Title 43 › Chapter CHAPTER 33— - ALASKA NATIVE CLAIMS SETTLEMENT › § 1611
Village Corporations must, within three years from December 18, 1971, pick townships where their village lies and more land so their total equals the acres they are owed, using lands withdrawn by section 1610(a). No village may take more than 69,120 acres from each of three special pools (the 1610(a)(2) withdrawal, the National Wildlife Refuge System, and National Forests). Picks should be in one piece and in whole sections when possible, usually in blocks of at least 1,280 acres, though the Secretary can waive the whole-section rule in limited cases (for example, when water or unavailable land splits a section, when a waiver avoids leaving tiny isolated parcels, or when the rest of a section is already going to another Native corporation). After village picks, the Secretary will divide the remaining acres up to 22,000,000 among the eleven Regional Corporations (excluding southeastern Alaska) based on how many Natives are enrolled in each region. Each Regional Corporation must, by October 1, 2005, fairly reassign its share to the villages in that region, taking into account historic use, subsistence needs, and population; those decisions cannot be reviewed by courts. The rest of the 38,000,000-acre program is split among the regions by a land-area formula (excluding southeastern Alaska), reduced by what villages already took; if a region already picked more than its share, it gets no more and its excess is spread to other regions. Regional picks had to be made by the end of the fourth year after December 18, 1971, mainly from lands withdrawn under section 1610(a)(1) (with limits on which townships may be chosen) and then from 1610(a)(3) if needed. Special rules let Regional Corporations deal with mineral-only parcels nearby withdrawn lands, with one named corporation (Doyon, Limited) having specific options and a 12,000-acre cap for certain claims. If a region elects in-lieu surface land, it must pick equal acreage within 90 days in whole sections when possible (except when less than 640 acres remain). No mineral estate or in-lieu surface may be chosen inside the National Petroleum Reserve—Alaska or Wildlife Refuges as they were on December 18, 1971. For Dutch Harbor, federal surplus land sales were put on hold for two years from December 18, 1971 so the village could select and receive patents. Boundary disputes between Village Corporations must be settled by arbitration: each village picks one arbitrator and those arbitrators pick one or two more so the panel has an odd number. Finally, a Village Corporation’s original entitlement and any reallocated acres may be combined by the Secretary without changing totals or the special limits, and combined selections are to be conveyed under the law without separate patents or surveys unless a survey was already contracted for December 10, 2004.
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Legislative History
Reference
Citation
43 U.S.C. § 1611
Title 43 — Public Lands
Last Updated
Apr 6, 2026
Release point: 119-73