Tag: Faculty

With the 50 year anniversary of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), the Department of Alaska Native Studies and Rural Development (DANSRD) would like to share the Guide to Sources of Study for ANCSA as developed by the Alaska Historical Society (AHS). This blog entry will include an overview of the guide as well as highlight an example. We recommend that you use the Guide in your research activities.

The Alaska Historical Society is quickly moving from annotating sources to include in the master Guide to Sources on ANCSA to the next stage, formatting and managing the 700 plus page document. Karen Brewster is ably managing this compilation. The Guide will contain six sections:

1. An introduction explaining the scope of the project and how the Guide is organized. 
2. A second section lists collections by archive or holding institution.
3. A third section that actually describes the content of collections at each site that relates to ANCSA. This third section is indexed down to the box and folder level when possible and is meant to give researchers a path to content that relates to their area of interest. To access the actual content they will need to go to the archive where it is held. 
4. The fourth section of the Guide is an annotated bibliography of sources that are readily available in published or printed form in library holdings. 
5. A fifth section is a listing of key players in the ANCSA movement. A one or two sentence describes each person’s role. 
6. The sixth and final section of the Guide is a compilation of curriculum that has been developed over the years with a listing of key discussion topics for educators teaching this topic. 

An Example of How to Use the Guide 

Photo title: “Chiefs’ Conference at Tanana”, 1962. Bear Ketzler Collection, UAF Archives. Photo dated 1962. Photo number UAF 1992-202-18. 

One of the collections featured in the Guide is for Al Ketzler Sr., an Interior Native leader who worked for land claims. A collection of material was deposited at the Rasmuson Library, Alaska and Polar Regions Archives and is described in the Guide to Sources on ANCSA in sections 2 and 3 of the Guide.

Section 2

Al Ketzler Sr. Collection

Al Ketzler Sr. is an Athabascan leader from Nenana, Alaska who actively worked for the recognition of Native rights and was instrumental in organizing Native leaders in the Interior in the 1960s about land ownership issues prior to the Alaska Native Land Claims Settlement Act. The collection covers the years 1961-1977, and topics of particular interest addressed by this collection include:

• Material and correspondence from the first Chiefs Meeting in Nenana and subsequent meeting in Tanana in 1962, and the Dena’ Nena’ Henash (Our Land Speaks) organization that Ketzler was chairman of and its conference in Tanana in 1963; 
• Material and correspondence related to the Alaska Native Rights Association; 

Correspondence and supporting reference to key people involved in early Native land claims efforts: Kay Hitchcock (English Department, UAF); Sandra Jensen (local Fairbanksan involved in helping the people of Nenana with their “land problem”); Charles Purvis (whose daughter, DeLois, was married to Al Ketzler and was a local Fairbanksan involved in helping the people of Nenana with their “land problem”); Grant Newman (Director of the Alaska Native Rights Association); Henry Forbes, LaVerne Madigan and William Byler of the Association of American Indian Affairs (AAIA) in New York City that supported Ketzler’s land claims efforts and helped provide funding; and William L. Paul, Sr, who was Tlingit and a Native rights attorney.

To see the listing of sources, researchers go to section 3 of the Guide where they find the following description:

3. Al Ketzler, Sr. Collection 

Box 4: Alfred Ketzler Sr., Alaska Native Land Claims Settlement Collection (Accession 84-044)

Box 4

Folder 10

“Chiefs’ Conference, Tanana, Alaska, June 24-26, 1962”

“Dena’ Nena’ Henash” (Our Land Speaks)

In the following piece, Director Emeritus of the Department of Alaska Native Studies and Rural Development, reflects on the fight for land claims in the Interior and the impact of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. Professor Wright joined the then Department of Alaska Native Rural Development in 2001 and was the director of the department from 2010 to 2014. Professor Wright brought tremendous knowledge, education, experience, and passion to the department and was the force behind the department’s “ANCSA Impact Series.” She has served on the Doyon, Limited Board of Directors since 1995 and is currently the treasurer. We are honored that Professor Wright took the time to share her reflections with us.

Reflections on the Impacts of ANCSA over the past 50 years

by Director Emeritus Miranda Wright

Fifty years since the historic passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act offers the opportunity to reflect on the past and to speculate on our path forward.  Indigenous peoples have lived in Alaska for tens of thousands of years.  Contact with Western cultures over the past century brought stress on natural, cultural and wildlife resources.  This stress came to the forefront in Interior Alaska in 1915 when plans surfaced to build a railroad from a coastal port in southcentral Alaska to the northern terminus at Nenana in Interior Alaska.  The Native village of Nenana witnessed their traditional cemetery excavated and moved by the federal government to accommodate the construction of a railroad and railroad bridge across the Tanana River.

This encroachment on traditional/cultural lands and land ownership claims caused enough concern among Athabascan tribes from the lower Tanana River that a meeting was called with federal officials.  This first meeting of the Tanana Chiefs marked the beginning of tribal and government relationships for Interior Alaska.  The meeting was held in Fairbanks with Judge James Wickersham, Alaska Territorial delegate to Congress, presiding. At this meeting, the Chiefs expressed the importance of sustaining our lifestyle through employment, education, health care, and land protection.  Land protection was specifically discussed as managing access to lands and traditional subsistence hunting and fishing.

The Alaska Railroad and later the proposed Rampart Dam are two major government efforts that rocked the Athabascan communities.  Then came statehood in 1959 and a massive land grab. The feeling of being transparent or downright invisible to the newly established State government, resulted in thirty-two interior tribal villages convening a meeting in 1962 to protect our lands.  The meeting was held in Tanana and adopted the moniker Tanana Chiefs Conference (TCC).  Twenty-Four of the represented villages signed a petition that was hand carried to Washington DC.  This led to Secretary of the Interior, Stewart Udall to freeze further land selections by the State of Alaska. 

Nearly every Indigenous region across Alaska were experiencing similar land selection pressures and folks began asking “Who owns Alaska?”  These concerns resulted in a statewide meeting in 1966 of seventeen Native organizations and over 400 Alaska Natives to address aboriginal land rights.  Labeled the Alaska Federation of Natives, this three-day conference became the unifying voice for all Alaska Natives in the fight for land claims.  After years of debate, compromise, and frequent travels to and from Washington DC by Alaska Native leaders, the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) was signed into law by President Richard Nixon on December 18, 1971.

ANCSA redefined federal Indian policy in Alaska and mandated that both regional and village corporations be owned by Alaska Native shareholders.  This governing structure placed corporate ownership into the hands of Alaska Natives.

Here in the interior, Doyon, Limited took on the monumental task of land selection and analysis of areas designated for future resource development, which would be protected as sacred and historic sites, and mapping out subsistence areas.  Much have changed with ANCSA over the past fifty years.  Corporate stock can no longer be sold, several corporations, including Doyon, have opened enrollment to Alaska Natives born after 1971.  Alaska Native Corporations are major economic drivers in Alaska and continue to make strides in becoming visible in the decision-making process that impacts all Alaskans.

The piece below, written by DANSRD Associate Professor Cathy Brooks, reflects on what she learned participating in the ANCSA Impact Series, culminating in a series of panel discussions and presentations hosted by the UAF Department of Alaska Native Studies and Rural Development (DANSRD) and collectively titled “The Impact of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) on Alaska 1971-2011.” The event was held in the Wood Center Ballroom on the UAF campus on October 5 and 6, 2011, in observation of the 40th anniversary of the passage of the act. Recordings of that event, totaling more than 10 hours, are now available online through the UAF Elmer E. Rasmuson Library’s Alaska and Polar Regions Collections & Archives digital repository (https://bit.ly/31SYIRz). Early in 2022, DVDs of these videos will also be available for checkout through the library. For more information, please contact the archives at UAF-APR-reference-Service@alaska.edu

Reflections on the ANCSA Impact Series

Catherine Brooks, Associate Professor, Department of Alaska Native Studies and Rural Development

During the summer and fall of 2011, a series of public lectures and presentations were coordinated by the Department of Alaska Native Studies and Rural Development (DANSRD) in conjunction with the Office of the Chancellor, UA Office of Academic Affairs, and the College of Rural and Community Development, called “The Impact of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) Series.”¹  

The Impact of ANCSA Series events included a summer lecture, “The Children of ANCSA: A discussion with Willie and Elizabeth Hensley,” a September lecture, “Byron Mallot Shares Reflections,” and a two-day event held in October 2011 featuring numerous speakers from across Alaska.  At the time, I was one of the people in the department assisting with the event. The event was the brainstorm of Miranda Wright, who served as the director of DANSRD at the time.  Miranda understood the importance of ANCSA and had lived the changes it had brought.  She chose a reflections format with the idea there was a lot of information and a lot of directions one could go on addressing the topic.  The reflections allowed for a telling of history using personal stories about what the time was like, why they did some of the things they did, and how things had changed in the forty years since passage.

Ironically, it has only been in my own reflection that I realize how impactful the series was on me.  The event helped me appreciate the issues and the people involved.  Most of the Alaska Natives involved were doing the best they could for the land, people, and culture they loved. 

In Willie Hensley’s lecture, he credited his Inupiat upbringing to being able to persevere through the battle for the land.  He learned, “you can’t afford to quit; if you quit here, you die.”² He also shared how in completing the research for one of his college courses, he “owned the understanding”³ of the issue.  His understanding of the lands issue helped create the call that Alaska Natives needed to do something.  In Byron Mallot’s talk, he emphasized how the initial battle was “not about economics, but about the land, land that needs to be taken care of for future generations.”⁴ Mallot also spoke of how his mother emphasized it was going to need to be his generation, not hers that made a difference, as “she did not fit” in that world.

The panel discussions focused on history, economics, environment, women, social change, governance, education, and leadership. The numerous stories and sharing in the reflections are full of insights that can help us understand today even better.  Many of the individuals that participated in the panels have passed on and I feel fortunate to have heard their stories and sharing.  I was shuffling back through my notes on the event (yes, I still have them ten years later) and found myself looking for themes.  Although many did not use the word, I would say that resilience and working together definitely emerged as themes.  I wish I had written down who said it, but in the margin of my notes, I had, “If you want to know, go out and seek.” 

__________________________

1. Department of Alaska Native Studies and Rural Development, The Impact of Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act on Alaska 1971-2011, 2011, Fairbanks, AK: Yahdii Media, 2011. DVD
2. Hensley, Willie, and Elizabeth Hensley. “The Children of ANCSA: A discussion with Willie and Elizabeth Hensley,” Lecture, Impact of ANCSA Series, Fairbanks, AK, July 7, 2011.
3. Hensley, “Children.”
4. Mallott, Byron. “Byron Mallott Shares Reflections.” Lecture, Impact of ANCSA Series, Fairbanks, AK, September 13, 2011.