Alaska Native Review Commission

The Alaska Native Review Commission was sponsored by the Inuit Circumpolar Conference in 1984 and 1985. Canadian jurist Thomas Berger was hired to conduct hearings throughout Alaska regarding the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 (ANCSA). These hearings or village meetings were conducted in 61 towns and villages in Alaska, and in Seattle, Washington, from February 1984 to March 1985. Among the issues discussed during the hearings were lands, subsistence, and native sovereignty. The commission also held overview roundtable discussions in Anchorage from February 1984 to March 1985. The titles of these discussions were the following: The Spirit of ANCSA, ANCSA Institutions and Legal Regimes, International Overview, Subsistence, ANCSA and 1991, Alternate Approaches to Native Lands and Governance, and The Place of Native Peoples in the Western World.

In July of 1983 at its international conference in Frobisher Bay, Canada, the Inuit Circumpolar Conference created the Alaska Native Review Commission and appointed as commissioner the Canadian barrister Thomas R. Berger, who, in the late 1970s, had conducted Canada's Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry. The Alaska Native Review Commission was to examine and report on (1) the socio-economic status of Alaska Natives, (2) the history and intent of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971, (3) the historic policies and practices of the United States in settling claims by Native Americans in order to place the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in political perspective, (4) the role of the Native corporations in fulfilling the "spirit" of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement act for Alaska Natives, and (5) the significance of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act to indigenous peoples around the world. The Inuit Circumpolar Conference specified that Berger should "hold public hearings. . . in rural Alaska" and should report on "the functions of the various Native corporations in fulfilling the 'spirit' of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act." Although it was established by the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, the Commission was completely independent and established its own procedures and methodology. The Commission was free to take whatever action it considered necessary to carry out its mandate. After consultations with both Alaska Native leaders and government officials, Justice Berger decided that the best role for the Commission would not be to conduct a study in the conventional sense at all, but instead to provide a vehicle for all interested parties to express their opinions. The Commission, it was decided, would especially concentrate on articulating village Native viewpoints, viewpoints frequently not documented in formal studies or heard in formal hearings. In order to accomplish the mandate of the Commission, Berger determined that the Commission would have to be thorough, fair, flexible, and, perhaps most important, accessible. It would conduct its work in public, gathering information though a process of meetings and hearings from a wide variety of sources, many not previously tapped. The report of the Commission was to be based on the record it amassed during the meetings and hearings. The report would not be a formal, dry, official report, but instead would be designed to be read by both elected officials and government officers as well as indigenous people in village Alaska and around the world. The report, "Village Journey: The Report of the Alaska Native Review Commission," written by Berger, was published in 1985 by Hill and Wang. It recounts Native testimony and suggests solutions for the problems of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

Thomas R. Berger (1933-), born in Victoria, Birtish Columbia, received his law degree from the University of British Columbia in 1956. From 1957 to 1971 he practiced law in Vancouver and earned a reputation as an advocate in the field of Native rights. At the end of 1971, he was named to the British Columbia Supreme Court. In 1973 he was appointed chairman of the British Columbia Royal Commission on Family and Children's Law. He was appointed commissioner of the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry in 1974, and issued its final report, "Northern Frontier, Northern Homeland," three years later. On behalf of the Government of Canada, he conducted an inquiry into Indian and Inuit health care in 1979, and in 1981 published "Fragile Freedoms: Human Rights and Dissent in Canada." He resigned from the British Columbia Supreme Court in April of 1983 in order to be free to speak on questions of human rights and fundamental freedoms. In August of that same year he was appointed to head the Alaska Native Review Commission. He issued his final report for the commission, published as "Village Journey: The Report of the Alaska Native Review Commission," in 1985, the same year in which he was appointed professor of law at the University of British Columbia.