Living Cultures—Living Parks in Alaska:
Considering the Reconnection of Native
Peoples to Their Cultural Landscapes in
Parks and Protected Areas
Robert L. Arnberger
Abstract—With passage of the Alaska National Interest Lands
Conservation Act in 1980, a new vision of management of traditional
park values, of wildness and wilderness, was legislated where man
was viewed not as apart from nature, but rather a part of it. A new
challenge emerged for the National Park Service in Alaska and may
serve as a model for “reconnecting” indigenous people with park
lands and other wild lands of America. While not an agreed upon
national priority or right, “reconnection” efforts may be stimulated
through the observation of the successes in Alaska and equip the
next generation of administrators, legislators, and leaders with new
tools to engage the international debate over where man fits into the
landscape and how we are part of parks and wild places.
The Organic Act of 1916, which established the U.S.
National Park Service (NPS) to manage a national system of
parks and monuments, provided an early conceptual foundation of resource preservation coupled with visitor use. The
Antiquities Act of 1906 had already established an important set of mission values for national monuments defined as
“objects of historic and scientific interest,” but never mentioned use of the areas. Over the years, the “system of parks”
and the “national service” mandated to manage it has evolved,
matching society’s interest and emphasis on the continuing
evolution of protection of our national heritage.
Society’s view of what “wildness” is relative to “wilderness,” and what Homeland is relative to Wilderness, is also
evolving. More frequent than not, native cultures within the
“system of parks” were not seen by society as part of the
parks. Certainly, native cultures within our wilderness
units, which were to be “untrammeled by man,” were never
considered to be part of the landscape or had long been
displaced through military, legal, or economic actions. In
short, the preponderance of the body of law establishing
protected landscapes in America excluded native cultures
from these landscapes, viewing them, in most cases, as some
sort of “interesting artifact” of the land, necessitating removal or continued exclusion in order to avoid marring the
scenery. To quote the 1964 Wilderness Act, man now became
Robert L. Arnberger is the Regional Director, Alaska Region, U.S. National
Park Service, 2525 Gambell Street, Room 107, Anchorage, AK 99503, U.S.A.
E-mail: rob_arnberger@nps.gov
In: Watson, Alan; Sproull, Janet, comps. 2003. Science and stewardship to
protect and sustain wilderness values: Seventh World Wilderness Congress
symposium; 2001 November 2–8; Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Proc. RMRSP-27. Ogden, UT: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky
Mountain Research Station.
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relegated to the status of a “visitor who does not remain,”
rather than a harmonious occupant of the land.
It was not until passage of the Alaska National Interest
Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) in 1980 that an alternative management model for protected landscapes was prescribed. The new Alaska park lands created by this environmental legislative milestone are clearly an experiment on a
grand scale. The 10 new National Parks, preserves, and
monuments, including additions to three prior existing park
areas, are the largest, most diverse, and most outstanding
park lands yet put into the American park system. Congress
also mandated that traditional uses would be coupled with
resource preservation and traditional National Park values.
A new vision of management of traditional park values, of
wildness and wilderness, was legislated where man was
viewed not as apart from nature, but rather a part of it. It
was a view that did not separate man from the land, but
rather, joined man’s traditional activities with the land. The
law also made it clear that park and preserve protection was
not meant exclusively for natural and cultural resources—
it was extended to people, their lifestyles, and intangible
associations with the land.
A new challenge emerged for the NPS in Alaska: preserve
the land and its resources while allowing for the subsistence
harvest of wild resources, which will in turn help to preserve
the cultural values of the people using the land. Title VIII of
the Act makes it clear that the opportunity for those who
traditionally have used these areas for subsistence purposes
will continue to do so and that such use will be the priority
consumptive use whenever restrictions on use are necessary. The opportunity for those who live in rural Alaska and
depend on the land to maintain their subsistence lifestyle
was recognized as a major value of these new park areas.
While traditional park values were not to be compromised,
for the first time a congressional mandate for managing
National Park areas recognized the continuum that exists
where people and their uses of the landscape are concerned.
Congress recognized that to artificially disrupt this continuum would, in fact, critically alter the very values most
worth preserving in these areas. Congress also recognized
the importance of maintaining unimpaired ecosystems and
natural and healthy populations of fish and wildlife as a
primary requirement to assure the opportunity for continued
traditional uses. Consumptive uses, including traditional
means of access for subsistence purposes and travel between
villages, may continue. It was a view that consumptive
resource use by humans could harmonize with the landscape as long as ecosystems continued in a natural and
healthy state.
USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-27. 2003
Arnberger
Living Cultures—Living Parks in Alaska: Considering the Reconnection of Native Peoples…
Importantly, the Act did not distinguish between native
indigenous peoples and other rural peoples. However, rural
demographics in many areas are almost exclusively native
Alaskan peoples. How does this “great experiment” in Alaska
serve as a model for “reconnecting” indigenous people with
park lands and other wild lands of America? While most
Alaska Natives, by luck or an accident of history, were never
forcibly evicted as they were elsewhere, indigenous peoples,
by most measures, are not afforded this connection to most
park landscapes in the rest of the country. Their “reconnection”
is certainly not an agreed upon national priority or right.
The historical record is generally one of eviction and culture
devaluation, rather than one of connection and valuation.
The public debate can be polarized and intense, promising
no easy answers. This is an issue fraught with political,
economic, social, and legal challenges. The NPS finds itself
placed squarely in the middle of a complex social debate. It
will present land managers with some of the most important
emerging land management issues of the future.
Is the collection of eaglets in Wupatki National Monument
by the Hopi Indians for religious purposes problematic?
When the Mickosuki Indians create and improve a settlement in Everglades National Park, are there contentious
issues? When the Timbisha in Death Valley National Park
demanded the return of a homeland within the park, did
they threaten traditional park values? When the Hualapai
of the Grand Canyon asserted jurisdiction over NPS lands
within Grand Canyon National Park, did it challenge administrators? Did each of these examples create complex
legal and policy challenges? Yes, of course they did, including challenging the capacity of NPS administrators to find
constructive resolution approaches because of an extremely
limited “toolbox” of law and policy alternatives. Because of
these challenges, do we refuse to engage potential solutions
and deny cultural connections to homelands that existed
before parks were established, or cultural practices that
predate modern man? Do we relegate “living cultures” to the
junk pile of “extinct cultures” because we choose not to
engage the issue and look for possible resolutions? No, of
course not—nor is anyone proposing that. Do we exercise
care and deliberation, understanding each case, each people,
each issue, and understanding that each resolution (if there
is one) may be similar but always different? The affirmative
answers are self-evident because these peoples already
stand upon our doorstep, knocking on the door of many of our
National Parks across the nation, demanding back something they have lost.
While the record is still evolving, it is clear that the
Alaskan experiment establishes a precedent for study and
comparison. Alaskans are assured of continued legal, cultural, and subsistence connections to the landscape. Our
USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-27. 2002
national conversation about man in wilderness and native
homeland versus untrammeled Wilderness has been broadened and deepened. That is why ANILCA holds so much
promise. Alaska is serving as a laboratory of how indigenous
peoples and their cultures remain and are joined with the
landscape—inseparable from it. They are a deeply held and
important component of what parks and wild places are.
They are not just a collateral value. In fact, the culture joined
with the land is one and the same value. This model will be
needed as the NPS struggles throughout our park system,
engaging native peoples and their “reconnection” to the
landscapes protected in these units, but frequently lost as
traditional cultural landscapes.
Just as America presented the world with the first Wilderness Act in 1964, perhaps ANILCA can help redefine all
peoples’ relationship with the land throughout America and
perhaps the rest of the world. It may be that the Alaska
model equips the next generation of administrators, legislators, and leaders with new tools to engage the international
debate over where man fits into the landscape and how they
are part of parks and wild places. It may be that the wisdom
legislated in Alaska, and the generational struggle to make
the law work, will mature a society to honor the fact that man
has always been part of the land. Because we evolved from
the land, the land has always been with man. He has carried
it with him during the long march through time. The land is
not only in his DNA, but also in his heart and his spirit. If
man is to succeed in this endeavor of living on the land, then
he cannot be separated from it.
Additional Sources ______________
Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. 1980. PL 96-487.
16 USC: 3101–3233.
American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA). 42 USC 19961996a. PL 95-341, 103-344.
Antiquities Act. 1906. 16 USC 431–433. June 8, 1906, ch. 3060, 34
Stat. 225.
Arnberger, Robert. 2001. Living cultures: living parks. Issue paper
presented to the National Park System Advisory Board, March
2001.
Brown, Bill. 2001. Overview of subsistence in Alaska. Issue paper
presented to the George Wright Society, April 19, 2001.
National Park Service Organic Act. 16 USC 1-4; August 25, 1916, ch.
408,39 Stat. 535.
National Park System General Authorities Act. 16 USC 1a-1 et seq,
PL 91-383, 94-458, 95-250.
National Park System Advisory Board Report 2001. Rethinking the
st
National Parks for the 21 century. July 2001.
Shaver, C. Mack. [n.d.]. Traditional National Park values and living
cultural parks: seemingly conflicting management demands coexisting in Alaska’s new National Parkland. George Wright
Society Journal.
Wilderness Act 1964. 16 USC 1131-1136. PL 88-577.
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3. Wilderness: Systems and
Approaches to Protection
Viewing wildlife in the Shamwari
Game Reserve (photo by Alan
Watson).
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