th-century lawmakers intended the reserve to serve as a self-sufficient Christian Alaska Native community. “Congress sought to provide the Metlakatlans a secure place to live and to encourage the establishment of a self-sufficient, Christian community that other Alaska Natives would emulate.”

But the fact that Congress intended to create a self-sustaining community isn’t enough to show that lawmakers intended to grant off-reservation fishing rights, the order said.