40th Annual Meeting Edition 40th Annual Shareholders Questions

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August 2013
Summer 2013
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40th Annual Meeting Edition
40th Annual Shareholders Questions & Answers
We wanted to report on shareholder questions and comments from our 40 th annual meeting in June
2013.
Q – Shareholder asked on page 11(of the financial statements) the subsurface royalties expenses of
$305,000, what exactly is that for?
A - Royalties paid to Aleut Corporation related to the Ugadaga quarry.
Q – Shareholder asked about the $483,000 under the nature resources revenue?
A - The $483,000 is the 7(i) shared resources money distributed from regional corporations as
required by ANCSA.
Q - Shareholder asked on this last dividend the $4,000 dividend where did the cash come from?
A – Dividends are paid out of the retained earnings of the corporation.
Q - Shareholder asked where were the retained earnings from?
A – Retained Earnings are accumulated, undistributed profits. OC had about $9.5 million in cash on
hand at the end of 2012 and the dividend was paid from that cash.
Q - Shareholder asked if the board considered the huge amount for some of the low income
shareholders getting that much money some of them have two in the family, doubled. The Chair
asked if the shareholder was talking about over income? She said yes.
A – The Chair responded that OC had a good year and wanted to share that success with shareholders and that the Board would take that into consideration in the future.
C – Shareholder said she’d like to express her gratitude to the former directors for giving their
shared history and how it inspired her. She shared about a language workshop and how it was helping her.
Q - Shareholder said he thinks that the Ugadaga quarry isn’t pretty. He asked if there was a plan to
reclaim the property and start reclamation on areas no longer being used? Is the quarry outside the
allowed boundaries? Shareholder expressed concern about effects quarry operations having on
Unalaska Lake and river.
A – The quarry face will most likely be visible forever. The only way to make it green is to grow
vegetation. Earth is needed to grow vegetation. Forty feet high vertical rock faces will eventually be
left at the quarry. We can dress and seed the edges to grow vegetation. However, it is likely the
quarry will always look like a quarry.
There is a restoration plan. The restoration plan requires dressing and seeding of finished
areas, draining and smoothing the floor, plus other items. The current mining agreement requires
partial restoration as mining is completed. There are some areas where dressing has been completed,
but seeding has not occurred. In most cases the restoration is the responsible of the mine operator,
not the Aleut Corp. The mining agreement prepared by OC required a restoration bond, which
protects against default from the mine operator.
The quarry is contained within its originally designed area with the exception of a pad used to
stage equipment. The operator received permission from OC to install the pad. Environmental
protection is an integral part of the existing mining agreement. Silt fences and other protective
devices are supposed to be place at all times. We know of no detrimental effects from the Ugadaga
Quarry on the Unalaska Lake and river. We have employed environmental protective measures for
years in the quarry.
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40th Annual Shareholders Questions & Answers
Q - Shareholder asked if the board was considering a succession plan and mentoring program
for younger people.
A – Such plans have been discussed. With OC having received a 2 year commitment from the
current CEO, this issue will be taken up in future planning sessions.
Q – Shareholder said he’s heard concerns that CEO, Mr. Miller holding two jobs. Is his time 100%
OC’s now?
A – The CEO does not have another job. He travels to Anchorage once a month on average,
currently spending about three of four weeks in Unalaska. He remains fully engaged in OC’s
business while in Anchorage. Prior to becoming OC’s CEO , Miller was an independent CPA and it
took a few months to wrap up business with clients.
Q - Shareholder said she asked last year about Summer’s Bay and she would like to see a picnic table
out there and garbage cans. She’d like to see more newsletters out. She’d like to see our young kids
get hired for the summer.
A – OC is looking into what we can do at Summer’s Bay. We’re working on getting more newsletters
out. Check out the new web-site at www.ounalashka.com for our most current editions and updated
event information. Two college students were hired this summer for landscaping work and assistance
at the WW II Center.
Caroline Williams thanked OC for all the experience she received while serving on the Board. Thank
you very much. Vince Tutiakoff, Sr. said thank you.
C – A shareholder related contact with the CEO about an internship program so young people could
learn about the corporation and its business.
A – the Board and management will work toward involving more young people.
Q - A shareholder said he would like to suggest that Ray Hudson’s speech be put in one of the
newsletters, so that OC could share with all the shareholders.
A – Mr. Hudson’s speech is included elsewhere in this newsletter.
OC’s Attorney, Terry Turner of Turner & Mede, Sue Tyree, Legal Assistant of Turner & Mede
and Dan Rozma, KPMG, LLP Partner
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40th Annual Meeting’s Guest Speaker—Ray Hudson
Before I start I want to congratulate
the shareholders, the children of shareholders, past and present board members
and officers, past and present staff, for 40
years of remarkable achievements. I also
want to thank Wendy Svarny-Hawthorne
for sending me information about the formation of the corporation a number of
years ago.
If you’d asked me 40 years ago, I
would have said 40 years is a lifetime. ToLeft to Right: OC’s Vice President, A. Barbara Rankin, Shelly & Ray Hudson
day, when I’m much closer to twice-40 than
to 40, I would say it’s hardly any time at all. There have been only six groups of 40 in the 254 years since Russians
first arrived in the eastern Aleutians. So when we see that what is being celebrated this week is just a little over 1/6th
of the recorded history of the Unalaska people, then 40 years is indeed a very short period of time.
These last
40 years have been, to my way of thinking, among the most memorable of any set of 40 years in the history of the
island. To put these years in context, let us briefly look at a few other 40-year periods.
The first forty-year period was the time from when the first Russians arrived at Unalaska in 1759 until the
Russian-American Company was founded in 1799. Those years saw the arrival of fur hunters sailing out of Kamchatka, the creation of alliances between them and village chiefs, the arrival of other fur hunters who exploited villages
and committed criminal acts until Unangax^ rose in revolt in 1763-64. This was followed by a retaliation in which
Russians destroyed boats, weapons, and the means of subsistence. The subjugation of large portions of the population
was accompanied by disease. We don’t know the population loss because we don’t know what the population was in
1759, but it’s estimated that almost 70 percent of the people died. During this 40 year period we had the first documentation of early Unangax^ life as a result of visits by Captain James Cook in 1778 and the Billings expedition in
1790.
To move ahead a bit, 40 years was the time from the building of the first chapel at Unalaska, around 1808,
until the installation of the first Unangax^ priest, Innokentii Shaiashnikoff, in 1848. These years witnessed the continued decline of the population until about 1822.
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Guest Speaker –Ray Hudson Continued….
It also saw the disappearances of small villages around the island. Father Ioann Veniaminov arrived in 1824 and the
work he and his Unangax^ associates accomplished began to turn
the fortunes of the people around, culturally if not economically. These included the construction of the first church
(replacing the chapel), the development of an alphabet, the spread of literacy throughout the island, and the incorporation of Unangax^ into the heart and fiber of the church. Near the end of this period, smaller villages such as Biorka,
Makushin, Kashega, and Chernofski constructed their first chapels. This was also the time when the Russian American Company regulated where people could live, where they could travel, who their chiefs were, as well as who would
be sent on sea otter hunting expeditions.
Another 40-year span started in 1902 with the election of Alexei Yatchmeneff as chief. This remarkable man
had already served as second chief (under Vasilii Shaiashnikov). He had been one of the major forces behind the
building of the present Church of the Holy Ascension, for which work he received a gramata from the bishop. This 40
year period covered his entire 37 years as chief and it ended with the military buildup on Amaknak Island and the
evacuation of Unangax^ people in 1942. It is amazing how much happened in just 40 years. Sea otter hunting ended.
The population, that had started to recover, again experienced a rapid decline as poverty overtook the entire region.
The fox trapping business gradually developed, blossomed, and declined. Villages such as Atka and Akutan were incorporated under the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Another round of publications in Aleut was done. The first and second
public schools were built. The second Jesse Lee Home building (the one now standing) was erected and the first was
torn down. The landscape was transformed by military construction.
The last 40 year period I want to mention—these periods are all somewhat arbitrary—began in 1927. That was
the year a school was built at Kashega. This period saw the construction and destruction of a hospital at Unalaska. It
saw new churches built at Attu and Nikolski. The economy was driven by blue fox trapping and the herring fisheries.
The beginning of these years was the hey-day of that destructive federal policy of assimilation that strove to eradicate
the cultural foundations of Native life. These 40 years saw the disappearance of Kashega, Biorka, and Makushin. It
saw the war, the incorporation of the city, the years in exile in Southeast Alaska, and the depressed economy that followed the return. It ended in 1967 with an event associated with what we’re celebrating today.
In December 1967 I was in Vietnam. Anfesia Shapsnikoff kept in touch by letters, and on December 6 she
wrote that “Larry and Carl went out to represent us in something in Anchorage.” She didn’t say what it was—perhaps
she didn’t know. It was some years before I learned that Larry Shaishnikoff and Carl Moller were among delegates
from Anchorage, St. Paul, Sand Point, King Cove, Unalaska, and Nikolski who met in Anchorage and signed
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Guest Speaker –Ray Hudson Continued….
a constitution for the Aleut League. In time the Aleut League would merge and evolve, especially after the Alaska
Native Claims Settlement Act became law in 1970.
The preamble to the League’s constitution was written with echoes of the Declaration of Independence: “We,
the Aleut people, in order to secure for ourselves and our descendants the rights and benefits to which we are entitled
under the laws of the United States and the State of Alaska….” It included economic and cultural goals: to develop
the region, to enlighten people about the Aleut people, and to perpetuate the culture. (Also from Unalaska were Carl
E. Moses and Christine Moses.)
That was in 1967. In the spring of 1971 a local Aleut group began to be organized here. The Aleut Corporation was incorporated in January 1972 with the Aleut League as its nonprofit affiliation. [In 1976 the league merged
with the Aleutian Planning Commission to form the Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association.] The Aleut Corporation
then assisted villages to form their own units. After meetings that began on July 2, 1973, OC was incorporated on
July 3, 1973. [The Aleut Region Office sent president Mike Swetzof, general manager Bill Childs, and attorney Tony
Smith, as well as Larry Merculieff, who discussed land, and Iliador Philemonof, who discussed historical items.]
Twenty-three local residents elected an interim board of directors of seven members, chose the name Ounalashka
Corporation, and set the date for the first annual meeting. [This was originally set the first Thursday of February
1974, but was later changed to Tuesday, June 18, 1974.]
Why do I think the immediate past has been among the most memorable periods in Unangax^ history? In
part, it is because of something else that Anfesia wrote to me in December 1967, something that I’ve never forgotten.
“Long time ago in my early days, when I had tea parties with salt fish and dry Aleut bread,” she wrote, “I
used to hear them sit and talk over their tea cups. Saying[:] Yes! They will start things we never hear or see. Objects
will appear in the sky and people will start against one another. At that times things will get harder for the boy child.
Those days we hope never to see. Then I would wonder what they mean by that. Now I live to see it all.”
She may have been talking about the wars of the 20th century, the two world wars, and, in 1967, the Vietnam
war. But I think she was also influenced by conditions around her at that time. If any of you remember the late 1960s,
you can recall how difficult things were. The General Services Administration had started selling off large sections
of Amaknak Island. The city was struggling to define itself after several decades of depressed economic activity. Social services were non-existent. Despite the king crab boom, there was pervasive poverty. In many ways things were
indeed more difficult for males than for females.
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Guest Speaker—Ray Hudson Continued….
It was a time, as Dorothy Jones wrote, of economic powerlessness in which, by and large, Unangax^ exercised only
“pathetic shards of control.” [Jones, Dorothy, Aleuts in Transition: A Comparison of Two Villages. University of
Washington Press, 1976:45.]
The past 40 years have seen the rise of a successful corporation during a period when socio-economic changes
transformed life along the Chain. The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act provided you, the members of the
Ounalashka Corporation, the leverage needed to withstand an economic invasion comparable to the tumultuous construction that had accompanied military occupation during World War II. By the summer of 1942 Aleutian communities had been overwhelmed and the residents were removed from ten villages. During the “king crab boom” of the
1960s and1970s and the establishment of a permanent bottom fish and crab industry, economic prosperity brought the
arrival of the most permanent non-native community ever to reside in the islands. ANCSA provided resources that
under careful administration saw the preservation of Unangax^ influence and community.
This was, I would argue, of more cultural than economic importance because Unangax^ were soon a minority in the
homeland they had occupied for over ten-thousand years. This prosperity enabled Unangax^ who were becoming
adults to find employment locally. It encouraged those who had moved away to return. It guaranteed a strong voice in
the decisions that shaped the community These years, as we all know, have not been universally smooth sailing for
OC, without controversy, without strong feelings for and against decisions that were made, for and against actions that
were taken. There was something inherently flawed, some would say, in the establishment of a profit-making corporation among people who traditionally never focused solely on making money to the exclusion of family and culture.
These past 40 years have seen unprecedented sacrifices and heartaches. It is not easy to shoulder the responsibilities
that fall on those elected to serve or administer. It is not easy to have your convictions ignored or denied. It is painful
to see the wrong decisions made. It’s exasperating to have wait for something to happen. I suspect there isn’t a person
here who hasn’t at one time or another disagreed with decisions made by the OC board. Strong passions reflect a deep
commitment. The clash of differing opinions is evidence of an engaged Unangax^ community. Flawed or not, the establishment of a corporation charged with the primary duty of making a profit for its shareholders has been of inestimable value in the preservation of Unangax^ life. [I’m an odd choice to speak at a for-profit corporation meeting. I’ve
always been involved in non-profits, or less than nonprofits, in-the-hole-corporations. However, from the beginning of
OC I’ve seen how supportive the corporation has been of agencies and programs that technically fall outside of “profit
making.”
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Guest Speaker—Ray Hudson Continued….
Two days before the first annual meeting of OC on June 18, 1974, I sent a long report to the Iliuliuk Family and
Health Services board summarizing health care over the past 100 years and explaining how IFHS had evolved. I recently looked over that report, as I was trying to refresh my memory about that time, and was surprised, I don’t know
why, to read about the encouragement and support OC gave during its very first year of existence. IFHS also received help from the Aleut Corporation and the Aleut League, with special support from Lilly McGarvey
on the Anchorage Service Unit Native Board of Health.]
The significance of what you have accomplished in 40 years cannot be overemphasized.
A host of diverse talents were needed to do this. More skills than any one individual possessed carried various
projects to fulfillment. The greatest strengths have sometimes brought about the greatest challenges. One of these
strengths, recognized early by Veniaminov, has to do with change. “For a long time already the Aleuts…accept and
are ready to accept every innovation which tends to their advantage,” he wrote in the 1830s, “not because they did
not dare to go against the innovators, but because they were convinced of the real benefit of the innovations.” [Ivan
Veniaminov, Notes on the Islands of the Unalashka District, translated by Lydia T. Black and R.H. Geoghegan,
the Elmer E. Rasmuson Library Translation Program, University of Alaska Fairbanks, and The Limestone Press, Ontario. 1984:320-321.] This ability to adapt, to absorb and use new technologies, carried your ancestors through the
most difficult years. It is what makes life authentic and vital.
Another quality is a tenacity for the preservation of Unangax^ culture. Alexei Yatchmenev is reported to have
emphasized this almost a century ago, on his 15th anniversary as chief in 1917. For 30 years, that is, from 1887 to
1917, there had been a concerted effort in Federal Indian policy to eradicate whatever was distinctive about Native
American cultures. Assimilation remained the requirement for integration into the dominant society. Long before this
policy was formally replaced in 1934, Chief Yatchmenev urged his people to remember their Unangax^ heritage and
to not attempt to pass as whites. We don’t really know what he meant. (The only record of his remarks came from
notes taken by the non-Aleut speaking school teacher.) Clearly he didn’t mean to exclude “western” skills from the
arsenal of tools. He had successfully integrated much of western culture into his own life. He was fluent in Russian
and had a workable command of English. In addition to having been a successful sea otter hunter in his youth, he was
a skilled carpenter; he built wooden boats, repaired shoes and eye glasses. He was the treasurer of the brotherhood
society for years. Nevertheless, whatever he meant, his advice was directly at odds with federal policy and the attitudes of much of society. His life suggests a center founded on Unangax^ values.
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Guest Speaker—Ray Hudson Continued….
Merging these two characteristics—innovation and tradition—can often be challenging. One of the most difficult decisions facing you today involves these two qualities. In 1969 the Baha’is were publishing a little mimeographed newspaper called The Unalaskan. For one of the issues I asked Anfesia if she would write something in Aleut, Unangam tunuu. She did. She wrote in cursive Cyrillic's and I printed it out in those lovely printed Cyrillic letters.
I put what she had written in a border around the page, with something else inside. I thought it looked really nice, but
when she saw it she bawled me out like crazy for using her language as a decoration. Her language had meaning; it
wasn’t a decoration. The number of fluent speakers of Aleut has declined dramatically since 1969 and today the language is among the most endangered in Alaska. I am to blame as much as anyone for that. When I administered the
program at the school, with Father and Mother Gromoff as teachers, we all ignored the advice of one of the finest Aleut linguists, Iakov Netsvetov, now Saint Jacob of Alaska. He was among the masters of Aleut. After Veniaminov had
translated some of the scripture into eastern Aleut with the assistance of Ivan Pank’ov and others, Netsvetov had to
decide whether or not to translate the same material into Atkan Aleut. He decided to not make new translations but to
add footnotes with the Atkan words to the eastern translations of Veniaminov. He did this, he said, in the hopes that
over time a single Aleut language would emerge and that all Aleuts would become brothers, united in language as
they were united through common descent and the Christian teachings. [Bergsland, Knut. Aleut Dialects of Atka and
Attu. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia. 1959:86.]
The Gromoffs and I, however, insisted on teaching what was perceived as a pure eastern dialect. It didn’t succeed. If we had worked to be more inclusive, to have taken advantage of those across with region with an interest in
language preservation, perhaps a path toward the revitalization of the language would have been found. Today, if
somebody wants to learn Aleut, the best bet is to use the materials available for Atkan Aleut. There’s not that much
difference, as Netsvetsov pointed out when he wrote to the Atkans. It’s all Unangam tunuu. The challenge in the next
few years is to decide whether or not Aleut will remain in your blood, whether or not it will be part of your children’s
cultural DNA, or whether it will be only a decoration, a border around the edges, a word here and a word there. The
decision is difficult, both intellectually and emotionally. The technology exists for innovative solutions. If bentwood
hats can be brought back from extinction, if Unangax^ children can again dance Unangax^ dances, perhaps the language also can find a role within this vibrant, this continuously surprising community. It was, after all, words and music that resurrected the woman from Mt. Cleveland, Tanax^ Chuginadax^ Ayagax^.
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Guest Speaker—Ray Hudson
I would like to conclude with a story Kathryn Dyakanoff Seller published 90 years ago. When she was a girl,
the Unalaska village council was presided over by Cedor Solovyov, the renowned blind story teller. Among items
considered at the meeting was the case of a girl who had married a white man without her parents’ approval. At the
conclusion of the meeting, after Solovyov had rendered his decisions on various other matters, he rose to leave. People were surprised to see him start for home without referring to the girl. “Thinking it had slipped his memory for the
moment,” Dyakanoff wrote, “someone reminded him of it; he stopped and shouted out, ‘Good enough for her’ 11
and continued on his way home.” [Seller, Kathyrn Dyakanoff, “Marriage and Domestic Customs of the Aleuts,” The
Pathfinder of Alaska, Vol. 4, No. 11, September 1923, page 9.]
The girl had stepped outside the bounds of society. In his mind, Solovyov knew what the boundaries were,
what it meant to be Unangax^. We don’t know a great many things. We certainly don’t know what the next forty
years will bring. We don’t know what it will mean to be Unangax^ half way through the 21st century. Whatever it is,
it should be the work of your collective hands and minds. It should be, as Solovyov’s stories were, the work of this
country, Tanang awaa. May the next 40 years be as pivotal and productive for you and your children as these 40
years have been.
Ray Hudson
Just a handful of the students taught by Shelly & Ray Hudson.
Taken during the 40th Annual Shareholders’ Banquet.
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40th Annual Meeting/Banquet Pictures
Shareholders, Robert Krukoff and Isiah Krukoff
Left to Right: Shareholders—O. Patricia Lekanoff-Gregory; Starosta
Nicholai Lekanoff and Neon Merculieff
Shareholders,
Cody L. and Corynn L. Lekanoff
Shareholder: Nichole Gordon (Daughter of
Shareholder Lydia Gordon)
Caeley Roll (Daughter of Shareholder Cleve Roll) and
Shareholder, Jesse Tutiakoff (Son of Shareholder
Anfesia “Sweetie” Tutiakoff)
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40th Annual Meeting/Banquet Pictures
Shareholder, Mya Raine Tutiakoff
(Daughter of Shareholder Pauline
“Bubba” Tutiakoff)
Shareholder, Eva Tcheripanoff
Shareholder,
Hida “Monte” Kudrin
John Laskowski and
Shareholder, Marilyn McCracken
OC Chair, Vincent M. Tutiakoff, Sr. and
OC Director, Nicholai E. Lekanoff
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40th Annual Meeting/Banquet Pictures
OC Director, Brenda A. Tellman
and her husband, Walter Tellman
Shareholder, Bill Shaishnikoff with his
wife Diane and granddaughter
Shareholder, Peter (Peat) Galaktionoff
Shareholder, Kathy Grimnes
Shareholders, Nina Nellie Bereskin and
Wildred “Tiny” Bereskin
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40th Annual Meeting/Banquet Pictures
Middle: Shareholder, Alice Shaishnikoff and friends
Shareholder, Lorraine L. Swinney
Shareholder, Cheyanne F. Shaishnikoff
Shareholder, Marcia Shaishnikoff, Celeste Kukahiko
(daughter of Shareholder Tanya Kukahiko-Schaf) and OC’s
Secretary/Treasurer, Margaret A. Lekanoff
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40th Annual Meeting/Banquet Pictures
Shareholder, Nicholai Tutiakoff
with his niece Shareholder, Mya
Raine Tutiakoff
Left to Right: OC Director, Janice L. Krukoff, Shareholder,
Sergie Krukoff, Sr., Jean Samarosing, Shareholder, Cayden
Krukoff, Shareholder Princeton Krukoff and Shareholder,
Douglas Krukoff.
Pictured (left to right) Shareholders Anna J. and John Bereskin, Shareholders, Landon,
Russell and Shayla Shaishnikoff.
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40th Annual Meeting/Banquet Pictures
40th Annual Meeting—Grand Aleutian Hotel
Audience Invitational Dance with the Unalaska Unangax Dancers, during the Annual Shareholders’ Banquet