Category: Alaska Federation of Natives
The title and content of the series provide an analogy between the role of the whale in certain Alaska Native subsistence lifestyles, and the roles and responsibilities of the corporations created under ANCSA. Each tape in the ten part series begins with the following prayer by the Reverend Merculieff from St. George Island: "This land of Alaska, which thou gave to our ancestors who had come and gone before us, is now being handed to us a second time by the act of the United States Congress and our untiring efforts. A second chance is given to us by thee to be the new custodians and caretakers."
"A blue banner, with the State of Alaska in gold, hung on the wall behind Alaska Federation of Natives' Chairman Nelson Angapak as he called the convention to order on December 16, 1981. Three interlocking rings were superimposed on the State, the top one bearing the word Eskimo, the one on the right labeled Indian, and the ring on the left, Aleut, signifying the unity of the ethnic groups that comprised Alaska's Natives and the membership of the AFN. In 1966, 99 years after the transfer of Alaska from Russia to the United States, the Alaska Federation of Natives first met to plan a unified effort to obtain a settlement for land claimed by Alaska's aboriginal people. Scarcely more than five years later, December 1971, convention delegates voted to accept the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, negotiated by AFN representatives, special interest groups, notably oil companies, and Congress. That bill provided for 12 in-state regional corporations to distribute the terms of the settlement...but there was no provision for continuation of the statewide group that had lobbied for and won the bill. This program...will examine the role of the Alaska Federation of Natives and its efforts to survive and continue to be a unifying body for the corporations who manage ANCSA's benefits."¹ Interview segments include perspectives of Emil Notti (first President, Alaska Federation of Natives); Willie Hensley (Chairman, NANA Development Corporation; President, United Bank Alaska); Lee Gorsuch (Director, Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of Alaska Fairbanks); John Shively (Vice President-Operations, NANA Development Corporation); Janie Leask (Executive Vice President, Alaska Federation of Natives); and Dennis Tiepelman (Washington DC representative, Alaska Federation of Natives). Topics include discussion of early versions of the land claims bill which would have provided for a statewide organization with the majority of the entitlement going to villages; also the 13th Region's petition for AFN membership.
¹ McPherson, Karen Michel, The Corporate Whale, Program 9 of 10, (Fairbanks, AK: Educational Media Services, 1982).

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