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
Version
FATHER ELLIOTT: Harvey Samuelsen. The man who received the award last night.
TESTIMONY OF HARVEY SAMUELSEN
I don't have too much, but...yeah, I'm Harvey
Samuelsen. Live here in Dillingham, for the last 40-some-odd
years. Born and raised in Alaska.
And my number one topic at this time is going to be about social security. Our older people, the social security don't travel out to the villages anymore. They do everything by telephone, and as a result, none of our people can't communicate with them.
I don't know if -- I think the older people need the -- need to see their social -- they should travel out to the villages. They come here once a month to Dillingham and don't travel to the villages. And I imagine it's the same way throughout rural Alaska, I'm not sure. But it should be -- they should travel out there.
My number two deal is, I think the language, the Native languages and culture should be stressed in the school systems. And...because it really needs to be saved, I think. I think when -- once you lose your language, you -- you're dead in the water.
And subsistence should remain the high priority, number one priority through the state of Alaska. And way of life and subsistence style living should be taught in high school, at least refresher courses or whatever it takes.
Now I'm going to get into a little bit on fisheries. State of Alaska's treated these terminal fisheries very badly. They've created new fisheries where they shouldn't have been created, like on the north peninsula, down Area M. And they have created and encouraged cape fisheries, which are strictly intercept fisheries. And we've fought for years for the Japanese and foreign national to lay off our fisheries. And here, the state of Alaska don't practice what they preach. They encourage it.
As a result, one of the most lucrative fisheries for salmon in the world is a brand-new fisheries, called Area M fisheries, right down here on Alaska peninsula. And they're killing everybody's fish from here north, all the way to Kotzebue. They're intercept fisheries. And --
FATHER ELLIOTT: Does that affect False Pass?
MR. SAMUELSEN: Yes, that's part of False Pass fisheries. False Pass itself don't have no fisheries. No -- not much fish there, it's the area surrounding False Pass.
And not only that, going the other way, it's affecting Chignik, fisheries and Cook Inlet fisheries, they're -- them cape fisheries are killing the Chignik stocks and Cook Inlet stocks, the Prince William Sound stocks. And that should be halted immediately, that sort of mass murder they're doing.
And it's real bad, because there's no way the fisheries managers in their terminal areas could take a -- could draw an educated guess at it.
FATHER ELLIOTT: Now, just for clarification for us on the Commission, are you talking primarily of salmon, or does this also include bottomfish?
MR. SAMUELSEN: No, I'm speaking strictly of salmon.
FATHER ELLIOTT: Thank you.
MR. SAMUELSEN: So I'll go on if there's no questions on that intercept fisheries.
FATHER ELLIOTT: We did have a question put to us at Nome -- well, perhaps not a question but a statement that the extent of the False Pass should be cut down in mileage. I think it's 60-something miles now and they said it would be of help if it were cut to 35. Do you have any thoughts on that, as to the --
MR. SAMUELSEN: No, they got 600 and some miles to fish in. They stay -- start way over on the Shumagin (ph.) Islands and go right up to Ugashik. It's 600-some miles they can fish in. Whereas us fishermen here, we -- we're limited just to the terminal areas, mouth of the rivers.
FATHER ELLIOTT: Thank you.
MR. SAMUELSEN: And I think this Commission should take special interest in this fisheries issue, take a real hard stand on it. Because we got a fish board, and there's always politics, real bad politics, made in -- on the fish board. Whatever we want here, we're almost always voted down. Because the main big players, there's always four main players, it ain't fair. And it's always four to three, four to three, two to five, votes like that that kill us. We just as well -- lot of years, we just as well not have a fish board. Because it's so political.
THE REPORTER: Excuse me, off record. Excuse me,
(Off the record - tape changed - Tape 13)
(On the record)
THE REPORTER: On record.
MR. SAMUELSEN: And then I'll be glad if you guys want to put on a special deal on fisheries, I'll be glad to participate in it, I've been involved in fisheries for years. In fact, so-called -- lot of these darn so-called experts people listen to, they're not even good fishermen, they're just good B.S.ers. You know. I've probably caught more -- I've probably (indiscernible) more fish overboard than some of the experts on fish thinking they are. And so these guys here.
Then another thing is -- that's really scary is Governor Hickel and his crew, and somebody else; they're always jabbing us out here for going to work -- going with the factory trawlers. The reason why we went with the factory trawlers is they're American owned. They might be foreign financed and everything else, but they put our kids to work. And so far, we've gotten maybe 400 kids working out there. You know, young kids. And we -it -- they've been very good. The suicide rate has come down and stuff along the western part of Alaska where these kids are going to work.
Now there's three Japanese, old companies out the Aleutian Chain that pays little taxes. They pay very little taxes. There's four or five major companies out there. Three are owned by the Japanese. Well, gentlemen. I'm going to tell you, last month they hired 12,000 people. And they didn't hire one local kid from the Yukon, not one local kid from the Kuskokwim. They had 12,000 come up from Seattle.
My cousin flies for Delta Airlines. And in one load, they couldn't take off, because they're -- nobody could speak English on that airplane, they had to find an interpreter to interpret the safety features of that airplane.
MR. IRWIN: Was it Japanese?
MR. SAMUELSEN: No, Koreans --
MR. IRWIN: Korean.
MR. SAMUELSEN: -- Mexicans. And them others. Our kids aren't given a chance. And our Governor and his staff are sticking up for them. I almost swore. But...it's an eye-opener. I mean, we got a lot of kids like -- I -- being born and raised in Alaska and I can talk -- I'm bilingual, more than bilingual, I can talk and speak other dialects. And it's sad to see our poor kids sitting in the villages doing nothing while they're importing foreign national to work in their foreign-owned canneries down there.
MR. IRWIN: That's in the canneries in -- on the chain as well as the factory trawlers?
MR. SAMUELSEN: It's on shore.
MR. IRWIN: On shore?
MR. SAMUELSEN: Yeah.
MR. IRWIN: Have they ever tried --
MR. SAMUELSEN: We get --
MR. IRWIN: -- hiring from this area, Harvey?
MR. SAMUELSEN: We get better treatment from the factory trawlers than we do from on-shore people.
MR. IRWIN: Okay. So those are Japanese canneries.
MR. SAMUELSEN: And least but not last is North Pacific Management Council, is Henry Mitchell (ph.), is getting off there -- and not getting off, he's being kicked off by these outside interest groups. Henry Mitchell was very instrumental in getting the CDQ program for as, 62 villages here.
FATHER ELLIOTT: Would you explain that, please, for us?
MR. SAMUELSEN: Community Quota System --
FATHER ELLIOTT: Okay.
MR. SAMUELSEN: -- is what it is.
FATHER ELLIOTT: Mm-hm (affirmative).
MR. SAMUELSEN: And we just get a little quota of the pollack. We don't get no quota off the rest of it. We don't get it from king crab, we don't get it from true (ph.) cod, we don't get it from other species. But Henry Mitchell was very instrumental being as -- commissioner. And he's kind of a political animal, Henry is. I like him. He's good for Western Alaska.
Now Hickel and his crew is going to get rid of him, and I'd like to see Henry Mitchell stay on there. Because you need a political animal to get some more of these quotas for the rest of the communities of Alaska. These community quotas only belong to Bering Sea coast. It should be on the Pacific coast too, you know, like North Gulf and Southeastern. It's just for here.
And our Governor is bowing down to the pressures from the crab fishermen and the inside processors to get rid of Henry Mitchell, so they won't -- so in the long run we won't be getting our community quotas. If they put him in -- new person in there, it takes at least five years or couple terms to know what the heck you're doing in that political fisheries world, because there's nothing --
MR. IRWIN: Is the Governor looking for a replacement from Western -
MR. SAMUELSEN: Yes.
MR. IRWIN: -- Alaska, do you know?
MR. SAMUELSEN: He's got some, but you've got to have ins in Washington, D.C.
MR. IRWIN: Right.
MR. SAMUELSEN: You just can't have ins in Alaska. Because the final say-so is with Department of Commerce in Washington, D.C.
FATHER ELLIOTT: I notice your suggestion about a fisheries branch of our Commission. And perhaps that would be a good recommendation to our economic task force that they have a sub-task force strictly devoted to the fishery industry.
MR. SAMUELSEN: Yeah, I'd encourage that.
FATHER ELLIOTT: And you'd be willing to serve
as a outside advisor to that, then, sir?
MR. SAMUELSEN: Sure. I have a lot more, but that's the things I was just --
FATHER ELLIOTT: Well, thank you very much.
MR. SAMUELSEN: Yeah, thank you.
MR. IRWIN: Really glad you showed up for our hearing, Harvey, thank you.
FATHER ELLIOTT: Peggy --
MR. IRWIN: Wouldn't have
been complete without you.
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