You will always hear someone griping about who owns what land in Alaska.
Its kinda like you cant have your cake and eat it to.
the first example is the older of two of Alaskas more recent examples.
Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (
ANCSA) was signed into law by President
Richard M. Nixon on December 23, 1971
Background
In 1968, the
Atlantic-Richfield Company discovered oil at
Prudhoe Bay on the
Arctic coast, catapulting the issue of
land ownership into headlines.
In order to lessen the difficulty of drilling at such a remote location and transporting the oil to the
lower 48 states, the best solution seemed to be building a pipeline to carry the oil across Alaska to the port of
Valdez, built on the ruins of the previous town. At Valdez, the oil would be loaded onto tanker ships and sent by water to the contiguous states. The plan was approved, but a permit to construct the pipeline, which would cross lands involved in the native dispute, could not be granted until the Native claims had been settled.
With major petroleum dollars on the line, there was a new urgency for an agreement, and, in 1971, the
Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act was signed into law by President Nixon, which abrogated Native claims to aboriginal lands. In return, they received up to 44 million acres (180,000 km2) of land and were paid $963 million. The land and money were divided among regional, urban, and village corporations. The settlement compensated the Natives for the collaborative use of their lands and opened the way for all Alaskans to profit from oil, one of the state's largest natural resources.
To read more see the link below
Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://www.google.com/imgres?q=Map+o...r:6,s:19,i:128 
250px-Kotzebue_Sound.png
Project Chariot: Nuclear legacy of Cape Thompson Alaska 
