Children at a fish camp near Nome, Alaska, enjoy the long daylight hours in July.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
Children hang out in the remote Alaskan village of Selawik, where entertainment options are limited.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
A view of the town of Teller, Alaska, at a point on the Bering Straits at Grantley Harbor. The area is a two- or three-hour drive from Nome, depending on the condition of the gravel road.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
Ashley Williams, 6, entertains herself at fish camp in Bishop Mountain, Alaska.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
Elder Nettie Foxglove, 83, one of the 12,000 shareholders in the NANA Regional Corp., at her home in Selawik, Alaska. Subsidiaries of the corporation have received billions in federal contracts in recent years.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
Flora "Jean" Keogh, 69, a shareholder in Doyon Limited, hangs laundry at her house in Galena, Alaska. Although battling arthritis, she supplements her income while working at the "washeteria" in Galena. The native-owned Doyon, which has 18,000 shareholders, is the largest land owner in Alaska, with more than 12 million acres in the heart of the state.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
Flora "Jean" Keogh of Galena, Alaska, prepares to cook to moose stew. "It's a difficult life," Keogh says, talking about living in the village with her husband, Claude Keogh, 65, who lost both arms in a high-voltage electrical accident in 1985.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
Mariah Pitka gives her daughter Mia, 4, a bath in the same tub she bathed in as a young girl in the village of Galena, Alaska.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
Using the daily newspaper as a tablecloth, members of the Tahbone family have a simple meal of pilot bread and bowhead whale at their fish camp near Nome, Alaska.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
Trudy Sobocienski, left, catches up with Marjorie, Sandy and Carlton Tahbone at their fish camp near Nome, Alaska. Sobocienski, a shareholder and then president of the Sitnasuak Native Corp.,
has a business degree and a background working on native health issues. She said she thinks the Alaska native program has much to offer native shareholders, but only if it is changed to create more openness and prevent outsiders from taking advantage.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
Carlton Tahbone talks about subsistence living at his fish camp, where he spends his time during the long summer days outside Nome, Alaska.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
Sandra Tahbone lights a cigarette during a visit with Trudy Sobocienski near Nome, Alaska. Tahbone is a shareholder in the Sitnasuak Native Corp. Her daughter Marjorie has received about $1,000 in college scholarships from SNC in each of the past three years. "I don't expect to get rich, "Sandra Tahbone said. "I expect my corporation to benefit the whole. We depend on our native culture."
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
Storm clouds gather over fish camps near Nome, Alaska.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
Sitnasuak shareholder Daniel Karmun, a World War II U.S. Army veteran, checks his fish at a camp on the outskirts of Nome, Alaska.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
Salmon hang out to dry at a fish camp along the Bering Sea near Nome, a common sight during the summer months.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
Pamela Smith of Cordova, Alaska, a fishing community of about 2,500 on Prince William Sound, collects smoked salmon for bottling from her smokehouse. She is one of the 428 shareholders in the Cordova-based Eyak Corp., one of the most successful of the more than 200 Alaska native corporations formed in the early 1970s to settle native land claims.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
Boats float on a river in Buckland, Alaska, which has virtually no running water or sewage system. An upgrade is in the upworks.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
Marjorie Tahbone, 21, chops wood at her family's fish camp near Nome. Scholarships from the Sitnasuak Native Corp. have helped her pay expenses at the University of Fairbanks, where she is studying biology and native culture.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
Dune Lankard, of Cordova, Alaska, a shareholder in the Eyak Corp., prepares to clean a few dozen silver salmon after a catch. The environmental activist questions the firm's finances. "We have no idea how much they're making or who they are," he says. "Our native culture has been replaced by the money culture. So where's the money?" Eyak says it is meeting its obligations to shareholders, citing dividends, donations to the corporation's foundation, scholarships and other benefits.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
A dish of smoked salmon sits on the table at the Cordova home of Pamela Smith, a shareholder in the Eyak Corp. She is Dune Lankard's sister. Smith and her husband pursue a traditional native "subsistence lifestyle" in which they hunt and fish for much of their food, but little financial assistance has come their way from Eyak. "The amount is so small, I don't usually remember what it is," Smith says. In its annual report, Eyak said that last year it was able to pay dividends out of its operating profit for the first time.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
Carol Hoover helps Dune Lankard cook his special recipe for razor clams at his home in Cordova, Alaska.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
Pamela Smith gets some help from her son Jim bottling smoked salmon at their home in Cordova.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
Dune Lankard chats on the phone with his sister Pamela Smith from his home in Cordova.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
Sitnasuak Native Corp. shareholder and board member Jacob Ahwinona, 87, says a prayer before lunch in Nome. "Without our corporation, the people wouldn't survive," he says. Alaska native corporations such as SNC were established in the 1970s to provide land and money for poor and dislocated indigenous people.`
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
A couple walk along a boardwalk trail that runs through the village of Selawik, Alaska.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
On a gravel road in Buckland, Alaska, (from left) Ernest Barger Jr., Jonathan Stalker, Norman Clark and Ralph Stalker Jr. play basketball with a makeshift backboard fastened to a shipping crate.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
Irene Armstrong, center, an elder in the village of Buckland, stops to chat with teenagers on a main street where satellite dishes dot the rooftops of houses.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
Teenagers hang out in Nome.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
Thwarted dreams -- in the form of pull-tab lottery tickets -- accumulate in ankle-deep piles on the floor of the Polar Bar, a popular native hangout in Nome.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
Brian Outwater, a Sitnasuak Native Corp. shareholder, smokes while having a cup of coffee at the Polar Bar in Nome.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
Mason Pitka-Semaken, 6, watches his uncle Jerome Semaken tie wolf skins to a piece of cloth as they prepare for the first night of a memorial potlatch in honor of a family member. Josephine Semaken looks on while other relatives gather to start a ceremonial dance in Galena, Alaska.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
Irene Armstrong looks out the window during a plane ride from Kotzebue to her home in Buckland.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
Clouds hang low late in the evening as a fisherman looks to snag his catch on the Nome River in Alaska.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
Alaska State Trooper Luis Nieves stops to check in with villagers as he makes the rounds in Selawik, Alaska. Nieves is a popular sight in the village.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
Snow sprinkes the Chugach mountain range overlooking the main street in Cordova, Alaska. The area is quiet as fishermen take to the Prince William Sound for salmon season.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
Lucy Boyd, 24, a NANA Regional Corp. shareholder and scholarship student, makes a phone call from the "washeteria" in Buckland, Alaska. With virtually no running water in the village, people use the washeteria to do laundry and take showers. Subsidiaries of the corporation have received billions of dollars in federal contracts in recent years.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
Alaska State Trooper Luis Nieves discusses some missing evidence with a villager in Selawik, Alaska. Although Selawik is "dry," residents have found a way to make a "home brew" with a potent alcohol content.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
Aliya Fagerstrom, 9, plays in a sandbox as her grandfather Robert Fagerstrom prepares dinner at his home in Council, Alaska. Robert, former longtime president of the Sitnasuak Native Corp., oversaw huge growth in profits. Fagerstrom was the long-time president of the Sitnasuak Native Corp. during its
largest period of contracting growth.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
A fish camp sits empty outside Nome, Alaska.
Nikki Kahn-The Washington Post
Gallery Credits:
Photo Editor Dee Swann, Megan Rossman, Nikki Kahn
![[see more]](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/graphics/specialreports/css/images/arrrow-more-dark-blue.gif){kind=small}
![[Alaska Native Corporation icon]](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/nation/alaska-native/images/ico-anc-sig.png)
