Eyak

The Alaska Senate State Affairs committee heard testimony Tuesday on Senator Donny Olson’s bill to create an Alaska Native Language Preservation and Advisory Council. Annette Evans Smith, the President of the Alaska Native Heritage Center, says the time for action on keeping languages alive is now.

The arrest yesterday (Tuesday) of an executive at the Eyak Alaska Native Corporation’s subsidiary EyakTek and two Army Corps of Engineers employees has some members of Congress clamoring for hearings, and has Alaska’s delegation worried about the fallout.

State managers saw a drop in kings passing by Eyak and ordered the restriction, according to state biologist Mark Sommerville.