Alaska Subsistence: a National Park Service management history

Norris, Frank

This study is a chronicle of how subsistence management in Alaska has grown and evolved. As will be readily seen, the process by which the initial subsistence laws were created was long, tortuous, and emotionally charged. Subsistence management since 1980, moreover, has taken many unexpected twists and turns because of decisions made at the executive, legislative and judicial levels in both the state and federal government. Because Alaska's development patterns, and the relative independence of its Native populations, was so dissimilar from that of the other 49 states, it is perhaps unsurprising that Congress, in 1980, created a subsistence management system that was uniquely tailored to Alaska's people and conditions. Because of this distinctiveness, Federal land managers whose sole work experience has been outside of Alaska have little comprehension of the reality of subsistence or of the legalities of subsistence management. Today, only a select few—primarily managers and staff people in specific state and federal agencies—understand Alaska's regulatory system as it pertains to subsistence, and even fewer are aware of the historical underpinnings of that system. This study, therefore, was commissioned, in part, to provide a step-by-step process for understanding why subsistence regulations developed as they did. It is hoped that this study will help a broad range of people—subsistence managers, superintendents and refuge managers, legislators, subsistence users, and other Alaska residents—gain an appreciation of why the subsistence landscape developed into its present reality. This study has been organized in a roughly chronological fashion. The first three chapters, all fairly brief, set the stage for ANCSA and other post-1971 events. Chapter 1 is a historical outline of Alaska's lifeways, with a particular emphasis on its Native and rural populations. Chapter 2 is a brief sketch of how the National Park Service, outside of Alaska, established a policy toward subsistence activities, particularly as they relate to Native American residents living adjacent to park units. And Chapter 3 chronicles NPS subsistence-related actions at the three large Alaska units that preceded ANILCA: Mount McKinley National Park, Katmai National Monument, and Glacier Bay National Monument. Given that broad introduction, Chapter 4 describes how Alaska's first subsistence law (in 1978) came to be, and it also explains the administrative and legislative process that brought about ANILCA and its various subsistence provisions.

Alaska Subsistence: a National Park Service management history

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