OUR HERITAGE
History of Goldbelt and Alaska Native Corporations

Goldbelt, Incorporated is an urban, Alaska Native, for-profit corporation located in Juneau, Alaska. Its primary purpose is to manage assets and to conduct business for the benefit of its shareholders, approximately 3500 people, almost all of Alaska Native heritage.

Shareholders collectively hold the entire 272,000 shares of Goldbelt stock, representing assets of approximately $80 million and including 32,585 acres of land in the general vicinity of the City & Borough of Juneau. The company is named after a richly mineralized zone in Southeast Alaska that stretches along the mainland from Frederick Sound on the south to Berners Bay on the north - an area encompassing Goldbelt’s office and holdings.

Founded in 1973 and incorporated on January 4, 1974, Goldbelt was organized under the terms of the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), the largest single federal settlement of Native American claims. Through ANCSA, descendants of Alaska’s original inhabitants received 44 million acres of land and $966 million in cash. With the exception of Urban Corporations, such as Goldbelt, which received only land, this was divided among more than 200 community corporations and 13 regional corporations. With one exception, these regions were divided along roughly ethnographic lines.

Each ANCSA corporation distributed stock in 100 shares blocks as birthright to its shareholders. Any Alaska Native born on or before December 18, 1971 (the day President Richard Nixon signed ANCSA) was eligible to enroll in a Native corporation. All original Goldbelt shareholders were issued 100 shares of Goldbelt stock and 100 shares of Sealaska stock, the regional corporation for Southeast Alaska.

Alaska Natives of all backgrounds living in a corporation’s geographic area were eligible to enroll. Consequently, Goldbelt’s shareholders include the entire mix of Alaska Natives: Tlingit, Haida, Aleut, Eskimo, Athabascan, and Tsimshian.

ANCSA corporations most closely resemble family businesses: only those with at least one-quarter Alaska Native blood could enroll as shareholders; only they or their legal Native descendants may vote those shares; shares cannot be sold or traded, only received as a gift from immediate family or inherited; and only shareholders may serve as directors.

Since stock cannot be sold, it is impractical to gauge a Native corporation’s success by the value of its stock. Most shareholders measure success according to the degree by which their corporation helps them improve their lives through cash distributions, educational grants, job opportunities, and cultural projects, and view their stock as a legacy beyond value, an inheritance meant to be passed on to future generations.