By DAVE AREHART
I am a life-long Alaskan, working and living in Anchorage for the past 35 years, and retired last year. Now that I have more discretionary time, beginning in January I decided to attend several Municipality of Anchorage Assembly regular meeting. Rather than read articles about Assembly Member personalities and meeting activities, I wanted to see for myself.
Most of the meetings activities in January and first week of February were perfunctory and dutiful. Exceptions were a marijuana licensing dispute, extended Assembly discussion about a new trailhead parking area, and public comment about a proposed sales tax.
At the beginning of Assembly regular meetings a Land Acknowledgement proclamation is read after the Pledge of Allegiance. The proclamation’s content seemed a bit off to me but, I just passed it off as political dogma. A copy of the Land Acknowledgement proclamation from the Feb. 25, 2025 Assembly Meeting Agenda is at the end of this letter.
After the second meeting I thought more about the land acknowledgment proclamation. Because of its reference to land use and the term decolonization, it is more appropriately a manifesto. A manifesto challenges the prevailing authority. The prevailing authority over the Municipality of Anchorage is the State of Alaska.
When Assembly Members and Mayor were sworn in to their offices, they took an oath to uphold State of Alaska’s authority. It follows that the Assembly’s Land Acknowledgement proclamation is challenging State of Alaska’s authority to govern and, they therefore contradict their oath of office.
The proclamation uses the term decolonization. The last time in American history there was decolonization, we fought a long and difficult war with Great Britain. Has the Assembly prepared a Declaration of Independence that we are not aware of (sarc)?
With regard to land, I own my property as underwritten by the State of Alaska, and do not occupy tribal land. The 1970s Alaska Native Claims Act put to rest native land claims. The Assembly’s land acknowledgement casts doubt on private land ownership within the municipality because it states that we are occupiers of the Indigenous people’s land.
The proclamation furthermore states, “Denai’ana have been and continue to be stewards of this land.” Steward is understood as a manager or caretaker of land resources. The use of the word “continue” is present tense. When I develop my land it is land use rules of MOA Title 21 that govern, and not the Denai’ana tribe.
When attending the Feb. 11 meeting, during the audience participation segment I provided comments to the Assembly about the Land Acknowledgement proclamation. My comments were specifically about decolonization and I was given three minutes to complete comments. The following are my comments to the Assembly.
“Colonization refers to establishment of something to benefit that something. Decolonization is an aggressive term, referring to removal of that something.
“During the last ice age, 18,000 years ago, an ice sheet covered south central Alaska, south of the Alaska Range out to the Gulf of Alaska, west to the Alaska Peninsula and south to British Columbia. At that time MOA lands were covered with hundreds and thousands of feet of ice. 10,000 years ago, when the ice sheet melted colonization began with plants, animals, and fish… followed by people groups. The last non-European group was the Denai’ana.
“The business of the Assembly includes bonding for roads, drainage, water-sewer systems, schools, and trailhead parking areas… and generally promoting development. Assembly business is the business of colonization. MOA is an agent of colonization.
“My following questions are rhetorical:
- “Where do the Assembly and Mayor find the authority to decolonize?
- “Who and what are to be decolonized? I don’t think you are referring to dandelions.
- “Did you check with the State Attorney General, ACLU, or constitutional lawyers such as Alan Dershowitz to determine whether your decolonization proclamation violates the United States Constitution?
“In conclusion the proclamation is nonsensical… it is a like a dog chasing its tail.”
From the Feb. 25, 2025 Anchorage Assembly General Meeting Assembly Agenda: “MOA Agenda Item 3. Land Acknowledgement. A land acknowledgement is a formal statement recognizing the Indigenous people of a place. It is a public gesture of appreciation for the past and present Indigenous people of a place. It is a public gesture of appreciation for the past and present Indigenous stewardship of the lands we now occupy. It is an actionable statement that marks our collective movement towards decolonization and equity. The Anchorage Assembly would like to acknowledge that we gather today on the traditional lands of the Dena’ina Athabascans. For thousands of years the Dena’ina have been and continue to be the stewards of this land. It is with gratefulness and respect that we recognize the contributions, innovations, and contemporary perspectives of the upper Cook Inlet Dena’ina.”
Dave Arehart is a retired registered civil engineer and lifelong resident of Alaska. His engineering work and projects are scattered across Alaska, from Ketchikan to Utqiagvik, and Diomede to Atka. His 10 years out of Alaska included university studies and, design and construction engineer for USAID-funded water projects in Malawi, Africa.
Land acknowledgement statements have nothing to do with honoring indigenous people in any way.
.
They exist to undercut and destroy any sense of pride in Western culture. They exist to destroy, not unite. Under the guise of benevolence, leftists implant the seeds of hatred of one’s culture and background. The politically correct nature of a land acknowledgement is nothing more than a statement that Europeans do not belong, and are not welcome.
People like the Assembly try to impose these woke racist rituals in an effort to virtue signal. The reason they do it is because their lives have amounted to nothing and they desperately seek meaning.
Well, people have moved around since there have been people on Earth. The strong or more numerous destroyed, or absorbed the weak, or less numerous. Most of the time, it wasn’t pretty, sometimes truly horrifying, but it’s been happening since the beginning of time. Not to say it’s been a good thing, but the time for crying is over.
Land acknowledgements come from the “welcome to country” ceremonies started in Australia. The welcome to country movement was started by communists in the 1970s.
The communist virtue signal always has a bunch of static on the frequency. This issue here has nearly overcome itself. Thanks you for taking the time to point it out, Mr. Arehart. Looking forward to the collapse of this foolishness, which has been foisted upon us by these fools.
Elevating gibberish is fun.
This “opinion” piece on the Anchorage Assembly’s land acknowledgment reveals far more about Arehart’s own anxieties and blind spots than it does about the acknowledgment itself.
His characterization of a simple historical recognition as a “manifesto” betrays a profound defensiveness. Land acknowledgments are standard practice across North America, yet Mr. Arehart interprets this basic courtesy as some existential threat to his property rights. One must wonder why acknowledging Indigenous history triggers such an alarmed response.
Particularly revealing is his misrepresentation of ANCSA as having “put to rest native land claims.” This settlement was never understood by Alaska Natives as erasing their historical and cultural connections to the land. His insistence that this legislative compromise somehow erased thousands of years of Dena’ina history demonstrates a startling willingness to use legal documents to erase inconvenient historical truths.
Most troubling is Mr. Arehart’s equation of decolonization with violent overthrow. This projection speaks volumes about his understanding of how power operates. Decolonization is primarily about recognizing and addressing systemic inequities, not the “removal” he fears. His leap to imagining violence where none is suggested reveals a telling anxiety about confronting historical injustice.
Perhaps the most absurd argument is his comparison between ecological succession after the ice age and European colonization. This false equivalence between plant migration and the systematic displacement of Indigenous peoples through deliberate policies betrays either a profound misunderstanding of basic history or a willful attempt to minimize colonial violence.
Mr. Arehart’s discomfort with a simple acknowledgment of historical reality suggests he has yet to reckon with his own position within systems of privilege. Rather than engaging with the actual content of the land acknowledgment, he has constructed an elaborate threat narrative that exists only in his imagination.
The Assembly’s acknowledgment doesn’t threaten anyone’s property rights or Alaska’s status as a state. It simply recognizes the Dena’ina people’s prior and continuing relationship with this land – a historical fact that remains true regardless of Mr. Arehart’s discomfort with hearing it stated aloud.
Is that a screed, or a bull float?
Looks like a Ph. D in communism to me.
It is interesting that you make assumptions about the writer of this piece, his mental state and his “discomfort” none of which are in evidence.
The land acknowledgement the way it is written, is a declaration of voluntary subjugation of the municipality to an organized group of descendants of indigenous individuals, who dwell in this part of the state.
It is not a statement of equal co-existence and unity, but of deference and conferred privilege on a specific group. It is the most anti-American declaration possible from a governing body.
The declaration of decolonization clearly implies that the residents of the municipality are guilty of “squatting” and so certain allowances will be required to make amends.
Def: Decolonization is the UNDOING of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories.
The casino out in Birchwood is a prime example of the privileged status of the tribe. The time and effort invested by the assembly in the attempt to destroy the Eklutna dam another. The implication from the land acknowledgement is simply that the assembly thinks they serve the Eklutna tribe first and the residents a distant last.
Zaletel, is that you?
David, I spit on your feeble defense of this radical leftist ‘virtue-signaling’ ritual, which does nothing but instill contempt and hatred for Western society and civilization. It is doubly specious, inasmuch as the Denaina, and every other Alaskan native group, did NOT recognize land ownership in the first place, and were continually shifting the boundaries between themselves. Had European settlers arrived in Alaska 500 or 1000 years earlier, they would likely have encountered (only) the Chugachmiut Eskimos in Southcentral Alaska, whom the Denaina later partially displaced. So do we owe the Chugachmiut a “land acknowledgment” ritual as well?
Also, while on the subject of acknowledgement, perhaps the Denaina, and other Alaska Native groups, should be giving us European-descended a formal acknowledgment at every public meeting and event for all the technological blessings that we bestowed on their previous stone-age existence.
“The Assembly’s acknowledgment doesn’t threaten anyone’s property rights or Alaska’s status as a state. ”
Correct.
However, that is not the danger from this type of woke. The danger is how it subtly pushes the average person into rejecting their own heritage and history. It is a death by a thousand cuts attack on western culture.
.
The simple minded will think it is honoring those who were on the land before, but the forces behind this attack are manipulating those people. By undercutting the European heritage and culture, and instilling a sense of guilt because of actions taken decades ago, land acknowledgements do significant damage. A country without a heritage is no country at all.
.
Finally, the Europeans conquered this land, and the people in it. Sorry to be politically incorrect, but that is a “historical reality.” Another historical reality is the conquerors owe nothing to the conquered. That the conquered still live is gift enough. Trying to pretend the Dena’ina did not conquer and take is not a historical reality. Acknowledging their presence on and with the land is inappropriate because it ignores that reality.
Yeah, yeah….And in recognition of their “contemporary perspectives,” eh? Well, in appreciation for being personally “contemporary”–in the here and now as opposed to being “contemporarily” in the here after, give Mayor Buttercup eight pats on the ass for stringing all those syllables together like so many Russian trade beads; than give her an extra two or three just in case you think that you might have lost count of all them glossy syllables!
One can always count on the assembly doing and saying dumb things, and this proclamation is just more confirmation of that.
Mr. Arehart:
I commend your adventurous spirit in attending a municipal assembly meeting, and also your fortitude in surviving the moronic ‘wokeness’ of the so-called Land Acknowledgement. Many of us lack the stomach for going where you have gone, although even I have suffered through two assembly meetings in years past.
Let us not waste a bit of time with tallying the good and evil deeds of Europeans in their settling across this great continent, nor should we now recall the good and evil dispositions of the indigenous peoples of this hemisphere. Let us simply agree that none of wish to return to the hardness of life in that not-so-distant past.
And let us ‘acknowledge’ that decolonization is a divisive and disingenuous objective. Let every one of us spit that word out of our mouths. We Alaskans are in this good place together, and the sooner we accept one another as neighbors the better our life here will become.
I totally agree. Thanks for writing this, Dave! The land acknowledgment manifesto is a subversive document stating their intent to undermine and overthrow the government, which would be treason. I have long wondered why any of our three conservative Assembly members have agreed to publicly read it.
The Assembly’s relentless attempts to shut down our city’s water supply from Eklutna Lake seems like subversion.
‘Subversion’:
“Subversion refers to a process by which the values and principles of a system in place are contradicted or reversed in an attempt to sabotage the established social order and its structures of power, authority, tradition, hierarchy, and social norms.”
May I suggest that the Anchorage assembly members show their own deep personal commitment to ‘decolonizing’ by signing over title for their OWN properties to our local tribal organizations? If they truly believe their own proclamations, they should have no problem with setting an example through their own actions?
Great points, Mr Arehart! I don’t think the Assembly members care a wit about Native cultures. They care only about control and padding the pockets of themselves and their cronies. The whole thing is virtue signaling.
Mr North… I too look forward to an end of the idiocy !
The acknowledgement is a weak effort to repudiate the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971. The folks involved know this. I have spent some time looking at the landform and vegetation around where my house sits. I also know that the density of the Native population living and transiting the Anchorage bowl has been quite small. I generally conclude that it is probable that Natives have NEVER set foot on my property. Folks can speculate to the contrary but that is all it is – speculation. It is sad to witness people always looking for a handout or an advantage.
Thank you Mr Arehart. Well done as to the last ice age coverage of S. Central Alaska. Of course there were previous ice ages which scoured S Central Alaska.//An item of note regarding the Denina people and knowledge of S Central Alaska. During numerous XC back country cabin ski trips to Nancy Lakes State Park we skiied across Shem Pete Lake numerous times. I wondered who WAS Shem Pete?
Finally a re-published book on him by University of Alaska in the 2000s provided an answer. He was a Denina chief who ws most knowledge of S Central Alaska. I bought two of the new books, kept one and gave one to the Eagle River Library. When I took it in to donate I found out that one of the newer library staff was in fact a distant relative of Shem Pete. No need to decolonize anyone, just give credit where due.
I still like how Wasilla got its name and what its namesake was famous for.
That is recent history of those previous possessors.
Okay, I know how Wasilla got named but what was he famous for?
We need to make a push for tribal governments and organizations to make statements acknowledging the overall winners of the American-Indian wars. In Sitka, the tribal government could open their meetings with the acknowledgement that the Russians won the Battle of Sitka….
Agree! We’ve often though about making a statement that we don’t abdicate our personal land that we own nor do we agree with this statement.
Comments are closed.