Alaska Dispatch

 

On Alaska's northwest coast, 460 miles away from Anchorage and nearly 3,700 miles from the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., sits a small village with a claim to fame few communities in the Last Frontier can make.

Elim is the Iditarod checkpoint where, in 2008, Iditarod race champ Lance Mackey stole victory from a veteran champ, Jeff King. As King napped, Mackey snuck out of the village to gain an insurmountable lead over his closest race rival, clenching a victory that's still talked about.

But the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race isn't the only event in Elim's history involving strategic decisions of historic proportions. In 1971, the fight over land rights between tribes and the federal government became a race of its own. Time was running out to make way for the trans-Alaska oil pipeline. Aboriginal land claims against the government had stalled the project, which could not be permitted until issues of land ownership and compensation were resolved for all lands along the proposed route. In 1971, President Richard Nixon signed into law an agreement crafted by Congress -- the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act -- which conveyed $963 million and up to 44 million acres of land to Alaska Natives. In exchange, many tribes and villages gave up title to land and extinguished their pending claims against the government. But to this offer, Elim said "no."

That decision allowed Elim to keep rights to nearly 300,000 acres of land and any riches contained below. Whether it was the best move -- rejecting an immediate influx of cash in favor of full control of the land -- is difficult to measure, although some villagers still stand firmly behind it.

"That was the right decision," longtime Elim councilman Charles Saccheus said, reached by phone prior to the start of this year's Iditarod.

Saccheus works as a local airline agent, a job he's had for nearly 40 years, alongside his role on city council and a three-decade stint as the postmaster. Even before ANCSA, the village's forefathers had made a conscious decision to protect their way of life by protecting the community's ability to fish and hunt in their traditional lands, something infinitely more precious than cash, he said.

"If you have no money and a rifle you can go out in the country and get something to eat -- you don't have to buy it," Saccheus said. "It's not like the money. Our land will feed us if we got nothing. I think that's the whole idea."

Elevating villages out of poverty and giving them economic muscle was one of the goals of ANCSA's unique arrangement. The cash payments were distributed directly in initial lump sums to individuals, then, over time, through royalty payments. Regional and village corporations were established to manage lands and investments, providing dividends to their members and acting as stewards of the ANCSA legacy for the preservation of culture and advancement of their people. Yet there is great disparity in the success of this model among the existing corporations. Some have thrived, others have teetered on bankruptcy and still others are essentially defunct.

Elim does have a Native corporation, as mandated by Congress, but the corporation is largely unfunded and has little money to work with. And with the nearby lands undeveloped, and no partners to help, it doesn't have much economic muscle to muster.

Still, the community itself -- comprised of both the tribal and city governments -- has been able to secure access to more than $50 million in state and federal funding since 1990 through a variety of public and nonprofit agencies that grant money to aid in the construction of roads, airports, schools, health clinics and homes.

Yet the community remains hungry for jobs and improvements. Aging, dilapidated homes need replacement, and the city could use a new well. While work to secure those projects is underway, Elim continues to dream of a way to generate more money through its own economic projects.

It may be that the region's trees, rocks and water sources are the key, according to tribal administrator Janelle Murray. Ideas for projects abound. Perhaps there could be a logging operation or lumber mill, a marble and granite quarry, or geothermal energy generation by tapping into the area's hot springs, Murray said.

But making those projects worth the effort is proving to be a big challenge. Demand and commodity prices must rise high enough to balance the equation, and thus far no business concept has materialized.

However fiscally stagnant Elim's land holdings may currently be, the acreage hasn't been without value to locals. It acts as a buffer between the village and development activity in the region, most notably the prospect of uranium mining in the Death Valley area, 31 miles away. Leery of negative radioactive effects from the mining process they fear will harm their fish, marine life and game animals, Elim residents have strongly opposed the potential mine, which, according to the State of Alaska, appears to be on hold.

The Death Valley location and nearby uranium discoveries have only ever been surveyed and explored. No active mining has taken place, and the market slump in the last two years has made new operations a difficult investment prospect for companies, said David Szumigala, senior minerals geologist with the Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys.

Uranium mining predominantly feeds the nuclear reactor industry. In December 2007,the mineral sold for $92 per pound, but by December 2009 the price had dropped to $45.50 per pound, according to Szumigala.After investing $3.5 million dollars in exploration of Death Valley's uranium resources, Triex Minerals Corporation dropped its claims to the Death Valley site two years ago, signaling an intent not to proceed there, Szumigala said. Triex's claims do remain in place for a nearby uranium field, though it's unclear of the company's current exploratory intent, if any.

Times have changed a lot in Elim since Saccheus was a child. The village is connected to the world by phone, television and the Internet, and it's an outside world Saccheus has had a chance to see firsthand. Business meetings for a local cooperative of stores have taken him several times to bright lights and bustle of Las Vegas. When Ronald Reagan was president, Saccheus traveled even farther -- making his way over the course of two days to the tip of South America. A beluga hunter, Saccheus had been invited to speak at the International Whaling Convention's annual meeting in Grenada to talk about how Native Alaskans hunt whales.

Saccheus' travels, though, haven't lured his heart out of Elim. From his living room, he enjoys keeping tabs on world events as they happen, whether it's the war in Iraq or the recent earthquake in Haiti. And he enjoys it when the world comes to Elim, as with the Iditarod.

But most of all, he enjoys experiencing it from a place unlike any other he's found, a place where local leaders are this month re-evaluating their long-term economic goals while remaining ever-vigilant to not lose place and identity as they move into the future.

"I don't think I'll leave Elim. I'll probably die here. It's my homeland," Saccheus said.

Contact Jill Burke at jill(at)alaskadispatch.com.