On January 3, 1959, President Eisenhower signed the proclamation officially making Alaska the forty-ninth state. The road to statehood had been long and rocky, but considering the land grant situation alone, the wait had been well worth it. Almost 28 percent of the new state’s land—103,350,000 acres—was now slated for state ownership. But what about the issue of Native land claims? On that thorny debate, all sides had taken a bye. The concept of Native land claims had been recognized in the statehood legislation, but the specifics were left to be resolved in the future.
