Growing Beyond our Indoctrinated Histories of Extraction

Canoes landing at Auke Bay in Juneau, Alaska for Celebration 2022. Photo by Lyndsey Brollini/Native Movement. 

Growing Beyond our Indoctrinated Histories of Extraction

By: Lyndsey Brollini and Anaan’arar Sophie Irene Swope

For thousands of years Alaska has been  stewarded by Alaska Native peoples. People with rich knowledge systems who for centuries have navigated these lands  from a culture of sharing, of regeneration with  little to no waste, using each item as a sacred gift of the Earth.

 With the first  European explorers began the practice of extracting and exploiting Alaska’s  natural resources.

Russian and then French explorers came to Alaska bringing with them  diseases which caused near population collapse. The resilient few were placed into a society of forced labor, where the Russian extraction around furs began a critical shift in the natural world as a commodity to capitalize on for wealth garnering. 

The Russian contact significantly diminished the animal populations of Alaska and brought new systems of belief and the ideology of money to Alaska Native people.

During the United States’ Western expansion, the U.S. illegally purchased  Alaska in 1867 for the tactics of war, bringing leverage on the Pacific front. As time passed and settlers explored, it led to the 1896 discovery of gold.

This discovery brought a stampede of 100,000 prospecting miners to Alaska during the “Klondike Gold Rush” from 1897- 1898. 

Alaska Native lands continued to be prospected by outside influences. Alaska became a state in 1959, and seven years later in 1966 the Alaska Federation of Natives organized for the first time. That same year, a “land freeze” was imposed to protect Native occupancy and use of Alaska lands. This all changed in 1968 when oil was discovered in Prudhoe Bay.

Discovering oil in the Arctic triggered fervor within the state economy. With oil in mind and no existing settlement over land, the 1968 “Alaska Land Claims Task Force” began Alaska's Indiginous journey to settlement.

In 1971, Congress signed the Alaska Native Claim Settlement Act (ANCSA) into law. It mandated the creation of 13 regional corporations and hundreds of village corporations that represent Alaska Native people in a foreign economic system. ANCSA extinguished Alaska Native claims to 90% of their lands in the development of Alaska Native Corporations (ANCs).Which extinguished indigenous hunting and fishing rights, and laid the foundation for undercutting Tribal governance and self-determination in Alaska 

Alaska Native people, as always resilient and adaptive, navigated the foreign system, attempting to negotiate the system to meet their needs of survival and change it to be more aligned with their values and traditional ways of life. 

But the colonial and capitalist systems ANCSA put in place have become embedded in Alaska Native communities today, and are a major reason why our communities are so deeply divided.

This is most literally shown through the ongoing debate about blood quantum. When ANCSA originally passed into law, a 1/4 blood quantum requirement was in place with the colonial goal of eliminating our Nations. That, despite our continued growth of our populations, the legal recognition of "tribal blood" would in fact lessen. 

That requirement was removed in later amendments to ANCSA, but many regional and village corporations still use that requirement – keeping future generations from having a say in what happens to the land their ancestors stewarded for thousands of years. Tribal Governments who are federally recognized as sovereign entities and policy makers, are completely separate from the ANCs, and yet even Tribes adopted blood quantum requirements.

It is unnecessary to hold onto an outdated and counterproductive policy. If we look to our values, we love children and the expansion of our families and communities. The growth of the communities does not mean we must enforce a shrinking system. 

ANCs and Native Tribes: Are They Benefitting Equally?

ANCs started extracting from their lands through oil drilling, mining and clear-cutting old-growth forests for timber. These are non-renewable industries that hold impacts that will remain for all of time.

The Exxon Valdez oil spill was a particularly devastating demonstration of this. In 1989, a 987-foot oil tanker struck rock while transporting 53 million gallons of North Slope crude oil. This incident brought total collapse of the local marine population, which is the core sustenance to many, if not all, Alaska Native populations. This was a detrimental time to the Alaska Native people of the area.

Despite the fact that oil and minerals are already running dry and have caused irreparable harm in the past, ANCs are still pursuing non-renewable resource projects. 

These projects have a possibility of short-term gains but come at a huge cost to the Earth and our ways of life. Our coastal villages are being threatened more often by severe storms, and the long sustained ways of life are dwindling and as weather patterns are becoming more unpredictable.

It is possible to return to our teachings of being in harmony with the land. Some ANCs are starting to move away from extracting from their land and aligning business more with Native values. 

While some ANCs are slowly incorporating more socially conscious entrepreneurial practices, wealth inequality is still prevalent, a strong departure from a history of sharing and cultural “mutual aid”.

The leaders who fought for ANCSA did the best that they could with the resources they had – which was hardly any resources at all in the beginning. 

ANCSA was the biggest land claims settlement in the history of the U.S.. ANCs provide jobs for their shareholders and fund culture camps and language revitalization. It is important to acknowledge that it has been an important vehicle in economic development that is unprecedented in other parts of “Indian Country”.

But still, it wasn’t quite a win either. Most Alaska Native lands were taken and with many Tribes having little or no  legal land claims currently. 

Furthermore, hunting and fishing rights were extinguished with the passage of ANCSA Instead the Alaska Department of Fish & Game (ADF&G) has failed to protect “subsistence” hunting and fishing. ADF&G has continually opted to side with commercial fishing interests. 

 A transition must be made away from extractive business-as-usual practices, we must look to our history of thousands of years of successful earth stewardship as we build forward.

So What DOES a Just and Equitable Transition Look Like in Alaska?

In May 2022, hundreds of Alaskans gathered at the Nughelnik Just Transition summit to talk about all the ways regenerative economies are already being shaped in the state. 

Just Transition is a framework that the International Labour Organization describes as “maximizing social and economic opportunities of climate action, while minimizing and carefully managing any challenges – including through effective social dialogue among all groups impacted.” 

Many organizations that participated in this year’s summit are building food distribution systems and utilities that center community care over individual gains, and have engaged in mutual aid since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020. 

In 2021, the Alaska Native Heritage Center organized a fish drop, giving 25 pounds of salmon to families during the pandemic. Community farms and greenhouses funded by community organizations and Tribes are emerging all across the state. And the network of reciprocity displayed every year during herring egg season is an impressive model for how communities can share resources with relatives across the state. 

Tribes are also building their own broadband internet access systems. The Akiak tribe started their own broadband network, and Wrangell is a starting point for the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska to build their own broadband service to communities in Southeast Alaska. 

Alaska also has a lot of opportunity to invest in renewable energy – a field that harnesses infinite forms of energy – instead of investing money and technology in extracting hard-to-find deposits of oil and gas. 

A transition to renewable energy is not just possible, it is necessary. Alaska Native communities are at the forefront of the devastating effects of climate change. Extreme weather patterns that caused the deadly landslide in Haines in 2020 and the storm that tore through Western Alaska in September 2022 are becoming more common as the ocean warms.

Some Alaska communities already demonstrate that it’s possible to rely on renewable energy. Juneau’s electricity is already almost entirely renewable, relying on hydroelectric power supplemented by diesel fuel. Since 2014, Kodiak Island Borough has successfully gotten over 99% of their energy from wind and hydropower resources immediately available to them.

People may not be able to envision a future without an extractive economy, but the roots of it are already here. Alaska Native knowledge has created systems of care for the community and environment for thousands of years.

Alaska Natives and countless ancestors were the true stewards of the land for time immemorial and are the inventors of the only system that worked in preserving fish populations. It needs to be known that we are not economically depressed; we have every resource necessary to thrive. 

Being self-sustained by switching to renewable energy and growing food on our immensely fertile soil creates lifetimes of jobs and provides food security. That is more rich than a 30 year mining project that provides only for a single generation, while also destroying the lands and foods they already provide. 

We must  recognize when our current systems are not working or leaving many people out, and we deserve better. When corporations become truly accountable to Tribes and our tribal communities, then perhaps we can lead all of Alaska with traditional values that embrace communities of care for each other and for Mother Earth then a better future is guaranteed for everyone. 

This week, Native Movement and Always Indigenous Media brings you The Trickster Times online . You can pick-up a print version at the Elders & Youth and Alaska Federation of Natives conventions. Some stories are more newsy, some are more commentary, and all are written from the heart and for our community. We welcome you to join us as we build people power, rooted in an Indigenized worldview, toward healthy, sustainable, & just communities for ALL.