Alaska's Great Land Trust teams up with Indigenous tribe to protect subsistence salmon fishing

This post was adapted from a Great Land Trust release. For more stories about the accredited land trust’s work, check out their blog.

Great Land Trust was founded in 1995 to conserve the land and water in Southcentral Alaska — the organization works to protect wetlands that provide clean drinking water, to conserve habitat for salmon and other wildlife, and to build trails and establish access to the outdoors and open spaces.

The land trust finalized a project with the Native Village of Tazlina to purchase and place permanent protections on 162 acres of land historically used for subsistence salmon fishing at the confluence of the Copper and Tazlina rivers. The project was part of a larger years-long effort by the Native Village of Tazlina to purchase a total of 412 acres, returning the traditional village site to tribal ownership.

A National Park Service survey found archeological sites on the property that show continuous use by Alaska Natives for subsistence purposes dating back 300-700 years. Today, Native Village of Tazlina residents continue the traditional practice of subsistence fishing on the conservation property with multiple active family and community fish wheel sites.

In 1956, the 412-acre property was sold by the federal government to the Archdiocese of Anchorage-Juneau to build a boarding school. From 1954 to 1971 it was the home of the Copper Valley School, a college prep school that educated Alaska leaders from all over the state. It was the first integrated boarding school in the state — as the Anchorage Daily News noted, “[b]oth Native and non-Native, Catholic and non-Catholic, village and city students attended Copper.” The school burned down in 1976 and the site sat vacant for many years. The Archdiocese then addressed remaining issues with pollutants and hazardous materials on the site through an environmental remediation process completed in 2013.

In 2018, the Archdiocese of Anchorage-Juneau signed an agreement to sell the land to the Native Village of Tazlina. Since then, the village has raised approximately $1.7 million in funding needed to purchase the property.

Great Land Trust contributed funding through the Alaska Sustainable Salmon Fund to purchase and protect 162 acres of the traditional homelands that have been permanently conserved to support healthy salmon habitat. By voluntarily placing conservation restrictions on a portion of their land where they intend to continue practicing traditional subsistence activities forever, the village is protecting habitat crucial to a healthy salmon ecosystem and supporting the continuation of Alaska Native subsistence practices.

It is also the location of both family and tribal education fish camps for the village with structures associated with fish camps and a network of dirt roads connecting the multiple fish wheel sites to the area road system.

“We are so happy to know that all future generations of tribal members will have access to this land and will be able to use it in the same way that we do today and have in the past,” said Marce Simeon, tribal administrator for the Native Village of Tazlina. “The people who live here have a huge connection to this place.”

“Collaborating with partners like the Native Village of Tazlina and finding creative solutions to achieve shared conservation goals is one of our strengths at Great Land Trust,” said Ellen Kazary, executive director of Great Land Trust. “We are honored to have played a role in returning ownership of the traditional homelands to the people of the Native Village of Tazlina and for future generations to call home.”

The views, thoughts and opinions expressed in this blog are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Land Trust Alliance, its staff, its board of directors or any other individuals associated with the organization.