On July 24th, 1897, President McKinley appointed the District of Alaska’s first ex-officio Secretary/Surveyor General. The position would remain throughout Alaska’s district status that ended in 1912 and continue on throughout Alaska’s territorial designation until 1959. It was then that as Alaska gained statehood that the position was changed to Secretary of State. That new […]
(Anchorage, AK) – The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit issued its decision on a Federal Subsistence Board appeal today, in which the State of Alaska challenged the Board’s authority to open an emergency hunting season near Kake and to close portions of Unit 13 to non-federally-qualified hunters. The Court’s decision recognizes that Alaska […]
(Anchorage, AK) – With five different opinions issued by three different Solicitors of Indian Affairs in the U.S. Department of the Interior over the past several years, confusion exists over whether the 51-year-old Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) extinguished the federal government’s ability to take lands into trust in Alaska. The State filed a lawsuit […]