Alaska Subsistence A National Park Service Management History

Notes — Chapter 4

¹ David S. Case, Alaska Natives and American Laws (Fairbanks, Univ. of Alaska Press, 1984), 10-11; Claus-M. Naske and Herman E. Slotnick, Alaska; A History of the 49th State (Grand Rapids, Mich., Eerdmans, 1979), 198.

² Naske and Slotnick, Alaska, 214, 220.

³ Ibid., 212-14.

⁴ G. Frank Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time;" The National Park Service and the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980 (Denver, NPS, September 1985), 68; S. 1964, H.R. 11164, and S. 2690, all in Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act Legislative History, vol. 1 (Bills), part 1, ARLIS; Congressional Record 113 (1967), Part 28, passim; Donald Craig Mitchell, Take My Land, Take My Life (Fairbanks, University of Alaska Press, 2001), 146-47.

⁵ Federal Field Committee for Development Planning in Alaska, Alaska Natives and the Land (Washington, GPO), October 1968.

⁶ Naske and Slotnick, Alaska, 215, 217; Donald Craig Mitchell, Take My Land, Take My Life, 197; Congressional Record 114 (1968), Part 25, passim.

⁷ Ibid., 218-21.

⁸ Ibid., 221-22; Williss, Do Things Right the First Time," 73, 82-85.

⁹ S. 1964, 10, in ANCSA Legislative History, 1:1.

¹⁰ S. 2906, 36; H.R. 15049, 24; and S. 3859, 13-14; all in Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, Legislative History, v. 3 (Bills), part 1, ARLIS.

¹¹ The dictionary defines subsistence as "the minimum (as of food and shelter) necessary to support life." Prior to this time, "subsistence farming" was a common term for a "system of farming that produces a minimum and often inadequate return to the farmer," while "subsistence" was a synonym for food and kindred expenses that government agencies paid to its traveling employees. Most Natives never used the word "subsistence" before the ANCSA deliberations; as Jonathon Solomon of Fort Yukon noted, "I never heard the word subsistence until 1971 under the Native land claims act. Before that time, when I was brought up in the culture of my people, it's always been 'our culture' and 'our land.'" Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (Springfield, Mass., Merriam-Webster, Inc., 1986), 1176; Franklin G. Fox to Regional Director, Region IV, NPS, July 3, 1938, in File 600, MOMC, Entry 7, RG 79, NARA San Bruno; Thomas R. Berger, Village Journey; the Report of the Alaska Native Review Commission (New York, Hill and Wang, 1985), 52.

¹² S. 1830, 38-39, in ANCSA Legislative History, 1:1.

¹³ Section 2(a)(7) of S. 1830, as passed by the Senate in July 1970, provided for "Protection of Native subsistence hunting, fishing, trapping, and gathering rights and, where it is within the power of the federal government, measure for the conservation of subsistence biotic resources."

¹⁴ S. 35, ANCSA Legislative History, 3:1, 121-23; Donald Mitchell interview, May 13, 2002.

¹⁵ S. 35, ANCSA Legislative History, 3:2, 299-303; Mitchell interview.

¹⁶ Mitchell, Take My Land, Take My Life, 474-76; Mitchell interview.

¹⁷ Theodore Catton, Land Reborn; A History of Administration and Visitor Use in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve (Anchorage, NPS, 1995), 208-09; Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time," 90; U.S. Senate, Alaska National Interest Lands; Report of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources ... to Accompany H.R. 39 (Report No. 96-413), 96th Congress, 1st Session (Washington, D.C., GPO, 1979), 231. Morris Udall, a leader in Alaska Lands Act legislation, noted that the Secretary and the State accepted the idea of promising "to take any action necessary to protect the needs of the [Alaska] Natives" in exchange "for the exclusion from that act [i.e., ANCSA] of a subsistence management title developed by the Senate." Congressional Record, May 4, 1979, H 2697. AFN attorney Don Mitchell, speaking years later, noted that it was the State of Alaska that lobbied to have the subsistence priority removed, with the apparent agreement that state management would improve. Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, December 3, 2000, A6.

¹⁸ Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time;" 69-71.

¹⁹ The Multiple Use and Classification Act (P.L. 88-607) became law on September 19, 1964. Although it was national in its scope, it made special provision for lands "situated in the State of Alaska exclusively administered by [the Secretary] through the Bureau of Land Management." Duncan A. Harkin, et al., Federal Land Laws and Policies in Alaska, Vol. III (Madison, Univ. of Wisconsin, October 1970), 1148; P.L. 88-607.

²⁰ Williss's "Do Things Right the First Time," pp. 35-56 gives an excellent overview of early NPS planning efforts. Speaking on the subject years later, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) said that he was "surprised" to discover in 1970 "that 50 million acres of Alaska had been classified as lands that were potential national parks." These classification orders "had been entered by the Department of Interior as internal guidance in dealing with Alaska lands." Congressional Record, August 19, 1980, S 11185.

²¹ Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time," 71-88; Catton, Inhabited Wilderness, 195-97.

²² Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time," 95-97.

²³ Ibid., 104-05.

²⁴ John Kauffmann interview, April 29, 1999. The initial NPS planning team included John Reynolds (MOMC), Urban Rogers and Keith Trexler (LACL), Paul Fritz (WRST), Bob Belous (KOVA), and John Kauffmann (GAAR).

²⁵ Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time," 120-24.

²⁶ Ibid., 120-24, 142-43; Alaska Planning Group, [Various park FESs], p. 1.

²⁷ On the heels of ANCSA's passage, NPS Director George Hartzog was convinced that 95 percent of the 80,000,000 acres withdrawn under Section 17(d)(2) belonged in the National Park System. But Spencer Smith, head of the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife, felt that four-fifths of that acreage was intended as national wildlife refuges. Both men, of course, suffered a rude awakening in March 1972 when Secretary Morton announced the preliminary withdrawals. Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time," 104; Richard Stenmark interview, July 9, 1999.

²⁸ Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time," 271-72; John Kauffmann interview, April 29, 1999. problem.

²⁹ The reality of subsistence during the 1970s is discussed in Jim Rearden's "Subsistence, a Troublesome Issue," Alaska 44 (July 1978), 4-6, 84-88; Walter B. Parker, Subsistence Realities, published by the Joint Federal-State Land Use Planning Commission in August 1977; and Berger, Village Journey, 1985. But in the early 1970s, neither state nor federal authorities had collected the information that would fill these and similar volumes.

³⁰ John Kauffmann interview, April 29, 1999.

³¹ NPS, Recommendations Regarding Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act 17(d)(2) Withdrawals, July 1972, "Background," p. 3.

³² Bob Belous, who was working as a Native liaison and photographer for the NPS at the time, summed up the agency's thinking at the time in a March 28, 2001 interview. "No one had special access to subsistence like Natives." He noted, "they deserved some recognition and maybe even preferential access."

³³ NPS, Recommendations Regarding ANCSA Withdrawals, July 1972, passim.; Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time," 132.

³⁴ Frank B. Norris, Isolated Paradise; An Administrative History of the Katmai and Aniakchak National Park Units (Anchorage, NPS, 1996), 443-44; Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time," 121-22.

³⁵ Bob Belous, Subsistence Use of New Parklands in Alaska (An Interim Report), November 10, 1973, as noted in Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time," 187, 248, 273; Belous interview, March 28, 2001. Belous, a former journalist and engineer, had joined the NPS in 1972. In the mid-to-late 1970s, he became a public liaison officer and the "keyman" for the proposed Cape Krusenstern and Kobuk Valley park units. He remained with the agency in Alaska through the early 1980s (see Chapter 5).

³⁶ See, for example, NPS, Proposed Chukchi-Imuruk National Wildlands, Draft Environmental Impact Statement (Washington?, the author, December 1973), 1-2. This document will hereafter be referred to as "NPS, Chukchi-Imuruk DEIS" and other DEISs will be referred to in a similar fashion.

³⁷ Within the NPS, the change from a Native to a rural preference took place between July 1972 and December 1973. (At other agencies, no such shift took place, inasmuch as a Native preference was never seriously considered.) On a legislative level, as noted in Section G below, initial efforts once again suggested a Native preference, but by early 1978 the changeover to a rural preference had been effected. It remained that way until ANILCA was signed into law.

³⁸ Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time," 147-51, 153-54.

³⁹ NPS, Wrangell-St. Elias DEIS, 126-46.

⁴⁰ NPS, Kobuk Valley DEIS, 2, 5, 134-45.

⁴¹ U.S. Department of the Interior, Proposed Noatak National Ecological Range, Draft Environmental Impact Statement (Washington?, the author, December 1973), 1, 7, 146-55, 160-74.

⁴² NPS, Chukchi-Imuruk DEIS, 8.

⁴³ William E. Brown, Gaunt Beauty, Tenuous Life; Historic Resources Study, Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve (n.p., NPS, January 1988), 516-58; Theodore Catton, Inhabited Wilderness; Indians, Eskimos, and National Parks in Alaska (Albuquerque, Univ. of New Mexico Press, 1997), 165-72; Catton, "Ecology and Alaska's National Parks" (paper given at the Alaska Environmental History Conference, Anchorage, August 2, 1998), 16.

⁴⁴ Catton, Inhabited Wilderness, 173, 177; NPS, Proposed Gates of the Arctic National Wilderness Park and Nunamiut National Wildlands DEIS, 104.

⁴⁵ Catton, Inhabited Wilderness, 167, 173, 175-77.

⁴⁶ Ibid., 168; Edwin S. Hall, Jr., Craig Gerlach, and Margaret B. Blackman, In the National Interest: A Geographically Based Study of Anaktuvuk Pass Inupiat Subsistence Through Time, 2 vols. (Barrow, AK, North Slope Borough), 1985.

⁴⁷ John Kauffmann interview, April 29, 1999.

⁴⁸ Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time," 44, 48-49, 56-58; Catton, Inhabited Wilderness, 187.

⁴⁹ Catton, Inhabited Wilderness, 188; Naske and Slotnick, Alaska, 239. The road was abandoned after the winter of 1969-70, and in 1974 the State of Alaska agreed to a court order that closed it to further use. Congressional Record, November 12, 1980, H 10535. Four years later, more than forty miles of the road was placed within Gates of the Arctic National Monument, and the area has been administered by the NPS ever since.

⁵⁰ Catton, Inhabited Wilderness, 197-98.

⁵¹ NPS, Recommendations Regarding Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act 17(d)(2) Withdrawals (July 1972), 21, 30.

⁵² Catton, Inhabited Wilderness, 199.

⁵³ Ibid., 199-200; NPS, Gates of the Arctic-Nunamiut DEIS, 6.

⁵⁴ Catton, Inhabited Wilderness, 200; NPS, Gates of the Arctic-Nunamiut National Wildlands, DEIS, errata sheet, 2. The NPS's proposal had called for all land in the Wilderness Park "to be designated a wilderness by the legislation that creates it;" it would have been the only park proposal that would have done so. But the OMB's action struck down the wilderness park concept. Regarding the Chukchi-Imuruk proposal, the OMB also struck down a provision that would have provided for preferential hiring of Alaska Natives. Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time," 141-42.

⁵⁵ Note that the Noatak proposal, at this time, was not an NPS proposal; as noted earlier, the area was to be jointly managed by the BLM and the BSF&W.

⁵⁶ Bob Belous interview, March 28, 2001.

⁵⁷ Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time," 157, 160.

⁵⁸ NPS, Native Alaskan Heritage Centers; A Proposal (c. 1972), 4.

⁵⁹ Ibid., 1-12.

⁶⁰ During the mid-1970s, the idea for a Native cultural center was espoused by Calista Corporation, one of the new ANCSA regional corporations. The corporation decided that a cultural center would be a critical adjunct to a proposed shopping concourse, to be located in Anchorage near its Sheraton Hotel property. The commercial facility was never developed, however, in part because of a lack of interest from other Native regional corporations. Other proposed sites during the 1970s for a Native cultural center were downtown (near Second Avenue and Christensen Drive) and on the Alaska Methodist University campus.

The idea lay fallow for the next several years, but in 1986 the cultural center concept was presented at that fall's Alaska Federation of Natives convention. The assembled delegates voted to pursue the idea, and soon afterward an ad hoc group consisting of representatives from each of the regional corporations was formed to move the concept forward. That group, Alaska Native Heritage Park, evaluated the pros and cons of fifteen potential sites, all of which were located in Anchorage. That process revealed that an optimal site for the proposed center was in east Anchorage, near the corner of Tudor Road and Campbell Airstrip Road. (This triangular-shaped 80-acre parcel, near Benny Benson School and today's Alaska Botanical Garden, had been designated as a cultural center site almost a decade earlier as part of the Far North Bicentennial Park plan.) Inasmuch as the parcel was municipally owned, the center's backers, in 1989, approached the Municipal Assembly for a long-term lease and soon afterward received it. The group then sponsored a site feasibility study, the results of which were favorable, and proceeded to raise design and construction funds. Their efforts were derailed, however, by project opponents—neighborhood groups and environmentalists—who submitted a petition to the city asking that the lease be repealed. A protracted delay then ensued over whether a lease repeal should be placed before Anchorage's voters; that logjam was broken in the fall of 1991, when a Superior Court judge decided to proceed with a vote. That vote, on November 3, 1992, resulted in a narrow (200-vote) victory for those who advocated that the lease be repealed. Supporters of a Native heritage center, therefore, were forced to look elsewhere.

Heritage center advocates responded to the ballot setback by seeking out new sites. The group initially considered both public and privately-owned sites ranging from Palmer to the Kenai Peninsula. Soon, however, the focus narrowed to a few sites in northeastern Anchorage. One site on Fort Richardson, proposed during the waning days of the Bush administration, failed to materialize but an adjacent tract was considered near the Glenn Highway-Muldoon Road intersection. This 88-acre parcel, also on Fort Richardson, was owned by Cook Inlet Region, Inc. (CIRI), but the Municipality of Anchorage had a long-term lease. The multiplicity of interests was initially daunting. The center's backers, however, found both CIRI and the Federal government cooperative, and by July 1994 newly-elected mayor Rick Mystrom had helped arrange for 26 acres of the city's lease to be transferred to the Alaska Native Heritage Center. After a blessing ceremony that summer, fundraising began in earnest, and before long a broad array of interests—Federal agencies, Native corporations, foundations, corporations, and individuals—agreed to help underwrite the $14.8 million project. Given such broad support, backers were able to proceed with site preparation in 1997, and construction of the main building began in the late summer of 1998. The Alaska Native Heritage Center opened to the public the following spring. Jane Angvik interview, February 16, 2000; Steve Peterson interview, February 17, 2000.

⁶¹ Catton, Land Reborn, 103, 117, 123-24.

⁶² Ibid., 132, 191, 202; Wayne Howell to author, December 11, 2001.

⁶³ Catton, Land Reborn, 206, 209-10.

⁶⁴ Ibid., 211.

⁶⁵ Ibid., 211-12; Wayne Howell to author, December 11, 2001.

⁶⁶ Frank Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time," p. 160 notes that the deadline for comments to the various DEISs was July 22, 1974, and planners received more than 6,000 comments.

⁶⁷ See, for example, Alaska Planning Group, Proposed Chukchi-Imuruk National Reserve, Final Environmental Statement (Washington?, the author, 1975?), 1. The statement's wording varied slightly for the various proposals. The Mount McKinley National Park Additions proposal, the sole proposal omitting this verbiage, offered roughly similar language and promised that "existing established subsistence activities will be allowed to continue." APG, Proposed Mount McKinley National Park Additions, Final Environmental Statement (Washington?, the author, October 1974), 5.

⁶⁸ The lack of emphasis upon subsistence values as it pertained to the Gates of the Arctic proposal was striking, particularly in comparison to the extent to which the agency had backed the Nunamiut National Wildlands proposal in late 1973. In early 1974, a bill was submitted in Congress to establish a Nunamiut "cultural park," but it never got beyond the committee stage. Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time," 156.

⁶⁹ APG, Cape Krusenstern FES, 1; APG, Kobuk Valley FES, 5.

⁷⁰ APG, Aniakchak FES, 2; APG, Harding Icefield-Kenai Fjords FES, 5; APG, Lake Clark EIS, 2.

⁷¹ APG, Katmai Additions FES, 2; APG, Lake Clark FES, 2.

⁷² APG, Chukchi-Imuruk FES, 5; APG, Harding Icefield-Kenai Fjords FES, 5.

⁷³ APG, Aniakchak FES, 2; APG, Gates of the Arctic FES, 1, 8, 72-73.

⁷⁴ Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time," 113; John Kauffmann interview, April 29, 1999.

⁷⁵ Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time," 246-47.

⁷⁶ Newman, an anthropologist, arrived in Alaska in 1975 from the agency's Denver Service Center. Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time," 247. Bill Brown, in a July 14, 1999 interview, noted that top Alaska Task Force officials approved the 1977 paper.

⁷⁷ T. Stell Newman, The National Park Service and Subsistence: A Summary, November 1977, 1.

⁷⁸ William E. Brown interview, July 14, 1999; Raymond F. Dasmann, "National Parks, Nature Conservation, and 'Future Primitive'," unpub. paper given at the South Pacific Conference on National Parks, Wellington, N.Z., February 24-27, 1975, in Theodor R. Swem Collection, Conservation Library, Western History Collection, Denver Public Library.

⁷⁹ Historian William E. Brown, in an April 18, 2001 interview, noted that NPS planners focused their primary attention in the subsistence realm on traditional indigenous people; this may have been a response, in part, to those who thought, or perhaps hoped, that Native subsistence would fade away. Alaska Area Director G. Bryan Harry, in fact, stated that NPS planner Bob Belous was known among some colleagues as a "gigantic philosophical champion of Natives in the national parks." (G. Bryan Harry interview, November 3, 1998) Newman, however, was more pragmatic, and the NPS, during this period, consistently agreed with the State of Alaska's "local rural" criteria for subsistence preference as a way to avoid exacerbating tensions between Natives and non-Natives.

⁸⁰ Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time," 262-63.

⁸¹ Ibid., 260-62; Ray Bane interview, September 18, 1997. In addition to Bane, Anderson, and Nelson, the study's authors were Wanni Anderson and Nita Sheldon. The Banes' dogsled trip is recounted in Joe McGinness's Going to Extremes (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1980), 232-33.

⁸² Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time," 262-64, 268; Bill Brown interview, April 18, 2001. The Gates of the Arctic study, called Tracks in the Wildland; A Portrayal of Koyukon and Nunamiut Subsistence, was written by some of the same researchers who previously had worked on the Kuuvangmiit subsistence study. It was completed as a CPSU paper in 1978 and reprinted for more widespread distribution in 1982. A multipart study of subsistence patterns in the vicinity of the Bering Land Bridge proposal was completed in 1981. The only proposed park areas that were not studied as part of the CPSU effort were Kenai Fjords National Park (where subsistence activities were thought to be rare) and a small proposed parkland northwest of Glacier Bay National Monument.

⁸³ Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time," 174ff. In 1980, Sen. Charles Mathias (R-Md.) explained the preserve concept this way: "Since the establishment of the National Park System in 1916, the consumptive use of wildlife resources with National Parks and National Monuments has been prohibited. However, when establishing new units of the National Park System the Congress has had a longstanding traditional practice of reviewing those values and activities within new units which, if immediately curtailed, might result in substantial hardships to the local residents of the area. Congress has [therefore] authorized the continuation of certain uses within new parks and monuments which would be prohibited under traditional National Park Service management policies." Congressional Record, August 18, 1980, S 11135. John Cook, in an April 18, 2001 interview, noted that Dick Curry, a Nixon appointee with the Interior Department in Washington, was largely responsible for developing and selling the preserve concept.

⁸⁴ Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time," 122; Frank B. Norris, Isolated Paradise; An Administrative History of the Katmai and Aniakchak National Park Units (Anchorage, NPS, 1996), 443-45.

⁸⁵ John Kauffmann interview, April 29, 1999; Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time," 166-67. As part of that agreement, NPS planners initially proposed that subsistence uses be banned in Lake Clark National Park. The Alaska Area Director, however, overrode that decision.

⁸⁶ Congressional Record 124 (May 16, 1978), 14009; "A Brief History; Why Alaska Has a Subsistence Law," Alaska Fish and Game 21 (November-December 1989), 11.

⁸⁷ Alaska House of Representatives, Special Committee on Subsistence, Draft Report of the Special Committee on Subsistence; History and Implementation of Ch. 151, SLA 1978, the State's Subsistence Law (May 15, 1981), 15-16.

⁸⁸ Mil Zahn, "Advisory Committees; a Report to the Boards of Fisheries and Game," November 18, 1981, 3, in "ADF&G Regional Councils through FY 86" folder, AKSO. Zahn's report suggests that advisory board funding began in 1974; initially modest, funding dramatically increased in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

⁸⁹ Alaska House of Representatives, Draft Report of the Special Committee on Subsistence (1981), 2-3, 10-12, 16; Morehouse and Holleman, When Values Conflict, 12.

⁹⁰ Alaska House of Representatives, Draft Report of the Special Committee on Subsistence (1981), 11; Morehouse and Holleman, When Values Conflict, 13. See State of Alaska v. Tanana Valley Sportsmen's Association, in Pacific Reporter, 2nd series, vol. 583 [1978], pp. 854-60. In issuing his opinion in the lawsuit, Chief Justice Robert Boochever noted that "many" Alaska Natives "eke out a livelihood by reliance on fish and game. A few non-Natives have adopted similar means of livelihood."

⁹¹ Alaska House of Representatives, Draft Report of the Special Committee on Subsistence (1981), 13-14.

⁹² Ibid., 8.

⁹³ Alaska House of Representatives, Interim Committee on Subsistence, Final Report of the Interim Committee on Subsistence, Alaska Tenth Legislature, Second Session, n.d. (ca. January 1978), 3-7, 11.

⁹⁴ Such a user, it appeared, could be either a rural or urban resident; and as part of the bill's legislative history, Rep. Anderson assured Fairbanks residents that they would be protected by the subsistence priority.

⁹⁵ Alaska House of Representatives, Special Committee on Subsistence, Final Report on Activities During the 1979 Interim (January 25, 1980), 1, 16; Alaska Boards of Fisheries and Game, Proposed Regulatory Changes Governing Subsistence Use of Fish and Game Resources, Advisory Committee Bylaws and Regional Resource Councils, to be Considered in Anchorage, Alaska, from March 24 Through March 28, 1979. In February 1979, the House Special Committee on Subsistence submitted a bill (HB 199) intended to establish a Division of Subsistence Hunting and Fishing. A month later, it passed the House on a 24-15 vote. The measure stalled in the Senate, however, and was never enacted. The Subsistence Division was finally established, via administrative means, in July 1981 (see Chapter 5).

⁹⁶ Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time," 157, 170, 172-74, 179-80.

⁹⁷ Ibid., 174-75; Congressional Record 123 (January 4, 1977), 261-62.

⁹⁸ Congressional Record 126 (November 12, 1980), H 10545. Udall followed up these remarks that day by noting, "We made good on that promise" by including "a detailed subsistence title," explained below.

⁹⁹ H.R. 39, January 4, 1977, in Public Law 96-487, Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act Legislative History, Vol. I, pp. 207, 222-25; Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time," 174-75.

¹⁰⁰ Congressional Record 123 (January 4, 1977), 261-62.

¹⁰¹ As Udall noted in Congressional testimony, "We created a special new category, park preserves for the sole and only purpose of permitting sport hunting to continue." But some sport hunting groups remained unhappy. Alternative House bills in both the 95th and 96th congresses proposed that virtually all of Alaska's lands would be open to sport hunting, and at least one Congressman supporting those views chafed at language "giving priority in subsistence uses on public lands over the consumptive uses in the taking of fish and wildlife." Congressional Record, May 2, 1979, E 2013; May 4, 1979, H 2694.

¹⁰² Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time," 179; S. 1787, June 30, 1977, in ANILCA Legislative History, Vol. III, p. 75.

¹⁰³ Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time," 196-97.

¹⁰⁴ "Statement of Hon. Jay S. Hammond, Governor of the State of Alaska," August 20, 1977, in ANILCA Legislative History, Vol. XV, 18-21; Donald Mitchell interview, May 13, 2002.

¹⁰⁵ Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time," 191, 195.

¹⁰⁶ Ibid., 187, 197-98; H.R. 39, October 12 and October 28 (1977) Committee Prints, in ANILCA Legislative History, Vol. I, 288, 544. Newly-appointed NPS Director William Whalen, during this period, commented that H.R. 39 was generally sensitive to subsistence. He felt, however, that mechanisms included in the bill were too specific and should instead be established through departmental policy and regulations.

¹⁰⁷ The exact language pertaining to the various park units differed slightly; the Kenai Fjords proposal, for example, offered "to provide opportunities for continued subsistence uses," while at Kobuk Valley, the bill proposed "to protect subsistence resources to assure continued viability of resources for continued subsistence uses."

¹⁰⁸ H.R. 39, October 12 and October 28 (1977) Committee Prints, in ANILCA Legislative History, Vol. I, 288, 544.

¹⁰⁹ H.R. 39, October 28, 1977 Committee Print, in ANILCA Legislative History, Vol. I, 627-646.

¹¹⁰ Congressional Record 123 (December 15, 1977), 39072.

¹¹¹ Congressional Record 124 (February 23, 1978), H 1483. Udall later repeated a similar notion, stating that "for the first time in the history of the Republic, Congress would grant to a State the right to manage fish and wildlife on public lands of the United States." Congressional Record, May 4, 1979, H 2697.

¹¹² Congressional Record 124 (January 31, 1978), H 450. Also see Congressional Record 124 (May 15, 1978), 13780. Later that year, Udall noted that "the language of Title VII of the House bill represents a very carefully balanced compromise of the views of the two Committees, the State of Alaska, and rural Alaskans. Any significant alteration could be extremely unsettling and have far-reaching consequences." Congressional Record 124 (August 8, 1978), H 8124.

¹¹³ H.R. 39, February 15, 1978, in ANILCA Legislative History, Vol. II, 13-25, 81-97; Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time," 199.

¹¹⁴ As noted below, the version of H.R. 39 that was issued in mid-February 1978 expunged all reference to race; as a result, the three criteria—none more important than any other in this version—were "customary and direct dependence upon the resource as the mainstay of one's livelihood, local residency, and availability of alternative resources." H.R. 39, February 15, 1978, Sec. 704(c)(3)(C).

¹¹⁵ Congressional Record 126 (November 12, 1980), H 10545-46. Also see George C. Coggins and Robert L. Glicksman, Public Natural Resources Law (Environmental Law Series), Release No. 14 (October 1996), 18-37 and 18-38.

¹¹⁶ Mitchell interview, May 13, 2002.

¹¹⁷ Congressional Record 124 (May 17, 1978), H 4103. Morris Udall made a similar promise, as noted in the Congressional Record 124 (June 21, 1978), E 3361. After Congress passed its final (1980) bill, Udall stated that "although the Federal and State subsistence management system is racially neutral, it is important to recognize that the primary beneficiaries ... are the Alaska Native people. ... The subsistence title would not be included in the bill if non-Native subsistence activities were the primary focus of concern." It was "included in recognition of the ongoing responsibility of the Congress [which is] consistent with our well recognized constitutional authority to manage Indian affairs." Congressional Record, November 12, 1980, H 10545.

¹¹⁸ Later versions of HR 39 would clarify the rural priority; section 701 of the House-passed bill in May 1979, for example, stated that "the taking of fish and wildlife ... by rural residents shall be the first priority consumptive use...." By December 1980, the word "rural" had become even more firmly entrenched; it is found in sections 801, 802, and 803 of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act.

¹¹⁹ Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time," 200-04; H.R. 39, May 19, 1978, in ANILCA Legislative History, Vol. II, 432, 521-39. This bill, somewhat restrictive, allowed sport hunting in national preserves only by specific action of the Interior Secretary.

¹²⁰ Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time," 205-06.

¹²¹ Protecting "the viability of subsistence resources" in the three proposed park units was a far cry from stating that subsistence was an avowed purpose in them (as H.R. 39 had done). See the Congressional Record, November 12, 1980, H 10547.

¹²² U.S. Senate, Designating Certain Lands in the State of Alaska as Units of the National Park, National Wildlife Refuge, National Wild and Scenic River, and National Wilderness Preservation Systems, and for Other Purposes; Report of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Report No. 95-1300 (October 9, 1978), 26-32, as noted in ANILCA Legislative History, vol. XXXIII, 582-88. This was the first committee-passed bill that contained the term "traditional." The bill did not, however, define "traditional" or specifically suggest how it might be applied.

¹²³ U.S. Senate, Designating Certain Lands in the State of Alaska, Report 95-1300 (October 1978), 124, 134-37. All of the drainages named in the Senate report were more accessible to Anaktuvuk Pass than any other settlement; almost all flowed north out of the Brooks Range.

¹²⁴ U.S. Senate, Designating Certain Lands in the State of Alaska..., (Senate Report No. 95-1300), October 1978), as noted in ANILCA Legislative History, Vol. XXXIII, 582-88. Subsistence management provisions in H.R. 39 in the 95th Congress had consistently been included in Title VII, but S. 9 as reported by the Senate committee in October 1978 included these provisions in Title VIII because the bill contained a provision (Title IV) for BLM conservation units that H.R. 39 had not considered.

¹²⁵ Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time," 207-13.

¹²⁶ Ibid., 214-18.

¹²⁷ Congressional Record, January 15, 1979, H 32-40. The proclamations for the various monuments where subsistence uses were sanctioned contained nearly identical verbiage on the theme: "The land withdrawn and reserved by this Proclamation for the protection of the ... phenomena enumerated above supports now, as it has in the past, the unique subsistence culture of the local residents. The continued existence of this culture, which depends on subsistence hunting, and its availability for study, enhance the historic and scientific values of the natural objects protected herein because of the ongoing interaction of the subsistence culture with those objects. Accordingly, the opportunity for the local residents to engage in subsistence hunting is a value to be protected and will continue under the administration of the monument."

¹²⁸ H.R. 39, January 15, 1979, in ANILCA Legislative History, Vol. III, 757-69.

¹²⁹ H.R. 39, May 24, 1979, in ANILCA Legislative History, Vol. VII, 24, 96-110. As Udall noted, Title VII of this bill was "based on the concepts originally developed in October of 1977. The major change is the elimination of a required priority for Alaska Natives." Congressional Record, May 4, 1979, H 2698.

¹³⁰ H.R. 39, May 24, 1979, in ANILCA Legislative History, Vol. VII, 24, 99. It could be argued that a major function of the "regulatory subsistence boards" (as noted in the January 1977 version of H.R. 39) and the local and regional subsistence boards (noted in Committee Print No. 2 on October 28, 1977) would be the regulation of activities in the various subsistence zones. These proposed zones, however, were not limited to NPS-administered areas, and the NPS was never specifically identified in Title VII of either bill.

¹³¹ Hammond's 1971 bill was SB 36; the bill Egan vetoed in 1972 was a variation of HB 185. See Anchorage Daily Times, March 1, 1979, 43, and Ronald O. Skoog to Division Directors and Section Chiefs, September 2, 1977, in "Regional Boards, 1977" file, Series 537, RG 11, ASA.

¹³² Hammond testimony, August 20, 1977, in ANILCA Legislative History, vol. XV, 20. In an August 1977 memo to his department heads, Hammond warned that "it is imperative the State structure a legislative proposal to counter [federally-directed] alternatives. ... Accordingly, I am not asking to be told why the Satellite Board System cannot work but rather how we can make it work. ... [We must get] some of the Natives to back off supporting the ethnic subsistence councils and federal management proposed in the Udall bill." Jay Hammond to Ron Skoog, et al., August 25, 1977, in "Regional Boards, 1977" file, Series 537, RG 11, ASA.

¹³³ Alaska Department of Fish and Game, 1978 Annual Report, 6; RuralCAP, What Happens Next? A Special Conference on Subsistence, December 6, 7, and 8, 1978 (Juneau?, the author, c. 1979), 13-15. Nunam Kitluksisti, based in Bethel, was an environmental program of the Association of Village Council Presidents.

¹³⁴ Alaska House Bill History, 1979-80; Anchorage Daily Times, March 1, 1979, 43; March 16, 1979, 53. Neither HB 193 nor HB 304 were acted upon after March 15, 1979.

¹³⁵ Alaska House of Representatives, Special Committee on Subsistence, Interim Committee Newsletter No. 4 (September 1979), 22.

¹³⁶ Congressional Record 125 (April 30, 1979), H 2445.

¹³⁷ Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time," 230-32.

¹³⁸ U.S. Senate, Alaska National Interest Lands, Report No. 96-413, 6-10.

¹³⁹ Ibid., 147-48, 156-58.

¹⁴⁰ Ibid., 34-40. A full description of the differences between the House-passed version of H.R. 39 and the Senate committee bill is included on pp. 232-35 of this document. The Congressional Record for August 4, 1980, S 10659 noted that the committee amendment, as it appeared that day, differed from the May 1979 version of H.R. 39 in two ways: how it related "to subsistence hunting by local residents within national parks and monuments," and "the means for enforcement of the subsistence preference." The Congressional Record for August 19, 1980, S 11199 largely repeats this discussion.

¹⁴¹ U.S. Senate, Alaska National Interest Lands, Report No. 96-413, 233, 235. Two years later, in clarifying remarks subsequent to the bill's passage, Senator Stevens provided additional details on these concepts: "It is well recognized that habitat manipulation and predator control and other management techniques frequently employed on refuge lands are inappropriate within National Park or National Park Monuments. Section 815(1) recognizes this difference by providing that the level of subsistence uses within a National Park or National Park Monument may not be inconsistent with the conservation of 'natural and healthy' fish and wildlife populations within the park or monument, while within National Wildlife Refuges the level of subsistence uses of such populations may not be inconsistent with the conservation of 'healthy' populations. Nothing in the phrase 'in their natural diversity' in Title III [the Fish and Wildlife Service title] is intended to disrupt the well-defined and long-recognized difference in the management responsibilities of the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service." Congressional Record 126 (December 1, 1980), S 15131. These and other concepts stressing the NPS's higher standards are included in Roger J. Contor, "Remarks to the Alaska Board of Game," December 2, 1984, in "State Subsistence Management Activity, 1981-1986" folder, AKSO-RS.

¹⁴² Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time," 232-35; Congressional Record, August 18, 1980, S 11116; August 19, 1980, S 11185, 11188-89. Sen. Stevens voted against the final bill; at the same time, however, he told other senators that "It is my hope now that "the Members [of the House] who have worked long and hard on this subject will see fit to seek approval by the House of the bill that will pass this body today."

¹⁴³ Williss, "Do Things Right the First Time," 236-37.

¹⁴⁴ It may be recalled that back on October 12, 1977, Committee Print No. 1 of H.R. 39 stated that Bering Land Bridge, Cape Krusenstern, and Kobuk Valley were the same three units for which subsistence was sanctioned.

¹⁴⁵ P.L. 96-487, 94 Stat. 2377-83, 2426; Congressional Record 126 (November 21, 1980), H 11114-15; December 11, 1980, H 12351-52. The Senate's committee bill and the bill that became law were virtually identical in their approach toward subsistence; as Sen. Jackson noted after passage of the Senate bill, "While some technical changes have been incorporated, ... the subsistence title ... is taken almost entirely from the committee reported bill." Sen. Gravel agreed, noting that the latest substitute had "several minor changes to clarify traditional state and federal fish and wildlife management responsibilities." Congressional Record 126 (August 18, 1980), S 11118-19, S 11138.

¹⁴⁶ Congressional Record 126 (August 18, 1980), S 11135. Mathias's report, from which this paragraph was quoted, was based on the Senate Committee report, supplemented by material from the Interior Department. The "Subsistence Council" to which Mathias referred did not survive into the final bill.

¹⁴⁷ Congressional Record 126 (August 19, 1980), S 11198-99.

¹⁴⁸ Congressional Record 126 (August 19, 1980), S 11185; September 9, 1980, H 8638.

¹⁴⁹ As Frank Williss noted in "Do Things Right the First Time", p. 169, Ted Swem had served as Assistant to the NPS Director for Alaska until his retirement in February 1976. William C. Everhart, a career NPS historian, replaced Swem on an interim basis until November 1977, when Contor assumed the position.

¹⁵⁰ Roger J. Contor, "Remarks to the Alaska Board of Game," December 2, 1984, in "State Subsistence Management Activity, 1981-1986" folder, AKSO-RS. It is unsure which "weeks when Title VIII was being formulated" Contor refers to; perhaps these were in October 1977 and January 1978. The Senate Report on ANILCA and the Congressional Record resume of the bill's provisions were written in November 1979 and November 1980, respectively, and are repeatedly referenced above. In an April 11, 2001 interview, Contor noted that while conservation groups were strong supporters of NPS proposals to establish park units with large acreages, they were less enthusiastic about guaranteeing traditional "park values" within the park units. According to Contor, conservation leaders were willing to sacrifice these park values in order to obtain large park units; they evidently hoped, by doing so, that they would be able to tighten up the subsistence provisions at some later date.