The Southeast village of Saxman took its fight to be designated a “rural” community to Congress today. Saxman Village President Lee Wallace told a House subcommittee he was devastated in 2007, when he watched the Federal Subsistence Board decide Saxman was “non-rural.”
“When the vote came down, it ended up being the saddest moment in my life, only to be eclipsed by the loss of my parents.”
The rural designation matters because without it, the 400 or so residents of the community near Ketchikan aren’t entitled to a subsistence priority when it comes to hunting and fishing. The ruling was put on hold, but Wallace says it still hurt in Saxman.
Alaska Congressman Don Young, who chairs the subcommittee on Indian and Alaska Native Affairs, says the decision to remove Saxman’s rural status wasn’t right. The village pre-dates Ketchikan, the city that grew up three miles away. Young sponsored a bill to restore Saxman’s rural status, and change the process.
“It reinstates Saxman and anytime now on, if they want to redesignate another community as non-rural, it has to come through this committee.”
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski has sponsored a similar bill in the U.S. Senate.
See Full Story at Alaska Public Media
