"We're at that hard place in Alaska relations. Armed guards enforcing the Tyonek Native Corporation's no-trespassing rules on its lands. Unwelcome visitors by ATV and truck on that same land. A river rich in king and silver salmon and rainbow trout just 45 miles west of Alaska's biggest city -- but one virtually claimed as private by the corporation.

The state ordering that corporation to stop claiming in brochures and on its website that it owns the riverbed, or that it can offer any exclusive fishing rights on the river.

Add the prospect of dueling lodge operations and a possible coal-to-liquids development in the area.

Mix in race, as in Native and non-Native.

So we have fish politics, racial politics, money politics; dueling lodges and dueling claims, all just minutes by air from the state's largest city.

Talk about your witch's brew. This is Alaska at its most volatile.

Alaskans have been here before. By now we should know that it's time to take a deep breath."

Get the Story:
Our view: Whose waterway? (The Anchorage Daily News 4/28)

Related Stories:
State challenges Alaska Native corporation's river claims (4/27)