The Nenana Tribe and the radical Native Movement out of Fairbanks have blocked a bridge to the new agricultural district outside of the City of Nenana, where 26 of 27 state parcels have been sold to private entities for the purpose of growing food for Alaska. The tribe and Native Movement say that the bridge to the area belongs to the tribe.
Last week, Natives in Kipnuk, on the coast of Alaska, occupied a school and ended up chasing the principal and the entire teaching staff out of the village.
Now, Natives in the Interior are opposed to small-tract farming. Thus the bridge blockade.
In Nenana, which is south of Fairbanks, the argument the tribe and Native Movement is making is that they own the bridge and right of way to the parcels, and they have the right to block the access. It is illegal to block a historic trail or public right of way.
On the other side of the bridge is city-owned land, private land, state forestry land, university land, and many cabins.
The tribe says that a site agreement, which expired at the end of the project, granted them ownership of the bridge and right of way. The mayor of Nenana, Joshuah Verhagen, says that is a mistaken interpretation of the agreement, and that the site agreement was only until the project was complete.
The bridge was built with a $6 million City of Nenana general obligation bond, and a $9 million federal grant to the tribe to finish the project, which had remained unfinished due to lack of funds, but the funding all comes from American taxpayers, and the City of Nenana has been providing plowing, and is engaged with discussions with the Department of Transportation for a maintenance agreement.
The Nenana Tribe and Native Movement made no protest during the ribbon cutting ceremony two years ago or this past June when Gov. Mike Dunleavy and the Division of Agricultural were present for the start of the agriculture parcel sales.
But the tribe is under new leadership and has become radicalized with its relationship with Native Movement, which has staged other “occupy” events in the past, as well as drag queen story hour for children. During the 2020 campaign season, Native Movement activists brought a bloody caribou heart to a campaign rally for Dan Sullivan and tried to throw it at him.
The agricultural area is intended to help food sustainability in Alaska and is part of Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s concern about creating a more self-sustaining Alaska food system, which would include farmed food.
The ringleaders behind the protest are hard-line activists who object to the agricultural project because it represents colonialism.
Read the Native Movement interpretation of their actions at their website, at this link.
Post apartheid South Africa/Zimbabwe. No one wants a farmer until food scarcity becomes an issue…
At a time when dozens of food processing plants have “spontaneously” blown up and our grazing lands bought up by green agenda crusaders, we need to till the land and shore up the food supply.
How childish and petty they are. Nothing is ever good enough.
I’m native, they don’t represent me as I don’t stand with them and their views of being “woke”.
Pure Greed! Give them a bunch, and they want it all. Selfish, self-centered, People. That’s why I would never vote for Peltola and her racist agenda.
Native Americans are always ready to fight over material things. They fought each other over land and wild food resources for hundreds of years. And they are still doing it even though there is plenty of land and resources to go around for everyone. A very materialistic culture, that has become combatant and selfish due to support by White Left-wing lawyers.
Very simple raise the food prices for the natives 100% and let them chew on that.
Mark, Raise food prices by 100%? Joe Biden is already got that underway. Also since much of Rural Alaska purchases their food with a Quest Card, as in an entitlement. which is paid for by the Government, raising food cost only will bite you in the ass.
Chew on that for awhile.
Have you been to any villages? I have been to quite a few and I see cash at the store a lot. When a little kid comes in and puts a 20 dollar bill down for candy or soda that sure doesn’t look like a credit card. Yes we subsidize all the villages as none of them can afford to live there.
So maybe Dunleavy will start sending troopers to arrest these anarchists? Or he will simply bow down to his overlords kowtow like he typically does with anything native?
Colonialism???? Oh please!
This is clearly meant to embarrass the governor the week before the election and rile up native sentiment to get a better voter turn-out for Mary Peltola, Lisa Murkowski and The Walker twins Bill and Les. I certainly hope there will be arrests, the troopers will ensure accessibility and the state takes the city of Nenana and the tribe to court.
No need to take the City to court, we don’t condone this illegal charade.
You are right! All the nothing-burgers manufactured by the Walker/Gara tribe have so far imploded. And to whip up native sentiment against a sitting governor with almost 2 decades of roots in the rural Arctic and a native wife. Walker will stop at nothing, and that includes his (former?) Chief of Staff, Scott Kendall. Walker/Gara can’t win by usual means so do what they are best at, create a trooper-gate type situation. Walker/Gara and Scott Kendall have sunk to new lows. And so have those low-lifers supporting drag-queen story hours for kids. The native tribes involved should clean their house.
After the governor set up the plan as an election gift to his voters.
I hope the people of Alaska take anerrant governor to court.
Maureen give it up you are reaching and mean-spiritedly so.
You should look a little into our need to have more farmland for the production of goods locally. As it stands right now the state can not feed itself and depends on outside supplies. Land parcels in the Mat-su are being bought out by land developers and agricultural space disappears. We have so much land I applaud the governor’s initiative to push for more farmland to make AK more independent.
Its a spiritual thing. Get them into mediation, and focus a prayer team on the mediation.
Will Dunleavy grow a spine and send the troopers?
Turn off your television pick up a king James and develop yourselves a sense of act right, our journey threw life is a merit journey, one will get back what they put into it. Turn off the television open the King James police ourselves, the land is GODs land we are all on this planet together in merit.
A very ugly, hard truth. Non aboriginal Alaskans aren’t going anywhere. If somehow we did, you would be screwed.
You can grow up and learn to live with us or act like children and learn the law of unintended consequences.
Sounds like indoctrination media is succeeding in the interior. And we fund these media sources.
Anyone taking part in occupation of government owned property should be familiar with the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and the results thereof. Since we now have multiple standards of justice in this country, I suspect many of those who will not take the time to truly understand how justice is actually applied will never understand the differences.
Is the bridge government owned property? The ADN reports that state officials are trying to sort out who owns the bridge. You would of thought that would of been sorted out before state resources were spent on this project.
If the property is built with Government Dollars, then it is the property of the public, and it is managed by the Government. Government does not own property per se, they manage it for the public. Thus the term “Public Property” and if this is intended to provide access to lands, both private and public through an existing right of way, then there is no question that it is public property. Private groups or government do not own public right of ways, period. If these folks believe they own it, then maybe there needs to be an investigation to determine whether there was a misappropriation of funds and hold someone accountable.
I guess I missed that day in school when we were taught that eating = “colonialism”.
.
(Unless they are referring to the post-eating action of the colon.)
Hahahaha 🙂
They have never heard the term… don’t bite the hand that feeds you? How about cease all government funding to natives.
These folks are college educated, woke greenies; most with more Western DNA then Native American.
A sad result of the modern collegiate experience and very “citified” (cityfied?) as my farmer friend use to say.
For the most part they are closer to the ANC/FBX restaurant scene the “the land”
BUT, they have received a LOT of funding since Covid & are hiring.
Good wages, easy do nothing, non-profit work.
We now have a home grown version of Greenpeace, with a false Native face ….imo.
Suzanne – doesn’t George’s racist comment violate one of your standards?
Snowflake, there is nothing racist about George’s comment except in the fevered minds of brainwwashed lefties like you.
Cut off all state assistance, federal too if possible. Let them figure out how to feed themselves and see how anti farming and gardening they remain. What is their reasoning other than control? I saw no mention of concern for subsistence – only right of way. And the bridge has already been constructed? Perhaps they need to pay back those costs in exchange for control since they Waite until completion to pitch a fit.
Be interesting see how the young mayor handled this. Maybe the young leader get advice from older leaders as
dunleavy because dunleavy has experience using political sensitivity handling such issues.
Get a big a** plow truck up there and move that crap out of the way. I’ll pay for the Astro and camper, can’t be more than $10,000.
Bill back for the value of the bridge and road.
Take it from the next Fed subsidies their NCorp feels entitled to.
Advise them that seeking permission is better than seeking forgiveness.
Then condemn that section through eminent domain or some other nonsensical lawyer talk.
Without consequences there’s no accountability.
TCC is expecting a payout if they’re involved. Once they get some $ assurances, this will go away.
The last thing TCC wants is a bunch of people enjoying the fruits of their labor, it’d make so many residents of Nenana feel bad. TCC would be stuck explaining why some people have nicer cars and homes than on HUD Row…the true answer is “they earned it” but the native activist answer would be “colonialism.”
Remember the scene in Blues Brothers with the Illinois Nazis blocking the bridge? Jake & Elwood gunned the engine, drove around the line of vehicles waiting, and forced the protesters into the water. Treat these Bozos the same way. Cheers –
Hahaha. Nobody here actually gets it.
Poverty is power, if Nenana becomes home to more small time successful farmers, the demographics of Nenana change and that’s the last thing the Native activists/leaders want.
If you are not dependent upon entitlement providers, then the providers lose personal access to power and influence.
Political power and influence benefits certain families (think of a family whose last name starts with a “C” and ends with an “H”) and as long as they have access to it, they never have to work hard for a living.
Consider Pebble…no one objected much to drilling in Cook Inlet, but Pebble didn’t pay off the right people in Dillingham. The powers that be (BBNA) in Dillingham were threatened by a severe change in local demographics (folks getting off entitlements) without enjoying a personal payoff, they strongly opposed it.
So, we’ll see where this goes, if it goes quietly, someone received payment in kind.
This makes no sense.
Ask the governor why he put it in place then, during election season at that. Hmm a lot of favorable farmers commenting here…
If the state actually cared about food security they’d be encouraging actual food production on the thousands of acres of state ag land already in private hands that is overgrown with brush and trees now. Ag in Alaska is a fantasy pushed by those that know zero about farming.
I’d like to see the agreement document in question. Any chance you can do a “document dump” of those, Suzanne? Looked around the internets a little bit but couldn’t find anything.
BillTheCat… Ismy favorite Cat of all time! Glad to see you here Bill! I miss Berke Brethed! Hilarious and no doubt would be censored into oblivion today!
Comments are closed.