Page:John Sturgeon v. Bert Frost, in his official capacity as Alaska Regional Director of the National Park Service.pdf/9

Rh But the State’s bonanza provoked land claims from Alaska Natives. Their ancestors had lived in the area for thousands of years, and they asserted aboriginal title to much of the property the State was now taking (and more besides). See Everhart 127. When their demands threatened to impede the trans-Alaska pipeline, Congress stepped in. The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 (ANCSA) extinguished the Natives’ aboriginal claims. See 85 Stat. 688, as amended, 43 U. S. C. §1601 et seq. But it granted the Natives much in return. Under the law, corporations organized by groups of Alaska Natives could select for themselves 40 million acres of federal land—equivalent, when combined, to all of Pennsylvania. See §§1605, 1610–1615. So the Natives became large landowners too.

Yet one more land dispute loomed. In addition to settling the Natives’ claims, ANCSA directed the Secretary of the Interior (Secretary) to designate, subject to congressional approval, 80 million more acres of federal land for inclusion in the national park, forest, or wildlife systems. See §1616(d)(2). The Secretary dutifully made his selections, but Congress failed to ratify them within the five-year period ANCSA had set. Rather than let the designations lapse, President Carter invoked another federal law (the 1906 Antiquities Act) to proclaim most of the lands (totaling 56 million acres) national monuments, under the National Park Service’s aegis. See 577 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 4). Many Alaskans balked. “[R]egard[ing] national parks as just one more example of federal interference,” protesters demonstrated throughout the State and several thousand joined in the so-called Great Denali–McKinley Trespass. Everhart 129; see 577 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 4). “The goal of the trespass,” as Sturgeon I. explained, “was to break over 25 Park Service rules in a two-day period.” Ibid. One especially eager participant played a modern-day Paul Revere, riding on horseback through the