ALASKA NATIVES COMMISSION
JOINT FEDERAL-STATE COMMISSION
ON
POLICIES AND PROGRAMS AFFECTING
ALASKA NATIVES
4000 Old Seward Highway, Suite 100
Anchorage,
Alaska 99503
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Witness List | PDF
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FATHER ELLIOTT: Donald Nielsen.
TESTIMONY OF DONALD NIELSEN
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to
speak. I'm Donald Nielsen, I’m from the village of South Naknek.
I would like to first begin by echoing some of the statements made by Mark Angasan earlier from King Salmon in regard to the military hunts and the outsiders7hunts. And as Rose Hedlund just spoke to you about, you know, the bear hunts, the moose hunts, fishing, et cetera, and some of the statements from Mary Olympic, the laws that we are regulated by are often drafted for the use of hunters and fishers from outside the region and not for the folks that live in this region.
Although we have the advisory committees and things like that, that are able to give recommendations to the regulatory bodies, the sports interest in Alaska is far greater than the Native people of Alaska. You know, we can go to the Governor, we can go to the Legislature, we can go to Congress, to the President of the United States with petitions that are coming out of your ears, and it won't make a difference. But we are in strong competition over Fish and Game from people outside of the region. People that totally depend upon the resources for their livelihood.
And it -- the subsistence debate has been going on for years, you know; how should subsistence be regulated. But one thing that never comes into the discussion is sports hunting and sports fishing.
If, in fact, in my opinion, if there were just one law that said everyone within the state of Alaska was eligible to subsist on fish and game, that there was no provisions for sports hunting and sports fishing, we would probably solve the problem. Because the game resource and the fish resource are there for human consumption. And what the state of Alaska has done and what the federal government has done is created a sport. And I refer to it as a blood sport. It makes a man feel like a man, you know, if you go out there and kill an animal and take the head from the animal and mount it on your wall. It is a blood sport.
I think in our situation over at King Salmon and the Naknek areas, in regard to the military, the best thing that could happen to us is for the military, Department of Defense, to close the base down. Take the people away, the -- lake the people that abuse the resource away. That's the simplest. It is true that we, as all -- you know, all of us are taxpayers, we pay for these folks to come in to destroy the things that belong to this country. Food that we all eat.
I just wanted to echo Mark Angasan's and the other previous presenters' statements. I wanted to discuss with you the Katmai National Park. And I'm sure that you have heard quite a few things about the Katmai National Park. And I'm going to specifically talk about the spawned-out sockeye, which we refer to as the redfish.
THE REPORTER: Excuse me. Since you're mentioning the redfish, yesterday someone said what the Native word for redfish was, and I didn't get the spelling of it. Could anyone help with me with that? I'm sorry.
MR. NIELSEN: Harvey, can you spell "sayosak
(ph.)?"
MR. SAMUELSEN: I don't know how to spell it.
MR. IRWIN: How do you say it?
MR. NIELSEN: Sayosak. I'll get the spelling for you.
THE REPORTER: Okay, great.
MR. NIELSEN: Okay.
THE REPORTER: Go ahead. I'm sorry to interrupt you.
MR. NIELSEN: Okay.
(Side conversation)
MR. NIELSEN: The ancestors -- well, the ancestors from my village of South Naknek and the Naknek and the King Salmon area come from the Katmai National Park area. Communities such as Savonoski, Katmai, and Douglas. Katmai and Douglas are on the Shelikof Strait side of the peninsula. Savonoski is on the upper end of the Naknek Lake system.
All of our ancestors have come from that area after the eruption of Katmai and Overopta (ph.), folks from the National Geographic Society came into the country and they found that this is beautiful country, this should be part of the national treasures of this country; therefore, in the early 1900's, that area was declared a monument.
Our ancestors had moved out of it because of the eruption, went down the Naknek River into the Naknek area. The others went down to the south side of the Alaska peninsula, such places as Chignik, Perryville, and Ivanof.
I have no idea if they had any intentions of moving back, bur they weren't given the opportunity, because they closed the area and created a monument. But through various laws after, you know, the monument was extended, the names have been changed from monuments to parks and refuges and you name them, but all along, the use for the local people, you know, continually was prohibited.
First the hunting. The hunting was prohibited. And then fishing over the years slowly, you know, decreased in what we were able to do up there. And finally, one of the most prized foods that we use is the spawned-out sockeye or redfish. We can't take no more.
We have a word that people like to use such as tradition -- what is it called, customary and traditional use. It's a nice word, it has a meaning to it. It's -- but what it means to us now living in that area; we still go get our redfish. We know it's illegal to get the redfish. But that now is part of the meaning of customary and traditional use: Steal. You have to steal your own food.
This all comes about because folks that propose and draft regulations are insensitive to what we do. They're insensitive to how we live. They have no idea. And these folks come from outside of the region, outside of the state of Alaska. But they're out there making the rules that we must live by. Things that we're not used to, things that don't make sense.
Rose Hedlund mentioned earlier that for moose hunts, moose hunts are allowed when the moose are rutting. 'They're -- stink, they're not fit for human consumption, and a dog wouldn't even eat it. But a blood sports hunter will take it because he wants the antlers and the head.
We know better, that you don't go out certain times of year to get moose or caribou, because they're not fit to eat. However, the state wants to sell a license, the lodge owners want to make money; therefore it's -- you can do it.
But one other thing, just to give you an example of the insensitivity of federal regulators, you know, there's a lot of stories about the war in Yugoslavia, the revolutionary war in Yugoslavia. And people refer to it as ethnic cleansing. Well, that's pretty much what happened in Katmai. Except the, you know, guns and knives weren't used. They used a pen and paper to pull our people out of there, keep our people out, and eventually stop us from the use of the waters and the land.
My wife and her mother last fall took a tour in Katmai. There's a nice little tour. You go from Brooks River up into the Valley of 10,000 Smokes (ph.) and you ride a bus. And they have a park ranger that tells you the story of the country. And they were among a lot of foreign people and enjoying themselves looking at the countryside, and the park ranger is telling the story of the country. And finally, one of the foreign guests asked the question, well, wasn't there any Native people living in this land before? And of course, he answered the question, no; there was never any Native people here.
My wife spoke up and says, "No, that isn't true. My father was born right over there on the upper end of this lake and the Savonoski River. " So the people, you know, the guests became really interested and began asking her more questions, and she was happy to answer the questions, but the ranger says, "No
more of this. No more of this. I will take over from here.
''
So, you know, I know that it sounds harsh
to say, when you -- when we use the term "ethnic cleansing, " but
that's exactly what happened. Interesting, isn't it?
Going on with federal regulations -I will stop talking about the hunting and the fishing, and go on to other federal regulations. I saw one of the elders this morning at breakfast, and he was quite concerned, you know, that all of us in this area are commercial fishermen, we've grown up to be commercial fishermen. But again, we are forced to live by regulations that come from somewhere outside, And all of you have heard, you know, about the number of drownings of young people from outside; therefore, Congress passes regulations and laws that we are -- our boats have to be equipped in a certain way, we have to know certain things about health, CPR, you name it; we have to be certified in all these things.
Ironically, nine out of ten deaths that occurs in Alaska waters, not just to mention Bristol Bay, are not from here. They're from somewhere else, you know. They send their young up here and drown them, and we have to live by their regulations, because their son has drowned. They don't know what they're doing, you know. These folks come up, you know, for the big bucks or they think there's big bucks in it, send the young that are inexperienced, they've never seen water probably, some of them, and they put them on a high-production boat, and they kill them. We pay the price for them killing their own.
But I wanted to say that, but again, it's an area of being insensitive.
Other areas of this occurring is Native allotments. A friend of mine sitting right back here, Gregory Nielen (ph.), who's from Newhalen, is fighting, and has been fighting for years to have his Native allotment certified. And who is opposing Gregory Nielen but the state of Alaska, sports fishing division. He happens to have a nice piece of land on a nice stream that fits the outside sport fishermen. Because they want it, the division of sport is fighting his certification. It's costing him and the state of Alaska is paying to take it away.
But not all -- not only are they doing that, fighting Native allotments, they want to encroach upon historical and cemetery sites. Can you believe that? We are fighting tooth and nail over a historical site on the Upper Ugashik Lake. The sports fishing division again want one acre of that cemetery site so that their sport -- our sports fishermen have enough beach to land their -- you know, to park their planes while they sports fish. It's very insensitive. Folks that have no commitment to the region, they have no commitment to the state, in fact; they're just merely doing a job for some money.
I think I covered everything. And thank you for the opportunity.
MR. IRWIN: Which division, the state division was that again?
MR. NIELSEN: Sports fishing division.
MR. IRWIN: And they're actually spending governmental resources to fight against Native allotments and --
MR. NIELSEN: That is correct. That is correct.
FATHER ELLIOTT: Donald, I do have one question on your redfish. And it -- true, it was brought up yesterday.
MR. IRWIN: And it is delicious, by the way. I had some last --
MR. NIELSEN: It is.
MR. IRWIN: -- night.
MR. NIELSEN: It's good.
FATHER ELLIOTT: Why is there -- do you think there is this regulation which prohibits you from catching those fish, be -- I'm assuming they die, they rot, and that's the end of it.
MR. NIELSEN: That's right.
FATHER ELLIOTT: Why then is there a regulation preventing you from making use of them for your food?
MR. NIELSEN: Brown bear. The brown bear.
MR. IRWIN: Got to feed the brown bear.
MR. NIELSEN: They want to feed the brown bear. But you know, for generations, I mean, for generations upon generations, the Native people, I always say lived in harmony with the animals. I mean, there's enough for everybody, there's no abuse of it.
FATHER ELLIOTT: Mm-hm (affirmative). Mm-hm (affirmative).
MR. NIELSEN: But yet, you know, because the brown bear attracts tourists to the Katmai Park, you know, they're out there like dogs, and I guess outside people like to see those miserable critters.
MR. IRWIN: Well, you know, and I was just -- I was reading something about it, and it's a very regulated tourist industry out there, so there's not that many people actually go out there to see it. I think it's more just the animal rights activists wanting to cage off an area for brown bears forever, is what I think it's more for; just so that --
MR. NIELSEN: Yeah.
MR. IRWIN: -- they'll be there, I guess.
MR. NIELSEN: It's -- there's an interesting statistic I read a couple of years ago. There's something like 85,000 Native people in the state of Alaska. And there's in excess of 40,000 brown bear (laughter).
MR. IRWIN: Too bad you guys aren't as interesting to look at.
MR. NIELSEN: Yeah. I guess we're not.
MR. IRWIN: On a more serious note; going back to your first topic, which was the military hunting and all, you kind of dropped a little bit of a grenade there, saying the solution would be to take away the military. And I mean, you say something like that in Fairbanks or Anchorage and the whole town shudders because of the economic impact and all. And would there be -- how would the rest of the community feel about that, or is that just something you're throwing out to kind of --
MR. NIELSEN: Well, let me give you a description of that town, that part of town, of King Salmon. It's interesting, you know, when government people come in -- Community and Regional Affairs, as an example, for the state. And they come in with their cameras and they're going to write a community profile of King Salmon. What they'll do is, as they're landing, they will take a picture from the airplane of the runway and the hangars. Then they'll write their community profile and say this -- you know, this is the community of King Salmon. And it isn't.
King Salmon is an Air Force station. It's a military and governmental town. That part of it. The Native community of King Salmon lies a mile down the road. That's completely separate from the -you know, from the military town or government town of King Salmon.
They don't contribute anything. I'll be happy if Fairbanks or Anchorage took those folks. I know that Galena supposedly, as some kind of a program, is going to take the F-15 jets. God bless the folks at Galena. But no, it wouldn't break my heart. I doubt it'd break anybody's heart.
MR. IRWIN: There's probably roads in the area because of the military presence. Nice airstrip, some economic activity, base privileges for some who enjoy that. Do you think that there would be some community --
MR. NIELSEN: Well. I --
MR. IRWIN: -- upheaval --
MR. NIELSEN: I
can't speak for the --
MR. IRWIN: -- over the fact --
MR. NIELSEN: I can't speak for the folks at King Salmon or Naknek. I come from the south side. There's a river between us. No, it wouldn't break my heart.
FATHER ELLIOTT: Anything else, Mike?
MR. IRWIN: Let's see, the sports fishing division, I want to know that....no, that's all.
FATHER ELLIOTT: Thank you, Donald. Thank you very much.
MR. NIELSEN: Thank you very much.
MR. IRWIN: Yeah, thanks a lot,
Donald.
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