Ground search at former Institute property on hold

The borough is waiting on further guidance from the U.S. Department of the Interior on the agency’s nationwide initiative for researching and even searching the sites of former Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding schools, including the former Wrangell Institute property.

The borough plans to subdivide the property for residential development, turning the 134 acres into 40 building lots.

While waiting on the Interior Department, borough officials are talking with the State Historic Preservation Office and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to ensure that Wrangell fully complies with whatever process the agencies set out for the site review, said Carol Rushmore, Wrangell’s zoning administrator and economic development director.

The borough also has been talking with the Wrangell Cooperative Association, the tribal government in Wrangell.

The borough will need an Army Corps permit to develop wetlands on the property, upland from Shoemaker Bay.

Borough officials are drafting a request for proposals for professional assistance in a cultural resources survey of the property, such as an archeologist, Rushmore said. “We want to answer questions and concerns to the best of our ability.”

The effort “is in a holding pattern,” waiting on Interior Department guidance, said Borough Manager Lisa Von Bargen. “We want to make sure that what we’re doing is in line with (federal) guidance.”

Wrangell also will look to the Interior Department for funding for the survey work, the manager said.

The Department of the Interior, which oversees the BIA, has committed to investigating its past operation and oversight of Native American boarding schools. At its peak, the government operated more than 200 boarding schools nationwide and funded over 100 more, mostly run by religious denominations.

A report is due to the Interior Department secretary by April 1, 2022.

The BIA operated the Wrangell Institute from 1932 to 1975. The borough accepted ownership of the property in 1996. The buildings were demolished in the 1990s and early 2000s.

The Interior Department’s nationwide initiative was prompted by the discovery earlier this year of children’s remains buried at the site in British Columbia of what was once Canada’s largest Indigenous residential school, and the fear that burial sites could exist at U.S. school sites.