A coalition of Southeast tribes and the region’s largest Native corporation announced on Thursday the creation of an endowment designed to support conservation and economic development. They’re calling it, the Seacoast Trust. 

Sealaska Corporation and The Nature Conservancy have set aside $10 and $7 million respectively in seed money to help support the fund that they say they’d like to eventually grow to $100 million.

Its work will be coordinated by Southeast Sustainable Partnership, a decade-old effort that runs projects in towns and villages across Southeast Alaska. That partnership will run the programs funded by the new trust. 

Sealaska CEO Anthony Mallott told reporters that some projects are already running across Southeast. But the growth of the new fund could help them expand in new places and on a larger scale.

“This just gives us the pathway to increase the number of projects bring on more partners and more communities,” he said.

Southeast tribes including the Organized Village of Kasaan and Organized Village of Kake and Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska are helping lead the effort on the ground.

“Our people watched the Tongass grow,” Tlingit & Haida President Richard Peterson said Thursday. “And this forest has taken care of us for generations. And who better than us to lead efforts to care for our forests and our resources.”

Fran Ulmer, a former Alaska lieutenant governor and Juneau mayor who now works for The Nature Conservancy, says her conservation group is pleased to offer $7 million towards getting the Seacoast Trust off the ground.

“It is an exciting opportunity to really make something happen that has durability and sustainability,” she said. “And that recognizes how important it is that collaborative land and resource management with Indigenous people leading the way is what really makes sense in Alaska and in many other places in the world.”

Financial oversight of the Seacoast Trust will be done by Spruceroot, a nonprofit originally founded by Sealaska that is now organizationally independent. The Juneau-based nonprofit offers seed money and expertise for new businesses.   

COVID-19 has claimed the life of an Angoon elder. Eighty-year old George Nelson Jr. died in December, after being hospitalized in Anchorage. As the Admiralty Island community grapples with its first coronavirus death, residents are also grieving the loss of a clan leader and bearer of Tlingit language and culture.

George Nelson Jr. didn’t learn English until he was around seven years old.

He grew up speaking Tlingit, and he wanted to make sure that the language didn’t die with him.

“When I needed help with my Tlingit, he was my Tlingit teacher,” his friend, neighbor and caretaker Mary Jean Duncan said. “I asked him about phrases and what’s the right way to say things. And then when he’d be talking to me too, he’d say things in Tlingit, and he’d say, ‘say it, say it too.’”

Nelson lived as one of 600 or so residents of Angoon, where he devoted himself to his community and his family. He worked as a fisherman, Village Public Safety Officer and custodian. He coached basketball, served on the local Tribal and city councils, filled in as mayor, and volunteered with the Angoon fire department. He also spent years as a delegate for the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. President Richard Peterson was Nelson’s clan nephew. Both were members of the Eagle’s Nest House of Sitka. He said he was always full of encouragement.

“Some folks can kind of hold onto this knowledge and guard it pretty closely, and I think George was really free with it,” Peterson said. “He wanted to make sure people had the opportunity to know our history and stories and the language.”

Peterson said losing an elder like Nelson is a loss for the entire Tlingit community. He’s one of a handful of people across the region they’ve lost to COVID-19.

“You know, losing someone like George and some of the others that we’ve lost, really hit home for us just how serious this is,” he said. “We all need to take it serious.”

Nelson was also a father of three and a grandfather. He was visiting his family and going to medical appointments in Juneau when he got sick. His daughter Mary Hewson said she doesn’t know how he and several others in their household contracted the virus. Nelson and his grandson were both hospitalized.

“He didn’t go into any stores, and he didn’t allow anyone in the house. It’s kind of a real mystery about was happened,” Hewson said. “It was pretty devastating, pretty scary.”

Nelson spent weeks in the hospital. He was eventually intubated and medevaced to Anchorage. Hewson said that even while he was fighting for his life, he was thinking of others.

“Every day when I spoke to him it was always like are the boys okay,” she said. “And make sure you guys clean the doorknobs. Make sure you wash your hands. You know he was still constantly thinking about his grandkids and his kids. So that kind of just amazed me that as sick as he was he was still worrying about other people.”

Hewson said she wasn’t able to see him right before he died, but she was able to say goodbye over video chat. One of the hardest parts of losing her father has been the inability to grieve with others.

“It’s been pretty hard on the communities because we’re so used to being able to support the families in mourning in the way that we do things in our culture. So now it’s like everybody’s so isolated,” she said. “The things that were done when somebody passes aren’t being done. It’s left a big void in our community.”

Nelson will also be remembered for his sense of humor, his generosity, his will power and his faith. His family hopes to bring him back home to Angoon and follow the cultural traditions around mourning that Nelson taught to so many others in the community. But they’re waiting until the risk from COVID-19 subsides.

Erin McKinstry is a Report for America corps member.

As part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, congress appropriated $100 million earlier this year to help tribes cope with housing and sanitation issues during the coronavirus pandemic. The funding is helping some Southeast Alaska communities combat existing issues that the pandemic has only made worse.

Finding affordable housing in Southeast Alaska is a challenge even during “normal” times.

“You know there’s such extreme overcrowding, which is our way of dealing with homelessness,” said Jackie Pata, president and CEO of the Tlingit and Haida Regional Housing Authority. They’re the tribally-designated housing entity for 12 Southeast Alaska Tribes.

“People in the villages aren’t really homeless. They just join another family or another home,” Pata said.

But during the pandemic there are extra fears. Fears that the coronavirus could spread quickly in overcrowded, multi-generational households where access to clean water and sanitation can be limited. So, the housing authority worked with all 12 Tribes to apply for a pot of federal Housing and Urban Development money designated by the CARES Act. So far, nine of those Tribes have been awarded funding. Pata said they tried to propose projects that would have a lasting impact.

“So I really feel like we’re on the forefront of trying to be making sure the money is being used in a way that it will have an ongoing benefit rather than just being, you know, a shot in the dark, that’s just for a moment in time,” she said.

Alaska Tribes have been awarded around a third of what’s been dispersed so far.

This is just one piece of the funding puzzle for tribes to address the impacts of the pandemic, but it’s an important one, said Alaska HUD Director Colleen Bickford.

“You know it’s gonna hopefully improve the overall health and healthy homes across the state,” she said.

Bickford said the money is for projects that address immediate threats to the health and safety of tribal citizens caused by the pandemic. That could include everything from building new apartments to creating quarantine space to fixing community water lines.

And although infrastructure projects can take time, the money is being distributed as part of an existing program called the Indian Community Development Block Grant Imminent Threat Program. Bickford said she’s confident the projects will move quickly.

“It’s been a program that’s been widely used in Alaska previously, so it’s a well-oiled engine on getting that funding into the hands of the community,” she said.

One of the largest Tribes in the region said it’s the smaller communities that face the most need.

“Right now, we’re hearing more and more cases in our villages, so we’re worried about that,” said Richard Peterson, president of the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. “And as Juneau’s also a regional hub, so I know people are reaching out even from the village asking us what we can to help with housing issues and isolation and quarantine.”

The Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska has received $1.5 million to build affordable housing to address overcrowding in Juneau and to work on a youth homeless shelter in Juneau. Currently, Juneau doesn’t have one.

Peterson said he sees these projects and others they’ve used CARES Act funding for–like an emergency response center–as part of a broader effort to increase emergency preparedness and resilience in the communities they serve across Southeast.

“So we’re building ourselves so that we will be able to respond, that we’ll be able to be a resource for our communities to carry them through any, whether it’s a fire or a tsunami or lack of ferry service, which I think we’re gonna see again this winter,” he said.

The final round of funding is expected to be announced later this week. The Angoon Community Association and the Organized Village of Kake have both received grants. Kake will use the money to build affordable housing units and renovate a shelter.

Erin McKinstry is a Report for America corps member.

The annual meeting of the Southeast Conference opened in Sitka on Wednesday morning (9-18-19). The three-day event is the largest gathering of regional government and business leaders. Over three-hundred attendees packed Sitka’s Harrigan Centennial Hall beginning at 8 am to pour over ideas for economic growth in Southeast, and to air their grievances against a governor whom they feel doesn’t understand the people or the region.

Gary Paxton — Welcome to this special and beautiful place…

That’s Sitka mayor Gary Paxton welcoming the Southeast Conference to the community. Paxton is a former municipal administrator in Sitka, and a veteran of many Southeast Conferences. He wasted no time in setting the tone for this year’s meeting. In fact, it took him only 35 seconds to get to the point.

Paxton continues — … and it is a shame that our administration does not understand the importance of our place here in Southeast Alaska. It is a national treasure. And part of that is our ability to interact with each other — specifically, the Alaska Marine Highway System.

The Southeast Conference was founded 58 years ago to help establish the state ferry system. This is the first time in its history that the Conference has had to reckon with a governor who would close it down completely as of October 1. The legislature didn’t let that happen, but the system still took a 30-percent cut to maintain limited service over the winter — leaving many communities in Southeast and Prince William Sound without a ferry for months.

The transportation crisis crosses political and cultural lines in Southeast. Lesa Way, with the Sitka Tribe of Alaska, used her opening remarks to call out short-sighted politics.

“There is a saying in our culture that when you give something to somebody, do not see me standing here, but the people who have gone before me, and the people that are coming after,” said Way.

Richard Peterson, who lives in Kasaan and is the president of the Tlingit & Haida Central Council, made the same point, but in the language of economics rather than culture.

“The health and vitality of our communities have grown dependent on this system. And I think it’s something we should really come together on and work on, because I don’t think that some of our communities are going to be able to survive without this ferry system — this ferry system that we love, enjoy, and that does benefit not just Southeast Alaska, but Alaska. And there’s plenty of economic studies that prove that.”

The first morning session wrapped up with remarks from Sitka Sen. Bert Stedman, who co-chairs the senate finance committee. With his hands on the purse strings of the operating budget, Stedman has taken some heat for allowing the ferries to fall victim to Gov. Dunleavy’s draconian funding approach. Stedman, however, told the Conference that because the governor needed only 16 votes in the legislature to block any attempt to override a veto, that it was a stronger play politically to protect K-12 education funding, rather than sink the ferries in a losing veto battle.

“And that was the underlying impetus I had in my office to sit on the other side of the table from all your other elected officials in Southeast dealing with the Marine Highway, ” said Stedman. “And why I was not, as chairman of the operating budget in the senate, going to put a full-loaded Marine Highway budget in front of this governor. Because it would have been suicide for the Marine Highway System, in my opinion.”

On the recent closing of the Marine Highway route to Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Stedman also had an opinion.

“From my office and my perspective, I want Prince Rupert more than I want Bellingham,” Stedman said.

Stedman hoped that Prince Rupert could be reintegrated into the ferry system, and suggested that a $2 million supplemental appropriation already passed and signed into the budget, could help resolve the disagreement between the Department of Transportation and US Customs that forced the shutdown of the port. “But we can’t control the DOT — they’re another branch of government,” said Stedman, “but I’m sure we can have some love language to encourage them to work through the issues.”

Longtime educator and coach Gil Truitt speaks after receiving the President’s Lifetime Achievement Award during a Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska fundraiser on April 19. Seven others were also honored. (Photo courtesy Tlingit & Haida)

Gil Truitt spent 34 years teaching and coaching mostly Alaska Native students at Sitka’s Mount Edgecumbe High School. He’s been called a legend who helped raise a generation of leaders and culture bearers.

Now, he’s received the highest form of recognition given by the state’s largest tribal government.

Gil Truitt was so much a part of life at the public boarding school that he was known as “Mr. Mount Edgecumbe.”

He decided to become a teacher while attending the school in the 1940s. He took some time off, then went to college to study education.

Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska President Richard Chalyee Éesh Peterson picks up the story from there.

“Dr. Truitt returned to his longtime hometown of Sitka, Alaska, to fulfill his dream of giving back to his community, to Mount Edgecumbe High School and students. He not only gave his time to the school, but exemplified courtesy, commitment, sportsmanship, quality and professionalism to the students and his coworkers,” he said.

Peterson presented Truitt with the President’s Lifetime Achievement Award during an April 19 ceremony in Juneau. It was part of the organization’s 83rd annual tribal assembly.

Watch the language fundraiser and awards ceremony.

The recognition is one of many Truitt has received during his career and subsequent retirement. He responded with appreciation.

“A person does not become a teacher for recognition, to become rich or to become popular. But believe me, when those recognitions come, it is worth every second, every hour, every year that a dedicated teacher will spend with the young people,” he said.

Truitt was one of eight tribal citizens honored at the President’s Award Banquet. It raised more than $36,000 to support the central council’s language initiatives.

DonnaRae James is executive director of CAlaska Culture, which brings together Alaskan Natives living in Northern California to learn and practice their traditional culture. She was named an everyday hero for being a culture bearer. (Photo courtesy Tlingit & Haida)

DonnaRae James was named an everyday hero for being a culture bearer and organizing and leading traditional-skills workshops in Northern California.

“For me to use my hands to create in much of the same way as my ancestors did helps to ground me in my life as well as my culture. I’m honored to teach others the skills I have and I feel that it brings our ancestors forward each time I share knowledge,” she said.

Others honored as everyday heroes included emerging leader Eva Rowan, inspiring educator Ronnie Fairbanks, language warrior Ben Young, youth mentor Barbara Dude and Barbara Franks for holding each other up.

Read biographies of the award winners.

Nancy Barnes was recognized as an important tribal ally. She’s a dance leader and longtime legislative staffer who’s been involved in language revitalization and other cultural and political work.

Barnes was named as an ally because she is Tsimshian and Alutiiq, not Tlingit or Haida. But she said all share similar goals.

“As someone once said, we’re all in this canoe together. We have many of the same issues and we should always help each other. We are strong when we come together and lift each other up,” she said.

Nancy Barnes addresses an April 19 fundraising banquet after being honored as a tribal ally by Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska President Richard Chalyee Éesh Peterson. (Photo courtesy Tlingit & Haida)

Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska President Richard Peterson advocates business development as a way to replace federal funding. “We’re only as sovereign as we can afford to be,” he told delegates at the council’s tribal assembly, which took place April 18-20 in Juneau. (Photo courtesy CCTHITA)

An Alaska Native corporation will soon provide support services for the U.S. Navy in Guantanamo Bay, on the island of Cuba. Tlingit Haida Tribal Business Corp. won the $18 million contract earlier this month.

It’s another step in the growth of the profit-making arm of the state’s largest tribal government.

Tlingit Haida Tribal Business Corp. is owned by the Juneau-based Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. The council lists more than 30,000 tribal members in Southeast, the rest of Alaska and around the nation and the world. Its business operations are separate from those of Native corporations formed under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

Business corporation subsidiary KIRA announced the Guantanamo contract April 12. It will manage maintenance services, port operations and waterfront administration for the base.

The corporation announced a similar, $44 million contract about a week earlier for the U.S. Marine Corps air station in Beaufort, South Carolina.

The contracts are among more than a dozen providing military and other government support services from Florida to Alaska.

CEO Richard Rinehart said the corporation continues to seek more work.

“I look at it as it’s like longlining. We have all these lines out with lots of hooks. And we’re out there fishing and by having more lines in the water, we’re hopeful to bring more home,” he said.

Rinehart and others discussed the business corporation’s progress at the central council’s recent tribal assembly in Juneau.

He said sales were $57.7 million in 2017, close to twice the amount of the previous year. Rinehart projects about 30 percent more sales for the current year.

Net income last year was only $865,000. But it was a third more than the previous year. Rinehart said the amount will increase as startup costs are paid off.

General Manager Bob Hamilton said military and other contracts are due, in part, to the corporation’s 8(a) status. That’s a provision in federal law that gives minority-owned and disadvantaged businesses a bidding preference.

He said the corporation began with janitorial contracts.

“And now we’re in IT, security, aircraft logistics as far as support and services for aircraft and we’re actually in port management. So we’ve really come a long ways,” he said.

Tlingit Haida Tribal Business Corp. officials say it employs about 600 people.

Most of the jobs are in other parts of the country. But the corporation’s hiring policy includes a preference for tribal members.

Tlingit Haida Central Council President Richard Peterson made business development part of his platform when he ran for office four years ago. He told this year’s tribal assembly it’s still a top priority.

“We’re only as sovereign as we can afford to be. We need economic sovereignty. We need to be able to manage ourselves sustainably, not so dependent on the federal government, so that we can exercise true self-determination and do what we see fit for our tribal citizens,” he said.

Peterson was re-elected president at the tribal assembly, which was held April 18-20.

Albert Kookesh discusses regional issues in his legislative office in 2012, when he was a state senator. (Photo by Ed Schoenfeld/Coastalaska)

A longtime Alaska political and business leader is fighting prostate cancer.

Former Sen. Albert Kookesh, an Angoon Democrat, spent 16 years in the Alaska Legislature. As a senator, he represented the state’s largest electoral district, which ran from southern Southeast through the Interior and most of the way to the Bering Sea.

Kookesh also served as co-chairman of the Alaska Federation of Natives and president of the Sealaska regional Native corporation’s board of directors. The Tlingit leader is also a subsistence activist who’s played leadership roles in the Alaska Native Brotherhood and other organizations.

Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska President Richard Peterson said Kookesh has been a mentor to many tribal and community leaders.

“I was a 19-year-old mayor in Kasaan. And as our representative and then senator he was always there to offer advice, point us in the right direction, and really make sure that we knew how to advocate for our community,” said Peterson, now in his early 40s.

Kookesh is being recognized at a medical fundraiser and appreciation dinner from 5-8 p.m. Aug. 25 at the Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall in downtown Juneau.

The central council is a sponsor, along with Sealaska Corp. and Sealaska Heritage Institute.

Peterson said the event is more about recognition of decades of work than raising money for treatment.

“Albert’s not asking for this. This is really our community coming together and saying, ‘Hey, we want to hold he and (his wife) Sally up, their children up, while they go through this fight’,” he said.

Kookesh couldn’t be reached for immediate comment.

The Angoon resident spent eight years in the House and the same number in the Senate, representing mostly rural communities. He lost a re-election bid in 2012 after reapportionment pitted him against Sen. Bert Stedman, a Sitka Republican. The new district included more of Stedman’s constituents than Kookesh’s.

Kookesh spent 14 years chairing Sealaska’s governing panel. He stepped down in 2014 after a heart attack, though he remains on the board, where he’s served for 40 years.

He also chose not to run for re-election as AFN co-chairman that year, a position he held for 14 years.

Kookesh has a law degree, was a commercial fisherman and owned a lodge and store in Angoon.

Presiding Judge Debra O’Gara discusses tribal justice  in the Juneau courtroom of the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. (Photo by Ed Schoenfeld/CoastAlaska News)

Southeast Alaska’s largest tribal court operation just celebrated its 10th anniversary.

It started with child support and paternity cases and branched out to include domestic violence protection orders, custody disputes and adoptions. Now, it’s planning to further expand the kind of cases it handles.

Presiding Judge Debra O’Gara opens a hearing in the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska’s courtroom.

It follows a set procedure, but is less formal than state or federal courts. O’Gara sits at the bench and wears a black robe. But both are decorated with the council’s Eagle-Raven formline design logo.

She said the Juneau-based court has between 900 and 1,000 open cases. They involve some of the council’s approximately 30,000 members in Southeast, the rest of Alaska, the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere.

“We firmly believe that tribal members are more likely to come into court when the court is their own tribal court. And it’s their own tribal laws that are being implemented,” she said.

The Andrew Hope Building in downtown Juneau is home to the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes’ courtroom. (Photo by Ed Schoenfeld/CoastAlaska News)

The Central Council’s Tribal Assembly authorized the court in 1989, but it took a while before operations began.

It started out handling a short list of cases and related services. But that’s expanded, with grants, interagency agreements and new ideas.

One major focus is developing systems for young offenders, as well as those at risk of getting into trouble. That includes an early diversion program, which offers counseling and tutoring while encouraging involvement with extended family and cultural activities.

“If we don’t intervene early, the youth are more likely to end up committing crimes or getting into trouble and getting into the justice system,” she said.

About a year ago, the Central Council signed an agreement with the state giving it authority over some foster care and other services for Native children facing abuse or neglect.

Council Director of Family and Youth Services Francine Eddy Jones said only a few cases have been transferred so far. But they have potential.

“They’re coming into tribal court, but they’re also seeing familiar faces in terms of tribal caseworkers working with them to identify what they need to be working on,” she said.

“Our goal is always to support the families and see if we can move toward reunification,” Eddy Jones added.

The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges is supporting the tribal justice program.

It recently chose Tlingit-Haida’s court as one of six nationwide to be studied and given expert advice. O’Gara said the scrutiny will help.

“It’s not any funding. But what we get is we get them to come out. They’re going to look at our system, they’re going to look at our codes, they’re going to meet our staff, they’re going to look at our procedures,” she said.

A team visited in February and its report is expected soon.

About 85 percent of the tribal court’s cases involve child support. But it has plans for further expansion. If funding becomes available, O’Gara said it will begin taking some criminal cases.

Central Council President Richard Peterson said those found at fault will be held accountable.

“We’re not trying to get some free pass for people. But we’re trying to make it so they are dealt with compassionately enough that they’re given a chance to right their wrongs,” he said.

O’Gara said there’s already an agreement with the state court system to make sentencing recommendations in some cases involving tribal members.

She said she hopes to begin what’s called “circle sentencing” soon. But cultural programs and other support services need to be put in place first.

The Central Council’s tribal court is one of several in Southeast Alaska. Others operate throughout the state.

Editor’s note: Debra O’Gara is a member of KTOO’s board of directors.

The Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska plans a constitutional convention April 19-21 in Juneau. (Photo by Ed Schoenfeld/CoastAlaska News)

The Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska will hold a constitutional convention at this spring’s tribal assembly.

Delegates representing the Central Council’s more than 30,000 tribal members will meet April 19-21 at Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall, Juneau.

Will Micklin, council second vice president, chairs the committee preparing for the convention.

“(We’re) trying to imbue what began as very utilitarian documents that are very brief and speak only to broad authority and try to imbue that with an expression of our culture and our ways of life,” he said.

Like other federally funded organizations, the council expects challenges maintaining its programs. Micklin said inflation also is driving up costs. He hopes constitutional changes can encourage efficiencies.

He said the changes should also help increase involvement.

“We’re looking to put actionable information in the hands of our assembly members for longer periods prior to the opening of our tribal assembly so that they can review, consult with their communities and have a more deliberative period before we actually have to take action,” he said.

The constitutional convention was called at last year’s tribal assembly by Central Council President Richard Peterson.

The council lists 21 registered communities. Most are in Southeast, but they include Anchorage, San Francisco and Seattle.