Koniag, Incorporated has land holdings across the Alaska Peninsula, Kodiak Island and Afognak Island. Koniag’s original share of the ANCSA settlement was $24 million, 800 acres of land and the “subsurface estate” of approximately 900,000 acres.
Koniag was incorporated on June 23, 1972, to manage the land and financial assets on behalf of the corporation’s approximately 3,400 Alutiiq shareholders who originated from the Kodiak Archipelago.
Koniag, Incorporated is headquartered in Kodiak and also maintains an office in Anchorage. In 2013, the number of shareholders has grown to approximately 3,850.
Koniag’s approach to business has evolved to meet new challenges, expanding opportunities and the needs of its shareholders. Koniag Development Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Koniag, operates as Koniag’s business arm, managing most of the corporation’s real estate holdings and business operations, including oversight of nearly a dozen subsidiaries.
Koniag is headquartered in Kodiak, Alaska with operations spanning several business sectors and markets around the country.
The work performed by the Koniag family of companies is grouped into six broad categories: Operations and Maintenance, Environmental Services, Logistics, Information Technology, Consulting, and Manufacturing.
Aerospace Manufacturing
- Angeles Composites Technologies, Inc.
Marine Construction
- Granite Cove Quarry, LLC
Construction
- Anderson Construction Company, LLC
Oilfield Services
- Dowland-Bach Corporation
Information Technology
- Open Systems Technologies
Natural Resources
- Karluk River Cabins
- Kodiak Brown Bear Center
Real Estate
Koniag’s real estate portfolio is comprised of office buildings, warehouses, apartment buildings, hotels and vacant land, with geographic diversity in Alaska, Washington, California, Nevada, Arizona and Idaho. Koniag’s share of ownership in these properties ranges from less than 10 percent to 100 percent.
- Global Building, LLC
- Near Island Building, LLC
- Nunat Holdings, LLC
Technical Services
- XMCO, Inc.
- Digitized Schematic Solutions, LLC
Government Services Sector
- Frontier Systems Integrator, LLC
- Koniag Information Security Services, LLC
- Koniag Services, Inc.
- Koniag Technology Solutions, Inc.
- PacArctic, LLC
- Professional Computing Resources, Inc.
Native Villages and Native Village Corporations in the Koniag Region:
| Community Name | Corporation Name |
|---|---|
| Afognak | Afognak Native Corporation |
| Akhiok | Natives of Akhiok, Inc. |
| Anton Larsen Bay | Anton Larsen Inc. |
| Ayakulik | Ayakulik Inc. |
| Bells Flat | Bells Flats Native Group Inc. |
| Kaguyak | Kaguyak Inc. |
| Karluk | Karluk Native Corporation |
| Kodiak | Native of Kodiak Inc. |
| Larsen Bay | Nu-Nachk Pit Inc. |
| Litnik | Litnik Inc. |
| Litnik | Litnik Native Group Inc. |
| Old Harbor | Old Harbor Natvie Corporation |
| Ouzinkie | Ouzinkie Native Corporation |
| Port Lions | Afognak Native Corporation |
| Port Williams | Shuyak Inc |
| Uganik | Uganik Native Group Inc. |
| Uganik | Uganik Natives Inc. |
| Uyak | Uyak Natives Inc. |
| Woody Island | Leisnoi Inc. |
Alutiiq Origins
The Kodiak Alutiiq story began more than 7,500 years ago, when daring paddlers in skin covered boats left the security of the Alaska mainland to explore a distant island. Who were these people?
Some think they were the descendants of interior Alaskan caribou hunters who adapted to life on the coast. Others argue that they were members of an ancient seafaring culture with ancestral ties to the shores of Siberia.
Whatever the answer, both Alutiiq legends and ancient settlements on the Alaska Peninsula suggest people colonized Kodiak from the west.
From first settlement, Kodiak’s residents were skilled mariners, dependent on the sea for the necessities of life. Over 7,000 years, small, mobile, tent-dwelling bands developed into prosperous, permanent villages through human ingenuity.
In response to climate change, population growth, and pressures imposed by neighboring societies, Alutiiqs learned to harvest resources with increasing efficiency. They made more effective hunting tools, captured fish in larger quantities, processed foods for storage, and organized community labor – creating the powerful chiefdoms encountered by Russian traders in the eighteenth century.
Classical Alutiiq Society
By AD 1200, Alutiiq society flourished in every corner of the archipelago. Spread from Shuyak to Tugidak, the population may have reached 14,000.
Whaling villages and fishing communities sheltered extended families, who lived in large, multi-roomed sod houses. Chiefs and their families were the central figures of village life.
Leaders, who inherited positions of authority from the previous generation, organized labor to insure the harvest of huge quantities of natural resources for food, barter, and festival. To maintain their prestige, chiefs traveled long distances to visit and trade.
In huge open skin boats, a wealth of Kodiak resources – hard black slate, red salmon, bear hides, and spruce root, were transported to the mainland and exchanged for antler, ivory, horn, animal pelts and exotic stone.
Peaceful trading was interspersed with conflict. Chiefs initiated raiding parties, traveling hundreds of miles to avenge insult and invade rival communities for plunder and slaves. During the dark winter months, the products of summer subsistence activities, trade, and warfare were invested in the community through public displays of prowess.
Priests and shamans, specialists in the arts of ceremony and communication with the powerful spirit world, were hired to organize winter festivals. By honoring the events of the year, displaying their wealth through lavish feasts and gift giving, honoring ancestors, and thanking the spirit world, the Alutiiq elite perpetuated their status and provided for the economic, social, and spiritual needs of their communities.
Modern Cultural Change
Alutiiq society looks much different today. Single-family, ranch-style houses have replaced communal earthen homes, and hunters work from aluminum skiffs rather than skin boats. Family get-togethers feature perok and polkas, the Russian fish pie and Scandinavian dance music of recent immigrants.
Alutiiq villages, like all American communities, are connected to the larger world with airline flights, postal service, cable television and the Internet.
Yet, an Alutiiq way of living persists. Western-style Native corporations act much like traditional chiefs, working for the economic, social, and even spiritual health of their members.
Every January, revelers celebrate Russian New Year with a masquerade ball that maintains elements of traditional winter festivals — masking, feasting, dancing and oration.
Fishermen pull halibut from icy waters with tackle that is essentially the same as handcrafted rigging used for more than 5,000 years. Elders light seal oil lamps at cultural events that are identical to the stone vessels that illuminated Kodiak for its first settlers.
Alutiiq identity is a marriage of genealogy, worldview, and experience that transcend the inevitable changes of time that influence, but do not define, all societies. The journey that began long ago continues today.
(This cultural history is courtesy of Amy Steffian, Deputy Director of the Alutiiq Museum & Archaeological Repository)
Koniag Region Lands
The Alutiiq people were the original stewards of these lands and resources before the arrival of the Russians, the Americans, and the creation of the State of Alaska. As employees and representatives of Kodiak’s Regional Native Corporation, Koniag’s Lands and Natural Resources Department is entrusted with managing these lands and resources in ways that are the most beneficial to Koniag shareholders, while ensuring these decisions will result in conservation of these lands and natural resources for future generations.
Koniag holds title to approximately 145,000 acres of surface estate, and approximately 990,000 acres of subsurface estate. Surface estate includes both land “on the surface” and some submerged lands under fresh waterbodies, while subsurface estate includes a variety of mineral, oil, gas, sand, gravel, and hard-rock resources.
The majority of Koniag’s surface estate is located in southwest Kodiak Island, along the Karluk and Sturgeon River Basins, and approximately 40,000 acres of surface estate on Afognak Island.
Although each shareholder has ancestral ties to the Kodiak area, today many of Koniag’s Shareholders live elsewhere in Alaska or in the lower 48 states.
Leading Causes of Death in the Koniag Region
Between 2009-2013, 293 people died in the Koniag Region. The top 5 causes of death were:
1) Malignant Neoplasms (69)
2) Diseases of the Heart (62)
3) Unintentional Injuries (30)
4) Chronic Lower Respiratory Diseases (17)
5) Diabetes (15)