Sustaining Sanak Island, Alaska: A Cultural Land Trust

Abstract

Sanak Island is the easternmost of the Aleutian Islands and was inhabited by the Aleut (Unangan) peoples for nearly 7000 years. The past few centuries of Sanak Island life for its Aleut residents can be summarized from ethnohistoric documents and extensive interviews with former residents as shifting local-global economic patterns beginning with the sea otter fur trade, followed by cod and salmon fishing, fox farming, and cattle ranching through waves of Russian, American, and Scandinavian authority and/or influence. As the industries changed and the island absorbed new peoples with new goals, Aleut identity and practices also changed as part of these shifting economic and social environments. Sanak Island was abandoned in the 1970s and although uninhabited today, Sanak Island is managed as an important land trust for the island's descendants that serves local peoples as a marine-scape rich in resources for Aleut subsistence harvesting and as a local heritage site where people draw on the diverse historical influences and legacies. Further, this move from an industrial heritage to contemporary local subsistence economies facilitated by a commercial fishing industry is a unique reversal of development in the region with broad implications for community sustainability among indigenous communities. We find that by being place-focused, rather than place-based, community sustainability can be maintained even in the context of relocation and the loss of traditional villages. This will likely become more common as indigenous peoples adapt to globalization and the forces of global change.

Kelp-Fed Beef, Swimming Caribou, Feral Reindeer, and Their Hunters: Island Mammals in a Marine Economy

“…A project focusing on the long-term history and use of Sanak Island proposed the concept of a land trust to explain the modern usage of the uninhabited Native Corporation owned land [43]. The island was abandoned in the 1970s when residents moved to new village sites where fish processing plants were established, but Sanak remains firmly with the contemporary local subsistence economy and as a heritage site with a distinct tribe and village corporation located in nearby Sand Point managing and using the island.…”

The decline of Steller sea lions (Eumetopias jubatus) in the North Pacific: insights from indigenous people, ethnohistoric records and archaeological data

“…Accordingly, the Aleut used marine resources such as Gadidae (Pacific cod -Gadus macrocephalus and walleye pollock -Theragra chalcogramma), salmon (Oncorhynchus sp.) and sea mammals not just for subsistence, but as commodities that were traded for status and prestige, power, rare goods and other social, political and material products (Lantis 1970(Lantis , 1984Maschner and Hoffman 2003;Orchard 2003;Reedy-Maschner and Maschner 2004). With the arrival of the Russian fur traders and later with the American government, various aspects of this economic system changed in emphasis, but never altered its basic form (Reedy-Maschner 2010).…”

“…Oral historic and ethnographic data were obtained from 52 interviews conducted with young and old fishermen in the western Gulf and southern Bering Sea communities of King Cove, Sand Point, False Pass, Akutan and Nelson Lagoon following methods developed by Reedy-Maschner (Reedy-Maschner 2004Reedy-Maschner and Maschner 2004). These were unstructured interviews that allowed the participants to express ideas, observations and knowledge over a range of topics.…”

Resilience strategies in the face of short- and long-term change: out-migration and fisheries regulation in Alaskan fishing communities

“…Although the term is defined under the MSFCMA to signify a specific geographic locality, it is also important to consider the resilience of the group of people that make up the community, regardless of whether they continue to reside in the same location. Reedy-Maschner and Maschner (2013) provide an important example of community members originating from Sanak, a place that no longer has any year-round population but continues to play an important role in the lives of past residents. They argue that these individuals have shifted from a "place-based" view to a "place-focused" perspective, in which Sanak Island continues to play an integral role in their fishing way of life and sense of identity, despite the fact that access to services and cost of living have made it impossible to continue to live there on a year-round basis.…”

“…In addition, the ability of fisheries resources to support communities across a vast geographic area is not easily replicated by other industries. In short, if the fishing-centered economies and cultures of many Alaskan communities are no longer able to persist in their present form, in many cases no in situ community alternatives will be accessible; community resilience may necessarily suffer through disintegration of the present localities and migration of residents to other locations (Wrathall 2012, Reedy-Maschner andMaschner 2013).…”