The federal government is finalizing the buyback of heavily logged forest lands on Admiralty Island from Shee Atiká, Sitka’s urban Native corporation.

U.S. Forest Service Alaska Region’s Deputy Director for Recreation, Land & Minerals Dawn Collinsworth says the deal was completed over four years.

“They were lands that had been conveyed under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act to the Shee Atiká Corporation,” she said. “And they were logged at one time but they are returning to a more natural character and will be allowed to do so.”

The corporation will receive $18,312,200 — slightly less than $800 an acre.

The nearly 23,000 acres around Cube Cove were intensively logged from the 1980s up until the early 2000s. They’ll be added to Kootznoowoo Wilderness, a protected part of the Tongass National Forest about 30 miles south of Juneau. It will be off-limits to future logging.

The land deal involves the lion’s share of Shee Atiká’s real estate holdings.

“The completion of the Cube Cove land transfer was truly a monumental team effort,” Shee Atiká Board Chairwoman Pamela Steffes said in a statement.

In 2016, Shee Atiká sold the first 4,500 acres near Cube Cove to the U.S. Forest Service for nearly $4 million. The announcement of the deal was unpopular among some shareholders, who called for then-CEO Ken Cameron to step down.

Congress has appropriated funds annually over the past four years to complete the transfer.

This story has been updated.

Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott addresses the Southeast Conference Mid Session Summit on Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2018, in Juneau. He urged capital city leaders to talk more with its neighbors about annexation plans. (Photo by Heather Holt)

Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott said Juneau is not behaving like a good neighbor.

During a Wednesday speech to the Southeast Conference Mid Session Summit, he lambasted officials for trying to annex parts of nearby Admiralty Island.

Leaders from Angoon, the island’s only city, oppose what they call a land grab.

“Juneau needs to recognize that it’s the capital of Alaska but also the regional center of Southeast,” he said. “And it has a responsibility and an obligation to reach out affirmatively to every other community in Southeast and say, ‘Let’s be neighbors and let’s work together and let’s build a place that is unassailable by the Legislature or anyone else who would seek to divide us.'”

The Juneau Assembly voted in January to add four parcels to its borough, including parts of northern Admiralty Island.

It later dropped one parcel after hearing objections from cabin-owners, most of whom live in Juneau.

A former Juneau mayor, Mallott said officials should respond similarly to objections from the island’s traditional residents.

“The people of Angoon feel so passionate and spiritual about all of Admiralty Island,” he said. “They’re concerned about economic development on that side of the island now. What’s the future of their island, that they share with the rest of our country as one of the most beautiful places on the face of the Earth.”

Most of Admiralty Island’s million acres are protected as a national monument.

It’s used for subsistence hunting and fishing. But it also has a mine on its north end that has already been annexed by the capital city.

Juneau Mayor Ken Koelsch said Mallott is wrong about officials not reaching out to its neighbors.

“We attempted to go over to Angoon several times and were not able to find one (time) that was acceptable to the mayor and the group over there that we were trying to meet up with,” he said.

Koelsch said he’ll continue to try to set up a meeting.

He also noted that Angoon Mayor Pauline Jim has since come before the Assembly.

Angoon residents cite their traditional ties to the island.

Koelsch said Juneau also has longtime connections to the land it’s trying to annex. The land includes historic trade routes and areas are claimed as traditional territory by Juneau’s Aak’w Kwáan and Taku Kwáan.

The annexation process can take a least a year.

Koelsch said that gives Angoon and other opponents more chances to object.

“The Local Boundary Commission that’s set up by the state has public hearings once we put the application in and it involves everyone possible that could be affected by it,” he said.

Juneau began looking at the parcels after losing a boundary battle with Petersburg.

Both boroughs claimed rights to absorb acreage on the mainland between the two communities.

Juneau lost, in part because Petersburg petitioned for the property first. So it began looking at other areas within model borough boundaries set years before.

Aerial view of Angoon, located on the western side of Admiralty Island. (Emily Russell/KCAW Photo)

The City and Borough of Juneau is looking to expand its boundaries on Admiralty Island. That island is home to Angoon, a community of about 500 people, some of whom fear a nearby land annexation would threaten their subsistence lifestyle.

A meeting between Angoon and the City and Borough of Juneau was supposed to take place this week, but was canceled at the last minute.

Downloadable audio.

Albert Howard grew up in Angoon. He’s served two terms as mayor,  is now a member of the Regional School Board and serves as vice president of the local tribe.

“I pretty much lived here my whole life,”Howard said. “I know one end of the island to the other because I’ve hunted it with my dad and now I’m hunting it with my son.”

Sometimes they don’t see much on those hunting trips, so Howard talks to his son about the land and their rights to it.

In the late 1970s Admiralty Island became a National Monument, in part because of its cultural significance.  It’s been inhabited by Tlingit people for over 10,000 years.

“Anything that happens on Admiralty Island is for the protection of the indigenous people of the Island. It’s in [National] Monument language and it’s stated that way. You can find it online,” Howard explained.

“It doesn’t say anything about the City and Borough of Juneau,” Howard added. “That’s pretty clear in the language.”

Howard and others in Angoon are worried specifically about a place called Pack Creek. It’s on eastern Admiralty Island about halfway between Angoon and Juneau. Pack Creek is a popular bear-viewing place for tourists and hunting spot for locals.

The City and Borough of Juneau is looking to expand into the red areas (A, B, and D). Pack Creek is within area B. (Map from a memo to the Juneau Lands Committee)

Howard worries if that section of Admiralty Island is annexed, it’s resources could be auctioned off.

“This island belonged to the elders. The elders decided to keep it the way it is and Pack Creek wouldn’t be what is it if our elders decided to let everybody log it,” Howard said.

But Rorie Watt, Juneau’s city manager says that won’t happen. “If land was annexed into the Juneau borough, that does not change land ownership,” Watt explained.

 “So, with the example of Pack Creek, that would be in the Admiralty Island National Monument, managed by the Forest Service. So even if we annexed that, it would not become City of Juneau land. It would still be Forest Service [land] under that management style.”

And that Forest Service land in the Pack Creek area is protected from development since it’s inside a national monument.

So why would Juneau want to annex the land if it can’t be logged or mined or commercially developed?

“There’s a lot of reasons,” Watt explained. “If you look at the state and the constitution, the idea behind it is sooner or later the entire state ends up in a borough.”

So, basically incorporating it before anyone else does.

Alaska’s constitution says the state must be divided into boroughs, either organized or unorganized. A study completed in the 1990s laid out possible borough models.

Article X, Section 3 of Alaska’s constitution requires the entire state to be divided into boroughs, organized or unorganized. Most of Admiralty Island is in an unorganized borough. (Map from a memo to the Juneau Lands Committee)

Right now most of Admiralty Island is considered an unorganized borough and remote residents like it that way. Property owners in Funter Bay on the north end of the island wrote to the Juneau Assembly is February. They don’t want to pay additional taxes or adhere to zoning regulations.

Watt said there’s no way of knowing how much in property taxes this land annexation would bring Juneau, since those properties in the unorganized borough have never been assessed.

There are benefits to being part of the borough, Watt said, like zoning, which ensures the land is managed responsibly.

“What we would say to Angoon or anybody else who had property in the areas that we’re looking at is that we think there is an economic nexus or cultural nexus or recreation nexus between the areas we propose to annex.”

And Juneau representatives wanted to say that in person this week. Watt and other city officials had planned a trip to Angoon, but the mayor of Angoon, Harriet Silva who declined to comment for this story, cancelled the visit.

Watt said it’s still early on in the process. He hopes to reschedule a visit to Angoon and expects to host public meetings in Juneau in the coming months.

Adkins and his Juneau-based guide were hunting in Chaik Bay near Angoon, about 35 miles northeast of Sitka.

A man was mauled by a brown bear Thursday (9-22-16), on southern Admiralty Island. It’s the fourth incident of its kind in the region since August.

Megan Peters is a spokesperson for the Alaska State Troopers.

“At approximately 8:30 in the evening there was a guide and a client that were out walking, using headlamps,” Peters explained, “and it appears that they startled the bear that was a short distance away from them and then the bear mauled and latched onto the client.”

Peters identified the victim as 57 year-old Douglas Adkins from Jenkins, Kentucky. Adkins and his Juneau-based guide were hunting in Chaik Bay near Angoon, about 35 miles northeast of Sitka.

Peters described the mauling as “brief.” A helicopter from Air Station Sitka transported Adkins to Juneau for treatment of his non-life threatening injuries.

There were three similar brown bear incidents along streams in the Sitka area in August, including the serious mauling of a wilderness guide in Sitkoh Bay.

In September, the US Forest Service reported that a tour guide on Kruzof Island used pepper spray to deter a bear which may have been protecting a food cache on the Mud Bay road.

Wilber and Magdanz crossed the island on foot using a 32-mile route mapped by the Forest Service. Photo by Berett Wilber.

Berett Wilber of Sitka and Reid Magdanz of Kotzebue recently crossed Admiralty Island on foot, with a canoe! KCAW’s Emily Kwong speaks with them about their journey.

Downloadable audio

For more images of Berett and Reid’s trip across Admiralty Island, visit Berett’s website.