Koniag ANCSA Changed My Life-and Alaska's Future.

• Author: Drabek, Anthony Tony
• Position: Koniag Inc., Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act

My ancestral homeland and the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) helped me rebuild my life. Enrollment under ANCSA had just begun in 1970, when I came home to Kodiak after four years as a US Army aviator and two combat tours.

remember how excited my mom, Magnel, was as we enrolled to be owners of our traditional land. As Alaska Natives, we would become owners of lands and resources that we had been dispossessed of for centuries. The promise was exciting! But, at the time, I had no idea how the passage of ANCSA would affect me.

The Vietnam War had left me emotionally conflicted. It's fair to say I had lost faith in humanity. I was rudderless and without purpose. My younger brother Alvin saw this and convinced me to spend a winter in the Bush, trapping and hunting with him. With survival and subsistence as our primary motivators and lots of time for personal reflection, I was able to reset, rediscover my fundamental faith in place and belonging, and find my purpose. We lived off the land-our land! As an Alaska Native person, reconnecting to our traditional land offered me a way to restore my spirit and heal.

My experience is a personal look at how the land returned to our communities through ANCSA and the growth of Alaska Native corporations (ANCs) helps Alaska Native people. It was an honor to serve as CEO of Natives of Kodiak, my village corporation, and a gift to now have the opportunity to serve on the Koniag board of directors, my regional corporation. These opportunities have enabled me to give back and further the sense of purpose our land helped me find.

When ANCSA was signed into law in December 1971, it was a profound change and a new direction to strengthen the voice of Alaska Native people. A simple explanation of the law is that it is a policy shift away from the Lower 48 reservation system, establishing a system that enabled stronger self-determination. Through ANCSA, Congress created the first socially responsible, for-profit corporations tasked with promoting the social, cultural, and economic advancement of Alaska Native people and communities, in perpetuity. The transition to a corporate model was not easy. There were many challenges along the way, as people who had limited experience conducting Western business were thrust into new roles.

When you look at the results...