Newsletter - March 1999 Page 3

February 3rd marked anniversary of a radical shift for ANCSA

By A.J. McClanahan, CIRI Historian

February 3rd marked the 11th anniversary of what many would call the single most important package of amendments to the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971.

On that date in 1988, the sweeping "1991" amendments were passed to ANCSA, which continued restrictions on the sale of Native corporation stock unless a majority of the shareholders voted in favor of ending them. CIRI shareholders who participated in the Special Shareholder Vote made history when they decided in 1998 to remain a Native-controlled corporation.

As CIRI President and CEO Carl Marrs noted in the recent Shareholder Update, the vote gave CIRI shareholders an opportunity to decide what they want from their corporation and its stock value.

It was not at all clear when ANCSA was passed in 1971 that shareholders would ever get such an opportunity. And even as recently as the mid-1980s when the "1991" amendments were under consideration in Congress, the choice on the continuation of Native control was not a foregone conclusion.

ANCSA's passage in 1971 was the result of work by people with many different agendas. There was a wide gulf between those who wanted to impose a Western value system on Alaska's First People and many of the Native people themselves who were trying to craft a creative alternative to the reservation system in the Lower 48, which yoked people to the hulking bureaucracy of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Joseph H. Fitzgerald, former chairman of the Federal Field Committee, which developed a massive landmark publication that detailed the plight of Alaska Natives in 1968, favored settling land claims. But Fitzgerald's view of the creation of corporations can only be seen as a type of termination. Restrictions on the sale of stock would end 10 years after passage of the law, under a proposal he offered.

"Each Native may hold his stock or sell it as he desires, and you or I may buy stock if we desire without racial restrictions. In short, 'aboriginal rights' are to be exchanged for useful and relevant civil rights," he testified in 1969.

At the other end of the spectrum were Alaska Natives whose urgent task in the face of the state of Alaska beginning its selection of 104 million acres of land, was to protect as much land as they could and make sure that it remained under Native control. In the end, they settled for a 20-year moratorium on stock sales. Twenty years seemed like a long way into the future, and those who were concerned about it felt that it was enough time to craft whatever changes were needed.

Interestingly, even before the Alaska Federation of Natives mounted its effort in the mid-1980s to radically change ANCSA by allowing Native ownership

to continue in perpetuity, there were shifts at the national level. Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, chairman of the Senate Interior and Insular Affairs Committee at the time of the passage of ANCSA, talked about the tension that existed between the notion of Western-style corporations and Native cultural needs in his keynote address to AFN in 1981:

"This is a debate which I have watched for the past 13 years. It is a debate for which there are no ultimate answers. At one time, I thought it was a serious mistake to mix social welfare objectives with the traditional Corporation's more limited objective of maximizing profitability. Today, I must confess to having changed my mind. The Regional Corporations are totally unique. Their performance cannot be measured by gross revenue and net profit standards alone. Judgments about their performance must be made on the basis of total performance in the achievement of shareholder goals."

Byron Mallott, former CEO of Sealaska Corporation and one of the architects of ANCSA who now serves as executive director of the Alaska Permanent Fund, says what gives him hope about ANCSA, despite his misgivings over some of its features, is that it has been very much a living document.

"We've been able to amend it as time, circumstance and policy requirements have required. And one of the most critical of those changes has been the change in the 20-year prohibition on the sale of stock," he said. "I think that there was a recognition among policy makers and the general public that this made sense, that these corporations did belong to Alaska Natives and that they should make decisions as to their future, as to whether their stock was alienable or not."

Mallott says he has many concerns about ANCSA. "I have a deep sense of hollowness when I think about ANCSA as a vision very much unfulfilled. So the notion of ANCSA as a living document, as evolving, not just in terms of its statutory regime, but in terms of how we view it, is what gives me hope."

His focus is on the future, not the past. "ANCSA's just a tool. ANCSA's just something that happened in a given point in time. It was very powerful and timely, but it is only one step, if a significant one, in a very long journey. And much of the journey has yet to be taken."

How they got there . . .

The strong-willed, vocal and passionate young leaders who crafted ANCSA and oversaw its early implementation came from a wide variety of backgrounds. But the common thread knitting them together was that most faced limited futures in the Alaska economy as it existed at the time. Alaska was a very different place 30 years ago.

Roy Huhndorf, the man who played such a crucial role in building CIRI into the success story it is today, was working as a manual laborer for a company called Grocers Wholesale in the late 1960s when he first became interested in Alaska Native issues. Here he tells how he got his start as an Alaska Native leader in his own words:

"Before I left Grocers Wholesale, something important happened. At the time I'd been busy raising a family, working hard, trying to get ahead. At Grocers Wholesale, I was assigned to the freezer. They had a huge freezer, and we used a special electric forklift to do the work there. It was always very cold. But if you dressed for it, it was fine. We worked hard in there.

"Another guy was in there with me and he was also an Alaska Native, a guy by the name of Don Watson. And because the freezer was a place where the bosses rarely went to watch you because it was cold, we would have a chance to talk once in awhile in between the rush of putting up orders.

"He said, 'Roy, you should get involved in the Cook Inlet Native Association. There's a big drive on now to get a land settlement for Alaska Natives. And you should become involved in the Cook Inlet Native Association. My wife Dorothy and I are involved. We're on the board. I'd like you to consider running for the board. You're a good guy. You're a smart guy. You could help us out. Why don't you do that?'

"So I went with him to a couple of meetings and began liking what I was hearing." And the rest, of course, is history.

Editor's Note: AJ welcomes comments and suggestions, and can be reached at CIRI at 263-5197 or via email: ajmcclanahan@CIRI.com.