Tyonek Native Corp.: looking beyond subsistence.

• Author: Stricker, Julie
• Position: NATIVE BUSINESS - Tyonek Native Corp.

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From the west coast of Cook Inlet, you can see the lights of Anchorage only 39 miles away. It doesn't work the other way. Fewer than 300 people live on a 120-mile stretch of shoreline. But that may be about to change.

Tyonek Native Corp. (TNC) is actively promoting a series of multimillion-dollar energy and development projects on the west side of Cook Inlet that would bring thousands of jobs, and residents, to the area.

The corporation has about 800 shareholders, 193 of whom live in Tyonek village. TNC would like to see more shareholders come home, says TNC Consultant John McClellan.

"That's sort of a goal for us to move back to the village, but there's no way to make a living," McClellan says. "We're working to develop a mechanism for employment and have people move back to their Native lands."

TNC is a for-profit village corporation established under the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. It oversees subsidiaries in such fields as defense manufacturing and engineering, aircraft maintenance, information technology services, construction, oilfield support services and tourism. It owns more than 190,000 acres of land, primarily on the west side of Cook Inlet in Southcentral Alaska. It is aggressively pro-development, a stance often at odds with tribal officials of the Native Village of Tyonek, a Dena'ina Athabascan community with a subsistence-based economy.

But in today's energy-hungry world, TNC's holdings are prime real estate, surrounded by potential energy sources--coal, hydropower, geothermal--only miles from Alaska's largest and fastest-growing communities. The corporation doesn't own the resources directly, but would benefit from development that would need access across TNC lands or employ shareholders. TNC shareholders also are well positioned to offer solid waste management, water and communications services to west Cook Inlet communities.

The corporation has a multi-pronged plan for development, including a new community, Nakacheba, with 700 home sites situated six miles north of the current village of Tyonek. Shareholders would receive a 1.5-acre plot of land in the planned subdivision.

"That will give those people who want to return to the area some land they can settle on," McClellan says. It also provides a place for workers on the various projects to live.

Scott Ruby of the Alaska Division of Community and Regional Affairs says the State has already signed off on the subdivision.

"In four or...