Native Land Selections

By Susan Smith — Chairperson, Residents of the Wrangells

Many Wrangell-St. Elias Park (WRST) residents along the McCarthy Road have been asked to get right-of-way permits and pay access fees to the National Park Service (NPS) to travel across park land to reach their homes. Technically, much of the land is not yet owned by NPS, but is part of an enormous 600,000-acre Ahtna native selection on the western border of the park.

The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) established thirteen regional native corporations in 1971. In exchange for releasing aboriginal title to their land, Alaska natives received a cash settlement of $962.5 million and 44 million acres of land across the state.

Ahtna Regional Corporation and its affiliated village corporations own rights to 1,528,000 acres of land. An additional 249,000 acres need to be conveyed to Ahtna to complete the land settlement process mandated by ANCSA. This acreage will be drawn from a pool of approximately 1,500,000 acres already chosen by Ahtna; they have over-selected, and only about one-sixth of that land will actually be conveyed.

According to a land status map and table published in the 1997 McCarthy Road Scenic Corridor Plan, Ahtna currently owns 12% of the land which abuts the McCarthy Road, from the Copper River bridge to about milepost 8. Their unconveyed selections span east to the Strelna Lake area, west to the Crystalline Hills, north into the Wrangell Mountains, and south across the Chitina River. They include over 32 miles of acreage abutting the McCarthy Road, or 33% of the total acreage adjacent to the road.

The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) of 1980 guaranteed in Section 204 that native claims made within the boundaries of the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve (WRST) would be “recognized, honored and conveyed” by the Secretary of the Interior.

Many inholders wonder if their access issues will ultimately be resolved by dealing with Ahtna rather than NPS. Any native lands within park boundaries which are not selected will fall back to federal management by NPS. Last fall Ahtna negotiated with NPS to establish conservation easements for some of their WRST inholdings; these easements would give NPS jurisdiction over the lands. In fact, Ahtna's Land Status webpage claims that any lands within the boundaries of WRST, “...while owned or selected by Ahtna, are under the jurisdiction of the NPS.”

Senators Lisa Murkowski and Ted Stevens sponsored passage of the Alaska Land Transfer Acceleration Act (S1466) in October of 2004 to speed up the conveyance process of the remaining ANCSA selections. Of the original 44 million acres appropriated to Alaska native corporations, 29 million have yet to be conveyed. A timetable will be established for submission of final conveyance priorities. This bill also authorizes the government to provide an additional 200,000 acres in conveyances to help settle selection problems.

According to Senator Murkowski, the main goal of this Act is to help the federal government streamline and complete the conveyance process in Alaska. Sixty million acres of federal land have yet to be transferred to the state to satisfy its 104-million-acre statehood entitlement. Legislators would like to see that goal accomplished by the 50th anniversary of Alaska statehood in 2009.

Within five years, Ahtna's inholdings within the WRST should be finalized. Many questions remain for inholders along the McCarthy Road. Which areas of WRST will be owned by Ahtna? Exactly how many acres of their huge selection will be conveyed? Will Ahtna negotiate for conservation easements on all of their inholdings, giving NPS jurisdiction over thousands of acres of additional land? Perhaps actual ownership of the land should be established before residents within the selection area are asked to go through the NPS permitting and access fee procedures.