The History

The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) was passed by Congress in 1971. Under ANCSA, each village and regional corporation was entitled to select a specific number of acres. Congress expected most of those acres to come from the lands surrounding each village. But in many places, those lands were already privately owned, selected by the State, reserved for military use, or included within national parks or refuges.

When this occurred, the Secretary of the Interior was required to withdraw additional federal public lands to make up the deficiency so that corporations could still receive their full entitlement. These replacement lands were required to resemble the village’s traditional lands as closely as possible in terms of geography, ecology, resource potential, and land type (such as coastal, riverine, tundra, or forested areas).

To meet these requirements in the Cook Inlet region, the Secretary withdrew 4,815,360 acres, including approximately 1,100,000 acres in the area that would later become Lake Clark National Park. However, the Department of the Interior (DOI) believed that large Native land selections within the proposed park could jeopardize its creation and conflict with an earlier agreement between the State of Alaska and the Secretary. Litigation followed. Cook Inlet Regional Corporation (CIRI) lost the initial case, and during the appeal CIRI, DOI, and the State reached a negotiated agreement.

As part of that agreement, the Ninilchik Native Association (NNAI) would receive one acre of land closer to the village for every two acres it did not receive in the Lake Clark area. Throughout this process, NNAI consistently asserted that the Silver Salmon Creek parcel was a valid deficiency selection for their village. With NNAI’s approval, CIRI began installing rustic facilities at Silver Salmon Creek in the 1980s.

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Lake Clark National Park was formally established in 1981 through the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA). More litigation ensued. Finally, in 2004, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that ANCSA did not legally require conveyance of the Silver Salmon Creek lands. As a result, Ninilchik’s rightful aboriginal claim to the property went unfulfilled.

In 2006, with the support of the Ninilchik Tribal Council, Southcentral Foundation (SCF), a nonprofit health organization formed under the tribal authority of CIRI, proposed a formal land exchange to create a legal mechanism for obtaining the land title and continuing camp operations. The proposal involved trading a 79.98‑acre tract elsewhere in the park for the 4.96‑acre Silver Salmon Creek parcel.

Since the transfer, the land has been used by SCF and strategic partners for community programming. In 2021, NLI signed a lease with SCF to use the facilities and help grow the next generation of leadership.

To commemorate the event, we hosted tribal leaders from across the region to provide a blessing. We are proud to say that many of our board members were part of the land fight and now shape how the camp is used. This history continues to guide how we steward the land and the leadership work that happens here.