Five Alaska Native villages are asking Congress to join the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.

The villages of Haines, Tenakee, Petersburg, Ketchikan and Wrangell were left out of ANSCA for unknown reasons. They are seeking land and a cash settlement to address the oversight.

"At this point, Wrangell people, they'll take what they can get," Bucky Bjorge, a representative to the Southeast Alaska Landless Coalition from Wrangell, told The Juneau Empire. "They've had nothing for so many years. They got their feelings hurt, culturally, because they (Congress) said, 'This is not an Indian community," But it is. It's the oldest one in Southeast."

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) introduced S.784 on April 2. Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) introduced H.R.2018 on April 21.

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'Landless' Natives try for redress (The Juneau Empire 5/19)