Sealaska, BLM celebrate land transfer

Sealaska Building
Sealaska headquarters in Juneau. (Photo by Casey Kelly/KTOO)

Sealaska has taken possession of 70,000 acres that used to be part of the Tongass National Forest.

With photographers snapping pictures, and a roomful of corporate and federal officials looking on, Sealaska President and CEO Anthony Mallott and Bud Cribley from the Bureau of Land Management signed papers transferring title to the Tongass timber lands to the corporation at a ceremony Friday at corporation headquarters in Juneau.

Late last year, Congress passed legislation allowing Sealaska to complete its land entitlement under the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. That ended a decade-plus effort by Sealaska to choose parcels outside the original Native land claims boundaries established by ANCSA.

But Mallott says the process began long before Sealaska’s lands bill was introduced.

“You can take this all the way back to the Tlingit and Haida and Tsimshian leaders who started the (Alaska Native Brotherhood) in the early 1900s,” he says. “You can go to the ‘60s and ‘70s when the original leaders that led ANCSA were being pushed by their communities, by their tribal members for a land settlement.”

Anthony Mallot, Sealaska
Sealaska President and CEO Anthony Mallott. (Photo by Casey Kelly/KTOO)

Cribley, BLM’s Alaska Director, says it’s historic anytime a regional Native corporation can complete its land entitlement.

“This is very important,” Cribley says. “It’s not only important for the Bureau of Land Management as far as being able to move forward with our obligations under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act… But it’s just important from a historic standpoint of the significance of that act, and what it is doing for Sealaska and giving certainty for their future.”

Sealaska came close to shutting down timber operations in recent years, as the corporation logged most of its previously conveyed land. The transfer gives Sealaska access to new timber stands and other economic development sites. Company officials have said they may start logging the first of those new parcels this year.

But Sealaska board chair Joe Nelson says the corporation wants to treat the land with respect.

“The land is embedded in who we are,” Nelson said. “And you go to any indigenous people around the world, that makes us unique in the world, our connection to the land.”

Still, the land transfer remains controversial. It’s been opposed by environmentalists, hunting and fishing groups, as well as some communities near Sealaska’s new lands.

During the ceremony, former board chairman Albert Kookesh echoed Nelson’s comments about the importance of the land to Native people. Kookesh told the story of a man from his home village of Angoon, who used an ancient fish weir as proof that Native people will be good stewards of the land.

“If we can take care of that land for 10,000 years and have that fish stream still produce, the deer still be around, the trees still be there, then you have to give us credit for that land that we own, that we’re going to be taking care of it. That we’re going to sustain it. And it’s going to be there for another 10,000 years,” Kookesh said.

The Bureau of Land Management plans to prioritize which of Sealaska’s new parcels get surveyed and patented first to allow the company access to more valuable land sooner than later. It could take about five years to survey and patent all the tracts and another three years to complete the paperwork. But Friday’s signing ceremony officially transferred title to the land.

The legislation finalizing the corporation’s land entitlement also allows Sealaska to select up to 76 cemetery and historic sites in the Tongass, totaling no more than 490 acres. No word on when that process will be complete.

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