Alaska Native Regional Corporation

The Alaska Native Regional Corporations were established in 1971 when the United States Congress passed the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) which settled land and financial claims made by the Alaska Natives and provided for the establishment of 13 regional corporations to administer those claims.

Associations, regional and village corporations

Under ANCSA the state was originally divided into twelve regions, each represented by a "Native association" responsible for the enrollment of past and present residents of the region. Individual Alaska Natives enrolled in these associations, and their village level equivalents, were made shareholder in the Regional and Village Corporations created by the Act. The twelve for-profit regional corporations, and a thirteenth region representing those Alaska Natives who were no longer residents of Alaska in 1971, were awarded the monetary and property compensation created by ANCSA. Village corporations and their shareholders received compensation through the regional corporations. The fact that many ostensibly Alaska Native villages throughout the state were not empowered by the ANCSA to form village corporations later led to a number of lawsuits.

The regional and village corporations are now owned by Alaska Native people through privately owned shares of corporation stock. Alaska Natives alive at ANCSA's enactment on December 17, 1971, who enrolled in a Native association (at the regional and/or village level) received 100 shares of stock in the respective corporation. In 2006, the 109th Congress passed S.449 which amended ANCSA, and allowed for shares to be more easily issued to those who had missed the enrollment, or were born after the enrollment period by reducing the requirement for voting from a majority of shareholders to a majority of attending shareholders at corporation meetings.

During the 1970s, ANCSA regional and village corporations selected land in and around native villages in the state in proportion to their enrolled populations. Village corporations own the surface rights to the lands they selected, but regional corporations own the subsurface rights of both their own selections and of those of the village corporations.

Text of the Act

The Act lays out the specifics of the corporations' status. Here is an excerpt of the relevant portion:

:43 U.S.C. § 1606

::(a) Division of Alaska into twelve geographic regions; common heritage and common interest of region; area of region commensurate with operations of Native association; boundary disputes, arbitration. For purposes of this chapter, the State of Alaska shall be divided by the Secretary within one year after December 18, 1971, into twelve geographic regions, with each region composed as far as practicable of Natives having a common heritage and sharing common interests. In the absence of good cause shown to the contrary, such regions shall approximate the areas covered by the operations of the following existing Native associations:

:::(1) Arctic Slope Native Association (Utqiaġvik, Point Hope, Point Lay, Wainwright, Atqasuk, Nuiqsut, Kaktovik, Anaktuvuk Pass);

:::(2) Bering Straits Association (Seward Peninsula, Unalakleet, Saint Lawrence Island);

:::(3) Northwest Alaska Native Association ( Kotzebue);

:::(4) Association of Village Council Presidents (southwest coast, all villages in the Bethel area, including all villages on the Lower Yukon River and the Lower Kuskokwim River);

:::(5) Tanana Chiefs' Conference ( Koyukuk, Middle and Upper Yukon Rivers, Upper Kuskokwim, Tanana River);

:::(6) Cook Inlet Association (Kenai, Tyonek, Eklutna, Iliamna);

:::(7) Bristol Bay Native Association ( Dillingham, Upper Alaska Peninsula);

:::(8) Aleut League (Aleutian Islands, Pribilof Islands and that part of the Alaska Peninsula which is in the Aleut League);

:::(9) Chugach Native Association ( Cordova, Tatitlek, Port Graham, English Bay, Valdez, and Seward);

:::(10) Tlingit-Haida Central Council (southeastern Alaska, including Metlakatla);

:::(11) Kodiak Area Native Association (all villages on and around Kodiak Island); and

:::(12) Copper River Native Association ( Copper Center, Glennallen, Chitina

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