The borough will be asking for “archaeological proposals” for a ground survey of the former Wrangell Institute property, consulting with state and federal agencies and the Wrangell Cooperative Association on the process before any work begins.
The borough had been waiting on guidance from the U.S. Department of the Interior, which has pledged that surveys will be conducted of former Alaska Native and American Indian boarding school sites nationwide.
But the department “really doesn’t have any guidance on this,” said Carol Rushmore, Wrangell’s zoning administrator and economic development director.
The department is “focused on a records search at the moment,” Rushmore said last Friday. A report is due to the Interior secretary by April 1, 2022.
“We were hoping for some (federal) funds that would come through, but at this time (it) doesn’t appear that will happen,” she said. “We are moving forward slowly.”
The request for proposals for archaeological surveys will ask for advice on what would be appropriate and what methods would work best on the Wrangell terrain.
The borough has owned the property near Shoemaker Bay since 1996, and was looking to develop much of the 134 acres for residential lots. That effort is on hold, pending the ground survey for any remains or cultural sites at the school, which operated from 1932 to 1975.
In addition to working with the Wrangell tribal government, the borough is consulting with the State Historic Preservation Office, the Interior Department and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which would need to approve development of wetlands on the property.
As part of the consultations, the borough will send letters to every Native corporation and tribe in the state, advising them of the ground search plans.
“It will take some time because of all the agencies involved that have to approve what we’re going to do,” Rushmore said.
The Interior Department’s nationwide initiative was prompted by the discovery earlier this year of children’s remains buried in British Columbia at the site of what was once Canada’s largest Indigenous residential school, and the fear that burial sites could exist at U.S. school sites.
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