1991 Forum

Good evening, my name is Fred Aali, President of Cusquin Community College in Bethel. In December of 1971, the Alaskan Native Clean Settlement Act was signed by then into law by then-president Richard Nixon. The basic provisions of that settlement, which by now are very familiar to people in Alaska, directed the formation of 12 regional profit corporations in the state of Alaska and over 200 village corporations. The settlement act further directed the distribution of 40 million acres of land and approximately 962 million dollars to the corporations. Enrollment in the village and regional corporations was restricted to those Alaska Natives

alive in December of 1971. Further, the Alaskan Native Clean Settlement Act directed a grace period whereby shareholders were prevented from selling stock until the year 1991. In what can only be considered an understatement, the Alaskan Native Clean Settlement Act has resulted in the significant change to the state of Alaska. This evening, we would like to explore some of the issues surrounding the settlement act 10 years later with a specific emphasis on the year 1991 and that year's implication for village and regional corporations. With us tonight, our Byron Milotte, Byron is currently the president of the C. Alaska Corporation headquartered in Juneau. Byron is the former commissioner of the Department of Community and Regional Affairs, the former director of the Rural Community Action Program, the former president of the

Alaska Federation of Natives. Only Hensley is the chairman of the board of the United Bank, Alaska. He's also a member of the board of the Nana Development Corporation. He's chairman of the Nupi Expeared Committee and was involved with the passage of the settlement act from the beginning. Also with us is Phil Smith. Phil is a lifelong Alaskan resident. He's currently the director of research and information for the Alaskan Native Foundation. Prior to that, Phil was the director of Rural Community Action Programs for nine years in Anchorage and was involved in the early days of the settlement act doing land claims training with community enterprise development corporation. I'd like to start off with a couple general questions about the act. Byron, I think I'm going to direct the first question to you. When you're involved with your work at rural cap, I know a considerable amount of your

time was spent with the native allotment act. There's oftentimes confusion between the provisions of the allotment act and the Alaska Native Supreme settlement act. What essentially are the differences? Well, the essential difference is that the allotment act expired with the passage of the claim settlement act and the provisions of Anxa involving land have everything to do with the settlement of native claims. The native allotment act was a governmental program whereby natives could receive various acreages of land essentially under the administration of the BIA and its most salient feature as far as its operation here in Alaska is concerned as that it was hidden under a bushel

basket and that the government didn't want native people to obtain land under its various provisions and it really has not been a significant factor in native land ownership here in Alaska as it has been in some other parts of the country. Do you remember offhand Byron how much land was received by Alaska Native student through the allotment act? I can recall specifically but up until 1969 and 70 there was very little acreage and with the big push that rural cap and the last legal services undertook in those years, gosh, I'm not sure but we increased at least the applications into the native allotment pipeline by probably a hundredfold and of course that whole whether or not native allotments

are granted now is purely a bureaucratic process that was established with passage of the D-2 bill. The land conveyance process under this case has been rather slow. At this point how much land has been distributed in the sea Alaska corporation? Sea Alaska has received about 90% of its entitlement and we received that in 1979 and 1980. Willie, I've got a question that again one often hears in relation to the settlement act. As we all know Alaskan natives and American Indians in general have always enjoyed a special relationship with the federal government.

Oftentimes you hear the question of termination. Was the settlement act designed by Congress to essentially terminate that relationship has been a long standing? I think there was a great desire to do that on the part of Congress, of course as far as we're concerned that they didn't get accomplished and the fact is that the situation is a little bit muddy from certain perspectives. I guess one of the primary ones being the fact that we didn't in fact end up with tribal entities under the act but with corporations and it would have been a very difficult process I think to have tried to convince Congress to create tribal entities and in fact I think most of us did not operate under the mandate that our people wanted separate governmental bodies by the time the 60s or the 71 came around, there had been a rather significant

amount of change in our people's lives in acceptance to one degree or another, the various institutions and laws and controls of the federal and state governments. Looking you were involved from the beginning, looking back now 10 years later, do you see it as an attempt by Congress to further a policy self-determination? Well, was it a real stadium? Yeah, if you put it that way, to me, Congress has always attempted to facilitate the melting pot idea since the very beginning, I mean America is a very strange country because it is a country made up of many, many peoples from all over the world who in fact came to enjoy the freedom and the economic bounty of the land of course the price they had to pay and the fact was to become an American

and to learn a new language and to more or less adopt the ways and values of the society that they were joining and of course for the Indian who had his own way, who was here for 30,000,000 years, they had their own way and of course every animal species that is common, wants to survive in the Indian and native people up here are no exception but it has gone against the grain of what this country is all about so I think that no question that the assimilative forces of this country work in the settlement act too. I'm thinking of, I guess section four, the act it speaks to extinguishing Aboriginal hunting and fishing rights and I'm wondering how we view that now especially in light

of serious over-subsistence for the president of course if we had had our way there was a lot of things we had done differently but we didn't control the process you know I mean we weren't actually in the room you know when the whole thing was being pasted up and put together I mean it was hardly a negotiated thing you know after all we didn't even have one vote in the process and so we did the best we could under the circumstances and if we had had our way I think we had done a lot of things differently including the question of a continuity of our right to hunt and fish as our way of life as well as to ensure that the land would stay with our people. Byron I want to turn back to you looking back over the last ten years I want to take the liberty to quote you and something that you recorded as having said in an anchorage paper and something that caught my attention you said that the act exists more as a promise

than a reality and in the short term it won't produce a lot of direct benefits but over the long term the benefits will be substantial I think obviously there's a lot of truth there and I'm wondering now looking back ten years over the last ten years how do you view things what do you see is the the viability of the regional and village corporations obviously see Alaska's joint has enjoyed tremendous success. Well I think that you know we're a long way from knowing whether these institutions will be able to survive either as economic institutions or as something else you know I think it's important to note that as an example see Alaska received title to its lands just two years ago the bulk of the financial settlement wasn't received by the corporations until

just two years ago the first seven to eight years of this decade since passage of the banks have been involved with native corporations fighting to get the act underway so as economic institutions and any other kind of institutions that sure holders might want these corporations to be for our practical purposes we've been in existence and had the opportunity to use these tools for just a very short period of time you know when we got roughly a billion dollars and forty four million acres of land had to divide that up among twelve in-state regional corporations one out of state corporation over two hundred village corporations

and you know something roughly eighty thousand people even a billion dollars and forty four million acres of land doesn't really amount to a huge share for any individual and particularly dilutes to the substantial degree the capability of those several hundred institutions to do anything meaningful over the short term and of course the expectations of our shareholders of native people at the time that the act was passed you know the press and even we bally who disbusiness of a billion dollars and forty four million acres of land and expectation shots sky high so we have a way to go well what about land conveyance up in the near region how is that going we have just a few acres we

were unwilling to submit to the easements and quarters and what not that the interior department wanted in the earlier days and not only that we felt that if we had the land conveyed early then we'd have to spend a lot of money just managing the land so we haven't really made a big push to secure it but we had a relatively large partial I think something under two hundred thousand acres out of the two point three or so million that we're going to be receiving but that we hope will be accelerating do you expect that that process will accelerate with with the passage of the last national interest in land's legislature oh I think it if the if the government continues funding the positions that are needed to go through all the steps that are required I think that that those conveyances will

be made schedule I'd like to turn now to some specifics about the the nineteen ninety one issue it's something that recently we've we've read a lot about some concern and on this region for what really nineteen ninety one means fill in to turn to you with your work with the with the Alaska Native Foundation I know you're involved in a study project on nineteen ninety one what what are the legal realities of nineteen ninety one what what's going to happen I can that's two questions the legal realities are that yet December eighteen nineteen ninety one shareholders and village and regional corporations under present law are entitled to dispose of sell alienate their stock the other legal realities are that in the anilka recently passed to bill there are a couple of things done in that bill with provide some protections against that one of them was that the corporations

may if they choose to exercise the first right of refusal at fair market value for those shares of stock so that a shareholder who wants to sell the corporation can purchase it before anybody else but there are a number of legal questions surrounding that phrase in and of itself fair market value what is that the other thing is that there's an amendment which permits the corporations to amend their bylaws to guarantee that at least a large share of the control of the corporation must remain a native shareholder hands the other thing that happens in nineteen ninety one in terms of taxation of lands originally the lands were taxable if developed in nineteen ninety one again due to legislation amendments said that their taxable twenty years after conveyance so that gives a longer measure of protection

against taxation and also it provides for the land bank where if somebody want the corporation wants to keep its land and undeveloped status they can put it in a land bank under I believe joint management with state and federal government and it remains pretty much held harmless from taxation and those are the kind of the specific legal parameters that are operating under right so in other words it's a current law stands a shareholder in nineteen ninety one could could sell sell is it her stock in the corporation assuming somebody wanted to buy it yes okay okay question about just a file question on the land bank that land is held in in a trust relationship in a canopy developed is that right well it's not a trust relationship in the sense of the federal government has a trust status on the land it's a the trust is that the corporation has voluntarily placed the land in the land bank

voluntarily again withdraw it any time the wants and development the price is for that second and withdrawal and development is it's subject to taxation at that point um the buyer interning back to you what do you is a representing a large regional corporation what do you view as the implications of nineteen ninety one well the implications of nineteen ninety one are awesome because it creates a whole new set of rules for the corporation's relationship with its shareholders and it's more awesome when viewed in the context of angsa that is you know if a corporate leader believes that these corporations are more than for profit business corporations that these corporations have to do with the

nativeness of their shareholders that ownership of the land is important to us as native people if the corporations are involved in a lot of or in a range of work having to do with the survival of native people in addition to the economic area and if shareholders choose to sell the stock you know there's a possibility that if enough stock is sold the control of the corporation would pass out of native hands you know nineteen ninety one is awesome willy how would you answer that question what do you see as the implications well

it's it's not unlike what the government has done before in my opinion it's really nothing new our country has never really wanted to see land of any consequence maintained by a native group sort of inaccessible to development and when the initial allotment act was passed in 1884 you know they couldn't sell the land for twenty years what they did was they divided all the tribal lands and so they couldn't sell the land but as soon as that twenty years was up boom they lost a close to a hundred million acres throughout the country and in this instance it's just another reflection of that philosophy that well we'll give the natives twenty years or so to try to learn how to be we business men and when they're able to make that judgment as to whether to sell or not then let them

have that choice well so this is an effect of replay of some other ideas that have transpired before during the during the the original deliberations over the settlement act I assume there was a considerable amount of discussion on this provision was there was there any serious ever serious concern to essentially not having that provision and well I think that we would have preferred not to have the provision there's nothing to prevent us from going in as in congress for an extension of that if that's the desire of the native people but it's all in how you look at that settlement the way I see it you know if you can look at it from a pure economic perspective but you can also look at it look at it from the standpoint of you know the in fact the native corporation being your tribe you know that you know this is not something that you take from but something that you give to and it helps you to survive you know I think it's it's very important how the leadership

of the various native corporations as well as their shareholders how they perceive and how they see these institutions that we've been provided to work with they could work against you as a little as for you and I think that has to be worked out between now and then you've been doing I know a lot of work up in up in the near region discussing this issue with with with your shareholders what how do you think they perceive the issue well you see we're not really concentrating on the corporation so much you know what work concentrating on is trying to re-vitalize what we call our in-u-bed elliptical set you know which is our Eskimo spirit and what we have found is that there's been a great gap that had occurred between our elders and some of us younger people and if our people are going to survive heck we might have a corporation survive but what is a corporation you

know if it's got no soul to it so to speak and that the people that are primarily responsible for the transfer of our in-depth language and identity and knowledge and sense of being are basically our elders so we've been working with our elders extensively and trying to ensure that when it comes to advising us on what needs to be done with respect to any aspect of what's happening in our region whether it be the corporation the school district or our nonprofit Manida we have elders in effect who are overseeing what we are doing from the standpoint of advising and also leadership selection that's how we're trying to approach it and we're not looking at so much the legalities of you know the corporation and the settlement act we have an interest naturally but what we're trying to do is rebuild

our society in effect and try to develop a way of seeing and a way of making it possible for our people to survive with any bad values even today and in the future how is the effort being received after 15 years of trying to bring things of all kinds I mean our people say this is the best thing we've ever brought and all we've brought is an idea you know in a certain direction Byron I know down in with the CEO ask corporation you've established a heritage foundation how is that working well we are trying to do some of the things that Nana and several other corporations are trying to do but willies right you know these corporations have got to be more than a for profit business institution because

at least in my view you know they represent the the nativeness of our people so long as they control the land and in southeast with the C.L.A.S.C. Harris Foundation we've established a relationship with the elders we're doing things like involving them directly in a formal way in the management of their lands which a typical corporation probably wouldn't the foundation is right now in the process of putting together a language a native language maintenance program we feel very strongly that particularly in southeast where it's principally the elders that the language remains with now that we've got to bring the language back it's the carrier

of your culture and that's going to be a major emphasis of the foundation we intend to in the next several years publish a number of works that hopefully will allow younger shareholders in our region to understand more about our nativeness and we intend to use the foundation for that sort of purpose on an ongoing basis yeah it raises the question that I wanted to bring up the settlement act provided stock for membership for individuals alive in December of 71 what about what about the children who have come after that is there any concern or anything that can be

done to draw them into the corporation I assume that the philosophy was that native families would keep the stock and pass it on to their children in that way children would not be disenfranchised but at some point you know you either give very little stock to a lot of children or you run out of the capability to because you know there isn't any more stock within any family and and that's a problem one of the concerns that we see in our corporation is that a lot of stock is being transferred laterally to cousins and uncles and and other folks because they're in their they're working years and you know there's there's they feel that those are the people that you know that that can make best use of that stock even you know even in a mental sense

now as opposed to younger children and so it means that we have a problem if you know if you accept the premise that all native people whether they were born in December 18 1971 or prior or since should participate in the settlement if you accept that premise than any native that's disenfranchised there's a problem for us do you again the CLASCA has enjoyed tremendous success I know entering the Fortune 500 list last year you work in developing a cultural spirit down there is obviously having an effect use are you concerned at all about shareholders wanting to exercise the right ninety one a significant number of shareholders wanting to exercise the right ninety one to sell a stack oh very concerned you know it's an arbitrary date it has nothing to do with

the with the reality of the growth of the corporation and its capability to meet the the needs and the aspirations of our shareholders one of the things that we've learned since passage of Incs us at 20 years is a very very short period of time you know you're dealing with a group of people who are to a substantial agree economically disadvantaged and so you've got pressure to you know use whatever you own in a way that brings you financial capability just to meet day-to-day living needs and I expect that that circumstance for a lot of native people will still exist in

1991 and if you own a hundred shares of stock and and it has some economic values can be huge pressure to do something with it I want to I want to get back to to the project you're involved in I know you're involved in a year-long study on 1991 and simplications what are you doing specifically can you provide us more information yeah I think so the the object of the study and I don't particularly like that word that's what is in vogue the object of the study is not to come up with answers to all the types of questions that we've already kicked around in in this discussion I think that the object is to more clearly delineate the nature of the legal questions that's around 1991 and to set in motion some of the specific legal and technical research ideally so that say in a year or two years when all of the stuff is done and there's real

consensus there's sort of an understanding of what's possible under the law in terms of establishing a range of options that corporations can examine and discard if they want to at least there's some legal research that will underpin some of the decisions that they might want to make what's fundamental to the whole thing is the type of thing that the regional corporations and themselves are doing is as William Byron have been talking about the spirit the nativeness the you know the much larger question of cultural preservation and enhancement specifically we've sort of outlined three areas where specific legal research might be of some help one is in the maintenance of capital within the corporations in terms of alienation of stock in terms of the ad advantages and disadvantages of corporate merging that type of thing the other areas the preservation of land looking at the land bank provisions seeing how

useful they really are as are applied in various situations examining the revenue sharing section of the ax seven high to see how that relates to land ownership and retention of land control looking at the utility of the IRA instrument as a means of providing custodianship of the lands even though the capital or the corporation itself might end up in non-native hands is there a way to preserve the the land and in native control in one of them or another and the third area is this question of those born after December 18th 1971 there are some legal questions there the you know can the corporations reissue stock and if they do so and dilute the cash value of stock already held by members is that constitutional and so forth we've just begun this effort as

matter of fact last week with some meetings with some of the attorneys in Washington DC who were on the scene in 1971 when you original act passed so it's kind of way too early to say you know come up with all the answers but it's sort of an effort to at least organize the question in a way that it can be dealt with what what's going to be the end product can we expect to see a report what do you see coming out of it well we're aiming initially by September to have a document report bound that will in fact have most of the questions organized the satisfaction of the corporations so things being worked through the land claims boarded the elastic federation and natives a discussion and analysis of the issues and and beyond that an identification of further work that might need to be done in the given area that's sort of the initial product

product eventually you know we'd like to publish a menu of choices and options so that you know corporations at the regional at the village level can say well if we do this then ABCD will result and they will be able to to make choices based upon some legal knowledge sort of an effort to keep all the corporations from having to reinvent the same legal wheel independently of each other well you I think you may have already touched on this in fact I know you have I want to something you said again something that I want to quote that they caught my attention you recorded the saying that the corporate idea may be the key to our survival because of this country the corporation is the holy grail you also went on to say that the goal that our goal must be the continuity of our tribal spirit and the dollar becomes the own mighty goal then we're sunk I guess it leads me to answer to ask fundamentally the 1991 issue the legal question to really

are all that important well what I was trying to say with that particular statement was that you know if you create a more or less a separate entity that doesn't fit into the the warp and roof of American society then it's like a sore thumb sitting on there right it's an immediate target that can be attacked and you see that all the time with the tribes trying to maintain you know their special relationship with the federal government okay but you know a corporation you know this is part of the fabric of American life you know and if we could if we could use it and sort of tinker with it and try to make it virtually in violet and I think with the proper perception by the shareholders that's what it represents then I think there may be a

way to use it as a vehicle for assisting our survival you see but if it's looked at if membership in an original corporation a native corporation is looked at as something that has a pure dollar value then in my opinion there's no hope you know because if the values in life in your perception become primarily one of economic mobility then there's no hope but if it's a matter of trying to maintain you know the viability of your group you know if membership in the corporation is in effect your represents your identity in that that spiritual essence of your forefathers because the land is held by the corporation then and but you have to do other things too because you know we have to try to help our people become able to survive from an economic standpoint adequately so that there will not be that great thrust to want to sell because you're starving you know so

this whole thing has to be approached in my opinion on several levels first and foremost on the maintenance you know of your identity right because if you don't have that then anybody sitting on a board of a region cannot be trusted and then of course you have to try to educate your people in both senses both in the in the native sense and in the western sense and in my opinion you can't avoid the political aspects of life you know so you have to and then of course you have to keep the corporation viable economically speaking so you've got to keep moving on several levels at the same time and if you fall down on any phase of it I think you're inviting trouble Byron you in agreement that with with this approach I was just thinking that if the corporation is the holy grail then then economic power is its spirit and it may be somewhat cynical but one of the things that we've learned is that the entire American system is responsive more than

to any other thing to economic power and so with the claim settlement act and the institutions and the land if we can function as really says on these several levels if we can amass the economic power that allows us to open doors that allows us to influence public policy that allows us to influence social policy and if we know what we want and if we're together as a people with common goals and if those common goals have to do with survival as a racially culturally identifiable group of people now and into the future and if we function on all those levels again as what he says without falling down in any one of them we have tremendous opportunity here my concern is that there's a possibility we could blow that opportunity because of the arbitrariness of the 1991 day it would be almost like a workman amassing all of his tools and going to the job site

to build something and once he got there already to go being given a time frame within which to complete the job that is absolutely impossible to meet and I think to some degree that's what we're faced with in 1991 and I guess from that perspective although it's we're looking at 82 91 is net far off 1991 is tomorrow yeah yeah I know that again something that I remember reading that that you said you're concerned about the expectations and you you mentioned it again this evening that with the passage of the act there was a great deal of expectation high expectations on the part of shareholders and I know that your corporation has been involved in an effort to gain a better idea of the perceptions and desires of your shareholders can you share a little bit of that with us well we have during the past year at silaska undertaken

using you know scientific attitudinal research kinds of approaches to try to understand who our shareholders are what motivates them how do they view their their corporation what do they expect of their corporation trying to to get some understanding of how best the corporation can be responsive to its to its shareholders and you know one of the things that concerns me is that you know native people have a lot of human needs that have not been met and the institution that is now closest to them that is perceived by them is having power and and influence and financial

capability are the corporations and so that huge sense of frustration that we found that that exists out there is being transferred to native corporations and the ability of native corporations to be responsive to the whole gamut of shareholder needs wants and aspirations you know is is just not there our research shows that our shareholders expect us to be everything government religion the source of financial well-being and we're going to be able to be some of those things over time where none of those things now and the question then is at what point do the expectations and the frustrations of shareholders which which flow from their place and society

more than anything else outstrip the capability of of the corporations to such a degree that they forsake that institution and look for some other way to deal with those problems and I really think that that's the fundamental problem of survival that corporations have got to deal with now because I think we're right in a threshold of of shareholders pulling the pin on us I really do will you do you see similar perceptions on the part of your shareholders in the nanny region well I think we've finally begun to communicate after all these years many of our own people have not quite understood the you know the simply the whole corporate idea and and as a consequence of our last series of village meetings we in effect virtually

virtually ditch the usual corporate discussion we had about our balance sheet and our income statement five years summary they want to know you know did we make a profit is there going to be a dividend and are we employing our people that doesn't take long to explain and then we went into elements of our spirit program which in effect is trying to trying to build our people from the inside I seem to make our people to try to build up and independent people as we once were you see and I think that we have a better communication now between our shareholders and our leadership as well as our elders and I don't think that our shareholders are expecting miracles I think they've known that we've done the best we could to try to create the employment opportunities that are you know pressing all the time because of all the things that we've

expected from the outside world in effect so we are trying to provide leadership not just the economic sphere but we work very closely with our educational people and we are also working very closely and so far as the maintenance of language and identity and culture is concerned so I don't think we're building up expectations what we're trying to show our people is that we all have our share to do and that if you expect somebody out there to do it or if you blame somebody out there for the problems we've got they're never going to get solved so that's the approach that we're trying to take we've you've both focused a little a little bit on on regional unity and bringing that back I'm strengthening that what about statewide unity and I'm asking me what's unity was there was there the unity there yeah in in 71 and where's that now is well any group of people functioned best when they've got a task that they all share to perform and that's the

way it was in 1971 I'm not sure that that this task of native survival that that willy so well expresses is as clearly as as clearly defined as the line claims quite was back then but it is just as real and it is the most important battle that or issue that native people have got to deal with I think that we've got to define it in such a way that that ultimately we can all share it and share its urgency but I think one of the things that it's important to note and this is a tendency among the public when dealing with minority groups is to is when you discuss a particular problem to make the conclusion that everybody in that group is affected by the problem in in the same way and that's just not the case for example Nana's relationship with its shareholders looking at

an issue like nativeness is very much different than what we've got to deal with at see Alaska and I suspect that that is true of all of the other native corporations so we've got to forge our own relationships our own responses but ultimately we're dealing with the survival of a people and if we can make that clear and if we can define it and we can establish how we're going to deal with it I think that you know that you'll see that kind of unity emerge once again so the approach to the 91 issue we can expect to see the same unity that we saw on 71 for hope so okay I I want to ask a final question I guess to both you gentlemen as you look into the future what what recommendations would you make to your shareholders and maybe shareholders in general throughout the state in regard to the future of their

corporation how how can they how can they assist at this point as individual shareholders I'd have to to to restate what Willie said earlier and that is that you know the answer to our problems both as the people and individually is going to come from nowhere but from ourselves and that if we expect institutions or or external things to answer our problems they're they're they're really not going to to be solved and you know we've got to take responsibility for our own lives both on an individual basis and as a people and I think that's something that we've got to look at and translate into action now Willie well I think we have to recognize that life isn't perfect and we have to do the best we can you know in the circumstances

we find ourselves and to me we are advising our own people to try to be decent human beings that is more or less try to live the basic in-up values that we are trying to resurrect which in this case would be you pick values in this area that is that we we have to maintain our language and I think a sense of identity which is absolutely essential I'm not saying that we have to live a lifestyle that is now impossible to live in large part that is if we accept the goods and the things of the world that make life easier we're going to have to pay the price and that price in effect is a control over you because in order to pay for those things you have to work and of course that means you have to learn so we're advising our people to first be a good

in your path because the values that our people have lived by our good values but at the same time we have to do as good a job or a better job insofar as western education is concerned you know because we have our corporations to run we have our educational systems to fill we have an unprofit groups to do you know but we're saying that you first have to take care of yourself in your family and then everybody has to do their bit if you would look into the future for me what's what are the villages in the nana region going to be like in 10 years well it depends we'll be struggling along as usual trying to find enough wood to burn if we can't afford the oil but we in fact have had to try to make the accommodations we have one very large venture if a world situation economic situation stays stable and the price of lead and zinc you know

stays up there's a large mind that is in the process of being put together we did that only at the insistence of our shareholders because they know that you know to pay for the things that we have now got it takes money and we expect that our people are going to have a renewed sense of pride they will be resurrecting the language more and ensuring that they take care of their children and grandchildren don't forget who they are and that we'll have a strong feeling for the land continue to hunt and fish as well as maybe be a businessman a doctor a lawyer whatever you know that's what I see barn well I if what angsa has has provided works if we're able to make

the institutions work if we're able to use the assets properly if because native people are focused on angsa and through angsa if all that you know if we make proper use of it in 10 years native people will have a great sense of self esteem and it will focus on being native they will have hope and a huge sense of self confidence both on an individual basis and again as a people that that the continuing problems of life can be confronted and that we will be able to deal with them both as native people and as members of a larger society and that the institutions that were

created by the claim settlement act are contributing positively to their lives both economically and spiritually that's our goal and I think that it's eminently capable of being achieved well I want to thank you all for being here Byron and Willie and Phil and good evening