Alaska: Saga of a Bold Land

by Walter R. Borneman

Perhaps journalist Mary Clay Berry offered the simplest, yet clearest, perspective on the long, long road to the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. “Despite its flaws,” Berry wrote, “this settlement was an extraordinary agreement in view of the United States’ traditional way of settling its Indian problems.”34 Indeed, it was. But there was also a little matter of a last-minute addition to the act, a requirement stuck in subparagraph (d)(2) of Section 17 that Congress receive recommendations for setting aside certain parks, wildlife refuges, wild and scenic rivers, and forests that were deemed in the national interest. In the end, subparagraph “d-2” would throw almost as much controversy over Alaska’s public lands in the next decade as the Native land claims had in the previous one. But first there was a pipeline to build.