ANCSA - STRUCTURE

The corporate structure of ANCSA was a departure for Congress. Former Cook Inlet Region, Inc., president Roy Huhndorf has described ANCSA as an extraordinary national experiment in federal relations with Native Americans. He points to the fact that corporations, not reservations, were organized to administer the proceeds from the historical land claims settlement for Alaska Natives.

Alfred Ketzler, who was President of the Tanana Chiefs Conference when ANCSA was under consideration in Congress, discussed the corporations in a letter to the editor of the New Republic:

"Native leaders in Alaska have given great attention to the structure of the settlement, the means of administering the land and money. Indeed the concept of the development corporation is ours, though we would divide the land and money among three levels of business corporations, local, regional and statewide, in keeping with the pluralism of American society and economy."

Voicing a different viewpoint was 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. The publication Fitzgerald's committee developed, Alaska Natives and the Land, showed that from a Western viewpoint, Alaska Natives were fighting from ground zero. In 1968, Alaska Natives owned less than 500 acres in fee simple title and held only an additional 15,000 acres in restricted title. The study noted that some 900 Native families shared the use of 4 million acres of land in 23 reserves established for their use and administered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. All other rural Native families at the time lived on the public domain.

But Fitzgerald's view of the creation of corporations, however, can only be seen as a type of termination. Restrictions on the sale of stock would end 10 years after passage under a proposal he offered that was introduced as a bill in 1969. "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 at the time.

Thirteen regional corporations, including 12 in Alaska and one that was created later to represent Alaska Natives living outside the state were authorized. Alaska Natives who enrolled were made shareholders when they received 100 shares of stock.

The size of the regional corporations ranged from Ahtna, Inc., with about 1,000 shareholders, to Sealaska Corporation, with about 16,000 shareholders. Others included: The Aleut Corp., Arctic Slope Regional Corp., Bering Straits Native Corp., Bristol Bay Native Corp., Calista Corp., Chugach Alaska Corp., Cook Inlet Region, Inc., Doyon Ltd., Koniag, Inc., NANA Regional Corp., Inc., and the Thirteenth Regional Corp..

Approximately 220 village corporations were created under ANCSA, and villages were given a choice as to whether they wanted to incorporate as profit or nonprofit entities. None chose to be nonprofit. The reason for this is that the corporations were founded under state law, which didn't allow nonprofits to pay distributions to members. A profit corporation, however, was authorized to pay dividends to shareholders from profits.

Alaska Natives who enrolled to their village received 100 shares of village corporation stock. Those who elected not to enroll in a village corporation, but enrolled in a regional corporation were called "at-large" shareholders. There was a lot of confusion over enrollment, but generally speaking, Alaska Natives were allowed to enroll to the region and village where they grew up and which they considered home or to the region where they were living at the time the act was passed. Because Cook Inlet Region, Inc., was based in Alaska's largest city, CIRI became a "melting pot" for all Alaska Native groups. Many Alaska Natives from other parts of Alaska who moved to Anchorage signed up for CIRI. The size of villages ranged from 25 people to about 2,000. The larger village corporations, each of which included about 2,000 people, were Barrow, Nome, Bethel and Kotzebue.

Amendments passed in 1976, authorized village corporations to merge with each other or with the regional corporation. Some villages have merged, such as the Kuskokwim Corporation in the Calista Region, MTNT and K'oytl'ots'ina Limited in the Doyon Region; the Alaska Peninsula Corp. in the Bristol Bay Region; and Afognak Native Corp. and Akhiok-Kaguyak Incorporated in the Koniag Region. Kuskokwim Corp. includes Lower Kalskag, Upper Kalskag, Aniak, Chuathbaluk, Napaimute, Crooked Creek, Red Devil, Georgetown, Sleetmute, and Stony River. MTNT Limited includes McGrath, Takotna, Nikolai and Telida. K'oytl'ots'ina Limited was created when Huslia, Hughes, Alatna and Allakaket merged. The Alaska Peninsula Corporation includes South Naknek, Port Heiden, Kokhanok, Ugashik and Newhalen. Afognak Native Corporation is a merger of Afognak and Port Lions, and Akhiok-Kaguyak is a merger of village corporations for Akhiok and Kaguyak.

All the villages except Chitina in the Ahtna Region merged with Ahtna; and all the villages in the NANA Region except Kotzebue merged with NANA. At least two villages distributed their assets to the village tribal government, and that was done by Venetie and Arctic Village. The structure has become the source of heated debate for many years. One of the more powerful statements that has been made about ANCSA was offered by the senator who more than anyone else can take credit for the act's final provisions. 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."