Honoring Alaska Natives

In 2013, we purchased a 160-acre property along the coast of Whitewater Bay, located within the Kootznoowoo Wilderness of the Admiralty Island National Monument. The site was purchased from an Alaskan Native family, who wished to honor the Alaska Native Brotherhood and the Alaska Native Sisterhood in appreciation for generations of natural land stewardship.

With the help of U.S. Senators Lisa Murkowski and Mark Begich and U.S. Congressman Don Young, Congress appropriated funding from the Land and Water Conservation Fund, America’s premier conservation program, which allowed the U.S. Forest Service to permanently protect the property, in accordance with the wishes of the family.

Why This Project Matters

The Alaska Native Allotment Act of 1906 allowed individual Alaska Natives to select and own up to 160 acres of land in the state if they could demonstrate historic use and occupancy. Today there are over 12,000 Native Allotments in Alaska, primarily located around historic villages and subsistence use areas for hunting and fishing. The northwest part of Whitewater Bay once contained the Tlingit village of Neltushkin, and preserving this last-privately owned property on the Bay preserves the Tlingit connections that remain very strong in the nearby village of Angoon.