A sacred Athabascan site inside Denali National Park and Preserve is one step closer to returning to Alaska Native hands, nearly 50 years after the effort to reclaim it began.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Tuesday favorably reported S. 4399, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s legislation to convey the Geese House site from the National Park Service to Doyon, Limited, the Alaska Native regional corporation for the Interior region. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, is cosponsoring the bill and Rep. Nick Begich, R-Alaska, has introduced companion legislation in the House.
The vote broke down along party lines. Murkowski called that frustrating for a bill she says has broad, longstanding support.
“I do find it somewhat disheartening to see that what should be a non-controversial measure received a wholly partisan vote,” she said during the markup.
The ranking member’s objections, she said, weren’t really about Geese House itself. They were about a broader committee practice of not pairing land transfers out of the federal estate with other conservation measures.
“I understand the Chairman’s challenges in trying to advance bills through this committee with a little bit of parity,” Murkowski said. “And yet sometimes, as he has indicated, there are matters that are so very local, so very parochial.”
The bill’s roots go back to unfinished business under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, the 1971 law known as ANCSA that compensated Alaska Natives for historic land losses. Doyon worked with Alaska Native Elders after the law’s passage to identify culturally significant sites eligible for conveyance, and the corporation formally selected Geese House in 1978.
“So, we’re going back a long way, folks,” Murkowski said.
Then, in 1980, Congress passed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, establishing the boundaries of Denali National Park and Preserve — and folding the already-selected site into the new park in the process. Doyon kept pursuing the conveyance administratively for years afterward, according to Murkowski, until the Park Service determined during the Biden administration that the transfer would need an act of Congress.
“So here we are, nearly 50 years after the site was selected. The conveyance remains unfulfilled,” Murkowski said.
At issue is a 21,750-acre parcel. Some critics have called that too large. Murkowski disagrees, and she points to Chaco Culture National Historical Park in New Mexico as her comparison: a roughly 34,000-acre park with a 336,000-acre buffer zone the federal government established around it under the last administration — an effort, she said, that she respected the ranking member for pursuing.
“So, the concern that we are hearing is that this is too much,” Murkowski said. “But again, I’m looking back to Chaco.”
By her math, the Geese House parcel is a fraction of Denali’s more than six million acres.
“It’s 0.36% to be exact,” she said.
The bill itself comes with guardrails: no mining on the land, required protections for its cultural significance, and a ban on Doyon transferring the parcel to anyone other than the United States. The boundaries, Murkowski said, were hashed out directly with the Park Service and drawn deliberately to avoid publicly pinpointing the sacred site’s exact location.
She said the legislation grew out of consultation with local tribes and communities, many of which have passed resolutions backing the conveyance.
“What we’re trying to do here is again ensure the land that was faithfully stewarded by the area’s Native people for thousands of years can again be managed by and for them,” Murkowski said. “We would maintain that this conveyance is not excessive, and it’s deliberately sized to avoid revealing the exact sacred site in a public manner.”
Murkowski is banking on the protections built into the bill, along with community support, to eventually bring holdouts on board.
“I would hope that, given the protections that we establish in this legislation, and the work carried out to develop the selections in coordination with the Park Service, and with good support from the communities in the region, that we will be able to work together in a reasonable manner and find full agreement to return the Geese House site to the Athabascan people before the end of this Congress,” she said.
She’s open to hashing out concerns with any committee member, in either party.
“I am pleased that we were able to advance it this morning,” Murkowski said.
The bill now heads to the full Senate. Begich’s companion measure is pending in the House.