Voices from the Flats – AFN Day 2. Corporations are Not Tribes!

By Elstun Lauesen The most interesting meeting on Day 2 of the AFN Conference was on Village Survival! It wasn’t held at AFN. It wasn’t on the official AFN agenda. It was held miles away from the Carlson Center. It was a government-to-government consultation held with Alaska Tribal Leaders well away from the AFN venue. Mike Williams, Chief of Akiak Yupiit, sobriety advocate and mental health counselor organized the meeting while the Undersecretary for Indian Affairs, Larry Echohawk was in town for AFN. But the nature of the meeting, electric with a sense of urgency, required that the Tribal representatives…