for our great-grandchildren
Our mission is to protect ancestral homelands and hold logging operations accountable.
We are committed to informing shareholders, community members, and the public about the ongoing and past logging activities in Yakutat, ensuring transparency and accountability.
Clear-cut logging in the northern portion of Yakutat’s Tongass Rainforest destroyed Tlingit historic sites, traditional food and medicine gathering areas, sacred spaces, and the ecosystems that have sustained our people for millennia.
from 2019-2023, Yakutat's village corporation (Yak-tat Kwaan) and it’s subsidiary (Yak Timber) clear-cut logged with practices not seen since the 1980's. Logging has fallen out of favor quickly as other tribes and Southeast Alaska communities have recognized the damaging and unsustainable nature of these practices to Alaska native culture and ecosystems.
In 2018, Yak-tat Kwaan transferred multiple dozens of land timber rights to Yak Timber. Soon after and without properly informing their shareholders, Yak Timber, via Yak-tat Kwaan, evaluated with intent to cut thousands of acres that included village sites, burial areas, traditional hunting and fishing lands, traditional medicine gathering areas, food gathering areas, sacred places and known historic sites.
Yak Timber leadership asserted that clear cut logging had to continue or they would default on their loans.
Yakutat Tlingit Tribe (YTT) approved Resolution 2021-10: Authorizing Yakutat Tlingit Tribe to Act in Protection of our Tribe's Historic Sites and Sacred Places for Our People and Our Grandchildren. The State of Alaska Office of History and Archaeology (File No: 3130-4R/2021-01009) notified the President of Yak Timber that the state considers lands near Humpy Creek to contain resources of historic and traditional importance to the Yakutat Tlingit Tribe.
when the kwáashk’i Kwáan bought humpback creek, it became at.óow.
(a sacred clan owned item)
the kwáashk’i kwáan established rock wall fish weirs and traditional use sites where yak-timber clearcut.
a whistleblower submitted images to defend Yakutat showing a rock wall in the forest 150+ feet from humpback creek.
Yak-timber knew that there was a potential village site on humpback creek and logged anyways. some of the rock walls were destroyed.
this was humpback creek before
Humpback Creek From Above
Humpback Creek With Surrounding Old Growth
Humpback Cove Point
Facing East - Humpback Creek Lower Right
Old Growth To Be Cut - 2nd Growth Shown
Facing West - Old Growth To Be Cut - 2nd Growth Shown
Humpback Creek With Surrounding Old Growth
Usnea Draping Sacred Old Growth Trees - Humpback Creek Below
Humpback Creek Draining Into Ocean - Top Left
THIS IS HUMPBACK CREEK NOW
Humpback Creek cut facing NW towards Khantaak Island
Stringer bridge over Humpback Creek
Bundles of old growth
Entrance into Unit 24 Humpback Creek cut
Clearcut facing East
Facing N with newest harvest top part of cut
what’s next?
Yak-tat Kwaan continued to insist they would log, writing in a newsletter: "The logging that had been done by Koncor (in the 1980’s) would have already destroyed any potential historical and sacred sites that may have previously been there."
This is false as previously published studies and inquiries have attested.
In August of 2023, in court, REPRESENTATION FOR YAK-TIMBER stated THAT THEY Would LOG KHANTAAK ISLAND AS SOON AS OCTOBER 15, 2023.
With everyones support, we were able to prevent khantaak from being logged.
why did they keep trying?
Please share to help bring visibility to what has happened in Yakutat. Secrecy protects those causing harm - at the expense of our people. No corporation should have the power to destroy sacred sites, cultural heritage, food sovereignty, and intact ecosystems. When they do, they erase our connection to the land.