Chugach Alaska Corp.: The Exxon-Valdez oil spill devastated much of this regional corporation's land holdings, but thanks to good management decisions it is now the third-highest grossing corporation of the 13 formed under ANCSA.

• Author: Stricker, Julie

Every summer, rainy Nuchek Island in Prince William Sound is the site of Chugach Alaska Corp.'s Nuuciq Spirit Camp, where participants learn about their culture, traditions and subsistence way of life while watching cruise ships and oil tankers pass by.

The 800-acre island was home to the Native village of Nuchek and a Russian fort that dates to the 1790s. It is also the site of the earliest Russian Orthodox Church in Prince William Sound, the Church of the Transfiguration. Spirit Camp is a seven-year-old cultural oasis that would have been unthinkable as little as a decade ago, when Chugach Alaska Corp. and Prince William Sound communities were reeling from devastating business losses compounded by the aftershocks of the 11-million-gallon Exxon-Valdez oil spill.

But Chugach engineered an incredible turnaround, and in 2000 was ranked the third-highest grossing Native regional corporation. Because of its success, Chugach is able to embrace its past. Many shareholders can trace their roots to the settlement on Nuchek Island, says John F.C. Johnson, camp director and vice president of cultural resources for Chugach Alaska. He is also on the corporation's board of directors.

"We're dedicated to profitability, ownership of our land and the celebration of our history and cultures," Johnson says. "What we realize is it's good to make money, but at the same time it's real important to a lot of people to teach our children our cultural values and subsistence way of life."

CHUGACH'S ORIGINS

Chugach Alaska is one of 13 Alaska Native regional corporations created in 1971 under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, a watershed piece of legislation that distributed 44 million acres of land and nearly $1 billion among Alaska's Native groups to settle land claims and speed construction of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline.

Under ANSCA, Chugach Alaska received $11.5 million and was promised 930,000 acres. Conveyance of the lands was delayed and the corporation received another $12 million in 1982 in the Chugach Natives Inc. agreement to make up for lost opportunities because of the delays. Chugach's land base is a maritime arc-stretching from Icy Bay near Yakutat, through the Prince William Sound region and down the east coast of the Kenai Peninsula to Port Graham. It's a region rich in fish and timber, and that almost proved to be Chugach Alaska's downfall.

The corporation invested in canneries, but a salmon glut and a botulism scare knocked the bottom out...