Maritime environments are particularly suited to transnational history because oceans resist political boundaries. Alaska’s fisheries, situated at the crest of the North Pacific, have long existed within international economic, ecological, and political systems. Within this maritime context, Alaskan salmon fisheries involve communities with subsistence traditions, state and federal regulators, commercial interests, and international governing bodies. Land and resource rights are a crucial aspect of Native sovereignty, but commercial salmon management areas, as defined by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG), differ from the Native Alaskan regions defined by the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA). How, then, are subsistence, sport, and commercial fishing rights defined between rural communities, ANCSA regions, and salmon management areas, and who decides? In essence, this project asks, who has the right to manage salmon as a natural resource in Alaska?
Methodologically, this project will adopt a transnational approach. Rather than treating Alaska as a contained space, this approach will examine how salmon operates across borders: salmon migration routes connect Canada through Alaska into the wider North Pacific, commercial fishing fleets and processors have historically employed foreign workers, and resource governance involves multiple states, countries, and communities. Transnational history also emphasizes the movement of ideas and institutions. In this regard, fisheries governance in Alaska is shaped by international agreements, shared ecological management strategies, and global debates about Indigenous rights.
This project will draw on sources that highlight this overlapping and integrated network of resource governance. First, legislative documents like the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA), and Limited Entry System (established 1973) bear relevance as both reshaped Indigenous land claims and subsistence rights in Alaska. Next, this project requires listening to and reading firsthand accounts of Native Alaskan experiences in the shifting landscape of fishing in their communities. Furthermore, records of fisheries management organizations such as the Pacific Salmon Commission and North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission illustrate how salmon migration requires international coordination across the North Pacific. Finally, the project will incorporate comparative scholarship on Indigenous resource rights in other regions like Canada and Finland. These broader analyses of Arctic policy and Indigenous sovereignty allow for a comparison of how communities negotiated access to natural resources in the 20th century. Together, these sources allow the project to integrate environmental, legal, and social histories of fisheries.
This project contributes to transnational history by highlighting both indigenous agency and the influence of natural resources in multiple spatial contexts. Indigenous actors are central participants in transnational systems. Native Alaskan communities interact far beyond their local communities with U.S. state institutions and, further, with international regulatory frameworks and global environmental movements. Equally important, by examining salmon as both ecological actors and economic commodities, the project demonstrates how environmental processes shape political and economic systems across borders. Lastly, contemporary debates – such as the controversy surrounding the Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay and its environmental, political, and commercial implications– show how resource governance in Alaska continues to involve overlapping interests.
By asking who has the authority to manage salmon as a natural resource in Alaska, this project leads to further questions. These questions concern the definitions of Native Alaskan sovereignty and resource rights, the dynamics between Alaskan institutions and other actors in the North Pacific ecosystem, shifts in these dynamics in response to environmental and economic pressures, and comparisons between Alaskan salmon management and Indigenous resource right debates elsewhere in the world. By implicating regional Native Corporations, tribal- and community-level Native Associations, federal and state entities, environmental organizations, commercial fishermen, and other nations, fisheries management is more than a domestic issue. International ecological systems, treaties, and comparative Indigenous politics make a purely national analysis insufficient; thus, examining Alaska’s salmon fisheries through a transnational lens offers a powerful way to rethink sovereignty, environmental governance, and Indigenous political agency in the 20th century.