December 18, 2022, marks the 51st anniversary of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA). ANCSA was the culmination of a decades-long fight for Alaska Native land rights and laid the groundwork for the incorporation of ASRC. For nearly a hundred years, the United States Congress failed to address aboriginal land rights in Alaska: From the United States’ purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867 to the 1958 Alaska Statehood Act and onward.
President Nixon signed ANCSA into law on December 18, 1971. North Slope leaders opposed the final version of the law. Joe Upicksoun, former president of the Arctic Slope Native Association, said at the time:
“We Iñupiat Eskimos have never wanted money as such, we wanted land! Because, out of the land we would make our money, we would protect our subsistence living, and we would still have our heritage. Make no mistakes of it, we, the Alaska Natives are being paid this so-called settlement for just one reason, because we have legal rights!”
ANCSA extinguished aboriginal land titles, established 12 for-profit Alaska Native regional corporations, including ASRC, conveyed 44 million acres of land, and compensated nearly $1 billion for lands lost. Despite their opposition to ANCSA, our early leaders accepted the new law and began building the foundation of ASRC – which was incorporated six months later on June 22, 1972.
The late Jacob Anaġi Adams Sr., a North Slope leader, whaling captain and one of ASRC’s founders who was enormously influential in charting a course for the company’s long-term success, noted, “Iñupiaq values are very important to our people, the values of sharing, of giving, of being humble. Those values that are making our culture vibrant have been, a big, played a big part in ASRC.”
To mark the anniversary of this legislation, ASRC is proud to release a documentary in celebration of ASRC’s 50th anniversary in 2022.