Ketchikan will remain federally designated as an urban community, at least for now.
The Southeast Alaska Subsistence Regional Advisory Council, or SEARAC, voted down a proposal to change Ketchikan’s determination as a “nonrural” place in the eyes of the Federal Subsistence Board on Thursday, at the end of its three-day meeting in the First City.
The motion in front of the council was to recommend Ketchikan’s federal subsistence designation be changed to rural. The final vote came just after noon, after nearly four hours of deliberation, with the motion failing by a vote of 9 to 4.
The vote followed years of back and forth and more than ten hours of public testimony and board discussion about how Ketchikan should be treated in the eyes of federal hunting and fishing laws.
Ketchikan is currently classified as an urban community by federal subsistence regulations, meaning that residents can’t hunt, fish, and gather under federal subsistence rules. Under federal law, that right is reserved for people who live in rural areas – without access to the kind of easy, affordable food options citydwellers have – and who need to practice traditional hunting and fishing to survive. As far as game management goes, subsistence is prioritized over other user groups.
The discussion began on Wednesday, with more than 30 members of the public testifying to the board.
Many of those who testified in favor of the change, like Brita Alander, were Indigenous Ketchikan residents. She said that not being recognized as subsistence users robs them of spiritual practices and cultural food sovereignty.
“We need that food. I need that food. It’s medicine to us,” Alander said
Multiple current and former Ketchikan officials testified in favor of the change as well, including Ketchikan School District Superintendent Michael Robbins, Borough Mayor Rodney Dial, Borough Assemblymember Jeremy Bynum, and former Vice Mayor Janalee Gage.
Many others have argued in recent years that Ketchikan meets the criteria of a rural place, and thus should be allowed to legally practice subsistence, the way residents in the nearby communities of Saxman and Prince of Wales Island can.
The argument was first proposed by Ketchikan’s tribal government, the Ketchikan Indian Community, and received the support of Ketchikan’s municipal governments in 2022.
The same year, SEARAC, voted to move it forward to the Federal Subsistence Board, which is the group that makes the final decisions on changes to subsistence law. Two years ago, the federal government also voted to conduct a formal two-year study into the idea.
The results of that study, conducted by the federal Office of Subsistence Management and including two public hearings in Ketchikan and in Klawock on Prince of Wales Island, was then brought back to the SEARAC meeting this week, meaning this vote was the board’s first and only formal recommendation to the Federal Subsistence Board. Historically, the federal decision-making body has typically deferred to the regional authority’s recommendations.
However, the motion also had opponents in the community.
Many of those against the change expressed concern that an entire population of Ketchikan subsistence users would put a strain on what they believe are already limited resources. Many specifically referenced Prince of Wales Island, which is a ferry ride away from Ketchikan, and a popular destination for hunting black-tailed deer.
“I’m here to help protect my homeland. That’s what I’m here to do,” Clarence Peele told the council, referencing Prince of Wales Island.
Peele lives in Ketchikan and is a member of the Ketchikan Indian Community, but he grew up on Prince of Wales Island. He said that communities on Prince of Wales don’t have many affordable grocery options and that Ketchikan, on the other hand, has nine gas stations, six convenience stores, and four grocery stores, which he believed means it isn’t rural.
He said a larger pool of subsistence hunters could put pressure on the island’s already-limited deer population.
“I don’t have anything against Ketchikan and all the people, but 13,000 people going over to Prince of Wales. If we are going to put stress on our smaller entities, I can’t live with that,” he said.
But others, like Alander, disagreed with that characterization.
“We got plenty of deer on this island. Don’t be worried that we’re going to take your deer, [Prince of Wales Island]. We’ve got plenty of our own,” she testified.
The hours of public testimony revolved around other big questions, as well.
Many people expressed frustrations with a specific section of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, known as ANILCA. ANILCA was signed into law in 1980 and protects rural Alaskans’ right to “opportunity for continued subsistence uses on the public lands by Native and non-Native rural residents.” It’s the legal framework underpinning much subsistence management in Alaska on federal lands. Multiple members of the public, though, said ANILCA unfairly puts tribes in competition.
“This is not who we are, as people of this land, to be pitted against each other. This is not our way,” said Alander.
She said non-Native residents and state and federal subsistence laws have robbed tribes like the Ketchikan Indian Community of their rights, and left them to fight over a scarcity of resources in meetings like this one.
The board’s decision came on the final morning of the three-day meeting.
“When somebody is hurting in the state, I hurt, and I’m hurting. I know Ketchikan is hurting – the Indian community – and I feel for them. It was said many times that it’s not their fault that the city of Ketchikan grew up around them,” said Councilmember Ted Sandhofer during his comments.
“This is pitting tribe against tribe, user against user,” he said, adding that a lot has changed since Ketchikan was first designated as urban in the 1990’s. “Populations go up and down. Industries change prices of goods and services. They always go up. Housing infrastructure, that all changes.”
However, Sandhofer said he still couldn’t support the proposal, a sentiment echoed by most of SEARAC’s board members regardless of which way they ended up voting. Few of the board members took a hard stance on the actual character of Ketchikan, and whether it was rural or not. Although, they debated somewhat arbitrary markers of what makes a place urban – like the fact that Ketchikan has a McDonald’s – and contrasted it to other Southeast communities, like Juneau, Sitka, and Gustavus.
Most said while their hearts went out to the community’s Native population, a change in the town’s non-rural designation would also mean that the rest of Ketchikan would get those same subsistence hunting and fishing opportunities too, an impact that many said they couldn’t reconcile. The board overwhelmingly said in its comments that the proposal, pass or fail, would not resolve the issues at hand.
The process isn’t over though. SEARAC’S final recommendation will be taken to the Federal Subsistence Board, which will vote to follow the regional council’s recommendation or overturn it at its meeting in February.
