November 13, 2006
Monday

This is a response to Nathan J. Soboleff's letter to the editor posted in Juneau Empire web posted November 10, 2006. The value of Sealaska Corporation stock is not monetary and is the only part of his statement I agree with.

Let's not make the same mistakes forming Regional Corporations thirty years ago. Land Claim Settlement should have been given to Traditional Tribes in Southeast Alaska. There are 65,000 to 85,000 acres of Land Claim still owed to the Southeast Alaskan Natives under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. The Landless communities of Ketchikan, Wrangell, Petersburg and Tennakee Springs, Alaska should have or start a Traditional Tribe so that land can get conveyed. The land could and should be used as home sites and businesses. This would allow Native people that are entitled to actually own their land and all their natural resources on this land.

Mr. Soboleff stated, "It is a stock in our cultures, and it ties us to our lands. It is stock that many people, by birth right, are entitled to, but because of their birth date own none It's aboriginal ownership." There is no aboriginal ownership when the Regional Corporations have control of the land by a Board of Directors. This is all Brainwashing B.S. we've been hearing for 30 plus years. Nathan says, "We all should share the stock with family, go out and enjoy our land." Where in the hell is the Sealaska Corporation land at? This allows me to supposedly have access to 290,000 acres of corporation land around Southeast Alaska. This land includes 310 miles of shoreline, 365 islands totaling 4,175 acres. How do we get to this access if you don't own a boat or plane? The only thing I got out of the Sealaska Corporation is to learn how to be greedy and wonder when my next dividends check?

I am a share holder at large or Urban Native who wasn't fairly represented in the early days of the Land Claim Settlement Act of 1971. I just want land to build a beach front house to retire on, using our Traditional lands to subsist on and walk where my ancestors walked and lived at one time. Hell with Regional or Village Corporation, it does not work! Stock you can not do anything with! I want to control my own destiny.
I am from the Taan ta Kwaan, Gaanax adi Clan, Yei l Hit. My name is Aan Kadax Tseen. My Tribe is indigenous to the Ketchikan and surrounding lands. The Gaanax adi Clan is the oldest if not the oldest Clan in the Tlingit Nation! Why don't we have land from the land claim settlement Act? We are Taan ta Kwaan or known as Tongass Tribe have elected Tribal members to conduct Tribal business since we reorganized in 1986.

In closing, Sealaska Corporation does a lot for its share holders but it is not enough. We need beach front land lots to build homes, land that is inherently ours in the first place. I want what every shareholder at large wants, land that they can actually kick around and own.

Gunalcheesh ho ho,

Aan Kadax Tseen aka Don Hoff Jr.
Gaanax adi Clan
Yei l hit
Taan Ta Kwaan
Email:Unukriver[at]aol.com
Hixson, TN


Received November 12, 2006 - Published November 07, 2006

About: "Past City Councilman and Vice Mayor - City of Ketchikan; Past Board of Director - Ketchikan Public Utilities; Past O.S.H.A. Review Boardmember - State of Alaska; Past I.R.A. Councilman - Ketchikan Indian Community. Tongass Tribe member of the Gaanax adi Clan, Yei l Hit (Raven House). "

 

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