A Look Back
The earliest origins of Arctic Slope Regional Corporation (ASRC) are to be found in the Inupiat people's inseparable ties to the lands of the Arctic Slope region of Alaska. Historically this relationship with the land and resources of the region has formed Inupiat culture and values, and provided sustenance through the ages. In the late 1960's, when that right and relationship with the land was threatened by state, federal and private interests, the Inupiat sought to defend their rights. The efforts led to the passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) in 1971 and the founding of ASRC.

Corporate Land Ownership
The passage of ANCSA brought a mandate to expand traditional concepts of land and resource utilization to include the concepts of corporate land ownership. ANCSA mandated the creation of a for-profit corporation, entitled to select a discreet amount of land in the region and to develop that land in order to bring economic benefits to the corporation's Inupiat shareholders. ANCSA defined entitlement in terms of acreage only. The burden of translating that entitlement into a meaningful economic asset was the immediate challenge to ASRC, and remains so to this day.

Traditional Subsistence Values
From the outset, ASRC's land related goals have been clear and unchanging: to gain title to the lands with the greatest resource potential, to explore and develop those lands and to produce and market resources from them. In addition, these objectives are to be met without compromising the traditional subsistence values that the lands of the region hold for the ASRC shareholders. Working to achieve these goals has been lengthy, expensive and complex. Of foremost importance was the need to evaluate and identify, from the unexplored lands available for selection, those lands with the most potential for oil and gas, coal and other minerals. At the same time ASRC had the task of gaining title to those lands by resolving conveyance and title issues that the settlement act itself created. After numerous agreements and exchanges were forged with the federal and state governments, as well as lawsuits filed against them, ASRC was able to begin its selections and receive the majority of its entitlement. Also, because of unique restrictions imposed on ASRC in the settlement act the corporation was forced to seek amendments to ANCSA and have Congress re-address ASRC entitlement and conveyancing problems in the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA).