The Fairbanks City Council declined on Monday to approve an ordinance that would require a formal “land acknowledgment” at the beginning of every regular council meeting, marking the second time in three years the body has rejected such a proposal.
Ordinance No. 6314, sponsored by Council members Valerie Therrien and Crystal Tidwell, would require the oral reciting of a confession that the land in Fairbanks belongs to indigenous peoples whose traditional territories include the Fairbanks area. Therrien and Tidwell are registered Democrats.
Currently, a version of the acknowledgment is displayed on the chamber wall, and council members may optionally include it in their own remarks.
The measure was pulled from the consent agenda by member Lonny Marney, a Republican who raised concerns about the ordinance before it could move forward to a public hearing. Following debate, the council voted to halt its progression.
Opponents of the ordinance cited concerns that a mandatory acknowledgment is divisive and questioned whether it might open the door to similar requests from other identity groups, which could complicate and delay council meetings.
In Anchorage, the “colonizer confession” is formalized. Since 2020, the Anchorage Assembly has opened its meetings with a formal land acknowledgment recognizing the Dena’ina Athabascans as the traditional stewards of the land.
In March 2025, Assemblymember Meg Zaletel introduced a new ordinance to have the acknowledgment permanently displayed in Assembly Chambers alongside the American and municipal flags.
The Anchorage School Board adopted a formal colonizer confession policy in 2022 requiring statements to be read at a variety of events, including board meetings, graduations, and weekly school gatherings. The initiative was developed in partnership with the Native Village of Eklutna, population 70, and the school district’s Indigenous Education Department.
Some University of Alaska campuses use a colonizer confession, and the Juneau School Board adopted the required confession in 2021, to recognize the Tlingit people at the beginning of full board meetings as the true owners of the land.
Europeans came to this land and conquered the natives. They took the land. Sorry to be harsh, but that is reality, and has been reality since homo sapiens first appeared.
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And, the conquerors owe the conquered nothing. Not a damned thing. That a single individual that can trace their ancestry back to a native American or Alaskan tribe still draws breath is a clear demonstration of the benevolence of the conquerors.
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Land acknowledgements are not about recognizing the conquered people’s history. It has nothing to do with respecting the culture of the indigenous people.
It is 100% about undercutting the culture of the Europeans that now control the land. It is about undercutting the culture and authority of those that currently control the land.
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Land acknowledgements are a disease, and should be stamped out.
Black fatigue has been trending on social media lately.
How ’bout we start a new trend: “NATIVE FATIGUE”.
I’m soooooooooo over it – anyone else?
Stupid is becoming an epidemic
43 USC Ch. 33: ALASKA NATIVE CLAIMS SETTLEMENT
From Title 43—PUBLIC LANDS
Section 1603 (c):
“………All claims against the United States, the State, and all other persons that are based on claims of aboriginal right, title, use, or occupancy of land or water areas in Alaska, or that are based on any statute or treaty of the United States relating to Native use and occupancy, or that are based on the laws of any other nation, including any such claims that are pending before any Federal or state court or the Indian Claims Commission, are hereby extinguished………..”
Please re-read as needed until understood.
Reggie, thanks, its good to remind people of what occurred.
Oh, the Dena’ina, do they also confess to their colonial activities? Turns out another group inhabited South Central Alaska for eons, then suddenly about 200 years ago the Dena’ina showed up and whooped up on the indigenous people.
Saudi residents were either killed, and or sent packing.
How about a statement acknowledging how quickly and the enthusiastically those indigenous folks ditched the stone age and stepped into the iron age offered them by the white colonizers, and how their lives were the better for it. I as a native person much prefer the iron age over the stone age. I also harbor no ill will toward my non native neighbors. We are all here together now, so please democrats, stop trying to make us hate one another.
Nice.
Stop the hate Democrats.
This is all show, no substance. Democrats always use things they don’t really believe in to keep their uninformed base voting for them. They will say anything that you might want to hear to stay in power. “Smoke and mirrors “, folks.
This us another effort by the ultra wack liberals and wokesters to divide the community. Valerie Therrien, lawyer, is pushing this. Fairbanks is a goldrush town, founded by white adventurers and explorers looking for gold. The history is well documented. Native peoples in the Interior were nomadic, by necessity. They had to keep moving in order to find the seasonal food sources. Natives did not settle Fairbanks. So let’s stop all of this BS about colonization. Let’s stop trying to split up the harmony of the citizens. DEI, woke, colonization, climate change politics, etc…. us pure poison on the community.
Absurd. The land “acknowledgment” trend is a symptom of the Woke Disease. What is the end goal? To recognize formal legal possession of the land by tribes? That would logically end with a resolution that the City of Fairbanks doesn’t actually exist. The last actual battle between the Russians and Alaska natives was the Battle of Sitka in 1804. The Tlingits lost the battle. They did not win. They lost. The Russians won, and took possession of the territory. That scenario has played out between different groups of people since the very first humans walked the earth thousands of years ago. Russia sold the territory to the United States with the Treaty of Cession in 1867. A copy of the treaty can be found on the Alaska Historical Society web page. It states ” The uncivilized tribes will be subject to such laws and regulations as the United States may from time to time adopt in regard to aboriginal tribes of that country.” Maybe that statement should be posted in Fairbanks Council chambers.
“What is the end goal?”
The end goal is to get the population as a whole to reject their heritage and culture, and elevate that of the conquered races as somehow superior. The left has this idea of a “noble savage.” that somehow has none of the foibles of european culture is reflected in their behavior. In their delusions, the natives were oppressed, but were never oppressors.
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The end result of all of it is to establish the All-Powerful State as the primary (and only) real relationship. If you have a connection to your ancestral roots and culture, it is more difficult for the left to install the collective.
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They could not win with a military effort, so they are destroying the conquerors from within with a cancer called “woke”
I knew a late native elder who talked in vivid detail about his family starving in the 1920s. He told a story about going after a moose for days, in the Winter, while he and his family were starving. He finally got his moose, and his family ate.
The older natives understood what a blessing it is to have all that Western society offers. Natives today are profoundly better off. The smart ones know it. For the patronizing whites that bring about this divisive nonsense- shame on you.
My native friends are absolutely offended by this nonsense.
Natives are not pushing it.
Woke white people are.
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Reminder, the American Indians actually sued the Washington Redskins because they wanted to change the team’s name. But, the woke white people (who likely never met a Native American) insisted the natives were offended by it.
The political goblins call them colonizers. I call them civilization builders.
Valerie Theirrien, Crystal Tidwell & Meg Zaletel should give their houses to a Dene person.
Don’t just talk the talk ladies, find an Athabaskan without property and make it right.
So what is next? Reparation?
How about proclamation to be read Thank you American people for buying Alaska from Russia sparing us the natives beautiful 70 years of Communism and hunger and gulag.
Presently Natives are getting title to milion acres from Feds for free.
Native Hospital in Anchorage says for Natives Only.
Only white women pregnant with native child permitted.
You lost as an Nation, you Americans now.
Could be worst, no more privileges.