2021 Convention: AFN celebrates 50 years of ANCSA

There were no crowds of village delegates to mark a major milestone for the Alaska Federation of Natives at its annual convention. For the second straight year, the conference was held virtually due to the coronavirus. The event typically draws thousands of Alaska Natives from across the state each year to either Anchorage or Fairbanks, the alternating hosts.

The theme this year “ANCSA at 50: Empowering the future” marks half a century since the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. Signed into law by President Richard Nixon on December 18, 1971, ANCSA effectively extinguished aboriginal title to roughly 365 million acres of Alaska Native lands for $1 billion in compensation.

ANCSA also created 13 Nativeowned regional corporations, today operating as 12, to serve as stewards over 44 million acres and an additional 200 or so other village corporations each with a mandate to return dividends to Alaska Native shareholders.

Gail Schubert, President and CEO of the Bering Straits Native Corporation, was 15-years-old when ANCSA was enacted. Raised in Unalakleet, Schubert said she remembers becoming a shareholder. “And I had no idea what that meant,” she said and laughed.

Few Alaska Natives understood what it meant to suddenly be swept into a corporate structure. For one, it was novel compared to how Indigenous affairs had historically been managed in the Lower 48. There, Native nations and their economies were largely tethered to the federal government’s Bureau of Indian Affairs. Under the Alaska Native Corporate structure, villages that opted-in to the ANCSA would be entitled to stock ownership of whatever commercial interests were linked to their respective regional and village corporations.

“What started as an experiment has become a source of empowerment,” touted U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski who spoke virtually on Monday, Dec. 13, the first day of the AFN convention.

To signal what the future may have in store for Alaska Natives, a panel of decorated military leaders closed out the start of the convention with an eye on the Bering Strait. “The Arctic is crucial to defending our homeland,” said Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, Commander, United States Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command. “It is not oblivious to me that we have to collaborate with Indigenous Alaskans.”

Such messaging speaks directly to Schubert who helped lead BSNC to reclaim parts of Port Clarence. A historic gathering site of the region’s Indigenous people, Schubert adds the natural deep-water port carries economic opportunity for shareholders in developing the harbor as a potential “safe haven” for the increased marine traffic anticipated to pass through the warming Bering Strait and further north.

But while some have called the ANCSA a grand “experiment” for its deliberate departure by Congress from federal Indian policy, other opinions have criticized the legislation as not going far enough to protect the interests of Alaska Natives. One example is that ANCSA does not guarantee subsistence rights for Alaska Natives which are largely regulated by the federal government.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland addressed the AFN on the convention’s second day, saying that the Department of Agriculture will soon begin consultations with Alaska Native tribes and regional corporations to discuss Alaska Native subsistence policy.

Despite such criticism Schubert said fifty years after ANCSA, ANCs like BSNC, are functioning as intended. “We have a strong responsibility to our shareholders,” she said.