Alaska Natives Grapple With Super Corporation

Alaskan Eskimos and Indians have just won the biggest land claims settlement in history – 40 million acres, $465 million in federal funds and $500 million in state mineral rights. Their holdings are to equal roughly two percent of all the land in the United States. If considered a single business entity, the Alaskan natives would qualify among the 10 largest corporations in the country.

The Alicia Patterson Fund Sub-Polar Expedition

Preparations for the Alicia Patterson Fund Sub-Polar Expedition (APFSE) have been long, laborious and a trifle unnerving. At destination Anaktuvuk Pass the chill factor ranges from -20º to -80º which could be the makings of a fast-frozen "fellow."

Caribou Versus Pipeline: Can They Take It In Stride?

That's the theme of a current conservationist poster and, if the proposed trans-Alaskan oil pipeline does block caribou migration, it bodes a cold and hungry future for several thousand Alaskan natives.

"The Last Of The Independents?

The people of Anaktuvuk Pass were the last of Alaska's independent Eskimos. For centuries they followed the track of the migratory caribou through the Brooks Range far north of the Arctic Circle.

Point Hope – A Workable Tradition?

The Eskimo word for "whale"is a harsh whisper on the restless ice of the Chukchi Sea off Point Hope.

A light whale boat, umiak, fashioned from sealskin covered driftwood, slips into the gray water of a fog-shrouded lead.

Six men, moving as one, paddle soundlessly, cross-current; evading the sweep of jagged, fast-moving ice blocks.

Galena – How To Win A Flood?

Today the Athabascan Indian village of Galena is the goingest, growingest village on the Yukon. Its residents enjoy a unique prosperity gained through plentiful fighing and hunting and high employment opportunity. The future looks brighter still, and it's hard to believe that just a year ago Galena nearly came off the map.

Leonid Brezhnev in the U.S.
June 18-25, 1973

Tundra Times: A Survival Story

One of the most astonishing survival stories of the Far North is that of the Tundra Times. This fall the little Eskimo-Indian newspaper celebrates its 10^th year of publication, flourishing in the financial wasteland of the Arctic on an erratic circulation that wavers between 1,500 and 5,000.

Indian Artists Versus Artists Who Are Indians

For well over two centuries the artistic accomplishment of the Indians of the Pacific Northwest Coast has astonished all who have experienced it. Russians, Englishmen, Frenchmen, Spaniards and Yankee merchant mariners visited Alaska and the adjacent coastal islands to explore and trade among these unusual people. All of the visitors who were sufficiently literate to record their experience registered also their intellectual and emotional responses to the all-prevading creative production of this unique coastal culture….

Eskimo Olympics

A crowd of 1,500 watches silently. The air is hot and tacky, heavy with the strain of concentration. Reggie Joule, a young Alaskan Eskimo from Kotzebue, studies the high kick target which dangles almost two feet above his head. Twice he has failed to kick it in a style acceptable to the judges. If he fails again he is sure the Eskimo Olympic title will go to a Canadian.

The Tyonek Indian Tycoons Learning The Hard Way.

In 1963 the Tyonek Indians, an impoverished, tribe of 200 Athabascans on the shores of Alaska's Cook Inlet, collected a windfall of $11,671,675. in oil lease revenues.

Despite the fact that few among them had much formal education and their individual incomes had previously averaged at best about $1,000 per annum, the Tyoneks fought vigorously for release from the stewardship of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the right to manage their own future.

They won, laid a careful foundation for preservation of their prosperity and were soon being hailed by Time, Life Magazine and the Wall Street Journal as the "Tyonek tycoons."

"Letter from Alaskan United Crow Bands Indians to the Secretary of Interior:

"We are placing no blame on anyone personally, but feel there have been freezes and regulations passed to protect us and we are being slowly squeezed to death….

"No one has ever come out and talked to us to see what we think or how we feel about what is going on.

"We are not a chess game. We are human beings and right now very upset and disturbed people.

"We feel our land, and what it has grown, has fed, clothed and helped us survive. Do you wonder why we are fighting to keep it?"

Chief Isaac
Tanacross, Alaska
1969

The "North Star"

In the gray mist of an early dawn a small Eskimo boy scampers down the barren beach at Shaktoolik, Alaska, and scans the horizon. Far out where Norton Sound meets the sky, he spots a freighter riding the choppy water.

Atka – The Place The Tsar,
The U.S. Government and
Even God Forgot

Atka, furthest west settlement in the Aleutian Islands, has no zip code, no post office, no functioning dock and no airstrip. Its only communication with the outside world is a fickle 50 watt radio and an ancient Navy tug, dispatched there once monthly, weather permitting – and the weather is the rougest in the world.

An Eskimo Community Battles The Bottle

Wearily, Bethel Police Chief Tom Dillon went through his files:

"The man had frozen to death within 15 feet of the door to the house where the party was in progress. We figure he got sick, went outside and somebody locked the door. Never heard him trying to get back in.

"One woman died from exposure in an abandoned house. She'd gone there, intoxicated, for the purpose of prostitution. Must have passed out. The customer left and she froze.

"New Year's Eve we had a snow machine take off. Found the driver later a quarter of a mile from a house. Held fallen off and frozen. The machine was still in working condition…."

Angoon Indian Village Moving Up On The Political Totem Pole

At the top of the political totem pole is John Borbridge; urbane, well-educated, city-bred chief of the Tlingit Indian people. Many believe him to be an inspired leader. Others charge he is a politically ambitious self-seeker; a "God Father."

Alaskan Natives Gain Political Punch

Six years ago the Alaskan native was a political nonentity. Statewide candidates, the state legislature, polsters – just about everybody but the welfare agencies – ignored him. Under the U.S. Constitution he had a vote, of course, but he wasn't expected to use it.