Following its annual elections, Ketchikan Indian Community swore in new members to its tribal council Jan. 27 and appointed executive positions for the coming year. Gloria Burns was elected by the council to serve as president of the tribe, one of the state’s largest, representing more than 6,500 citizens.
Burns has previously served as president, vice president and many other leadership roles during her more than a decade on the council. She spoke with KRBD’s Michael Fanelli days after her election, saying she’s excited about the opportunities ahead.
Note: This interview aired before the Federal Subsistence Board’s vote on Feb. 5 to designate Ketchikan as rural. President Burns references that upcoming vote in the interview. This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Gloria Burns: Dlang ḵings eith dii gudangay lagang. Good people, I’m happy to be speaking to all of you. My name is Gloria Burns. My Xaad Kíl name is Ilsxilee Stáng. For me, the role of President really is to get together with my peers, who are the great team of Tribal Council we have, and move forward on the vision that we’ve collectively completed on our strategic plan, while staying on top of things that come down, federally or in the state that affect our jurisdiction and our ability to provide all the services that we do for Ketchikan Indian Community. You can kind of see by all of the media we’ve been getting recently that we’re really kind of on the precipice of doing a lot of things, things we’ve been dreaming and thinking of for several years, and we’re just, you know, moving those forward.
Michael Fanelli: So within that strategic plan, or whatever other initiatives, what would you say you’re mainly focused on for the coming year?
GB: We have several amazing initiatives that we’re working on. Of course, we have the Yi gu.aa xáx x’wán housing unit, the 28-person housing unit for our without-home population, who happen to be elders. And we pretty much have the funding stack, we’re feeling pretty confident that as long as there’s no shenanigans with [the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development] right now, and all of our funding gets released, that we’ll be building that unit in April, potentially. S’eenáa Hít, which is the without-home navigation center that will be directly in front of it, that’s an initiative that will continue to push forward from the housing side. KIC just got this amazing green crab [Bureau of Indian Affairs] grant that will really help us with the invasive species. Most people don’t realize that they found [European green crab] on Gravina, and it could have a devastating effect in our area. And of course, KIC has the push right now for rural status. We’re going to be headed up to the Federal Subsistence Board meeting here this week. And although we did not have as favorable an outcome here in town when we met, we’re going to be talking to the Federal Subsistence Board about how, particularly during COVID, we recognize that our community is food insecure. And the ability to feed yourself is paramount to being a human being, so working on rural status is absolutely top of mind right now. Our education director is in Juneau right now. We are one of the five tribes that were chosen to be a pilot project for compacting, potentially a tribal school, and so we’ll just keep juggling all the balls and moving them all forward.
MF: Following up on the whole thing with the rural designation, I know that the tribe has been pushing for that pretty hard in recent years. And like you mentioned, that Regional Advisory Council here voted it down. What does that mean? Are you still optimistic about trying to get that through on the federal level, and what’s the next phase?
GB: It will actually be a little bit more difficult, because the Federal Subsistence Board really tries to listen to people locally. I think that really it’s important for me as president to reach out to the tribal leaders on Prince of Wales and in Metlakatla and really visit with them about the importance that Ketchikan Indian Community understands that regardless of where you live, if you have direct contact with your land, you need to be in control of it. And so we’re not looking for rural status so that we can go and try to go into any one else’s territory. It’s really about, we should have never had it removed from us. This community that is Ketchikan grew up around Kichx̱áan, around the traditional homelands of people who have subsisted in taking care of this land. And we simply want access to the food and subsistence resources that should have never been removed from us. And then to remember that it’s not just us that are food insecure. Our community, just because we have a grocery store, does not make us any less dependent on the seafood and the things around us. And subsistence, this word that they call subsistence, traditional and customary usage, really is good for the entire community, because it makes sure that we’re connected to that in a way that allows us to support our neighbors, who are also connected.
MF: The tribe seems to be taking a lot of initiative recently in terms of housing and mental health and homeless services. Can you talk a little bit more about what’s behind that push? And maybe if there’s anything other local entities can learn from your momentum?
GB: I think that we are all human beings who deserve dignity and to be taken care of. And you know, initially, when you saw a push internally by council and by staff to try to address some of these socio economic issues, there were a lot more services, right? So we were just noticing that our tribal citizens were not utilizing the same spaces in the numbers that we knew were in desperate need. So we really saw that there was this unmet need, and we needed to bolster that up. And now all these services have completely disappeared. And you know, that’s a little bit frustrating, because the municipalities need to step up and be there and take care of that rather than leaving it all on us. But the push really was that we have to take care of our people.
MF: Was there anything else that you wanted to mention?
GB: It’s just an honor to be chosen by my peers to serve in this capacity for the year. I really am sitting on a council that whether or not we all agree with each other all the time, which we do not, I believe that they are all coming from this with the intention of creating and building something good and leaving something for the seventh generation to come. And how can we create that kind of future that everybody’s excited about? Because people get a little bit scared. I’ve noticed this, people say some kind of ugly things when KIC is doing something good. And we hope to change that perception in the community. We put a lot of money in this community every year, and during COVID, particularly, we kept families surviving. And so we’re hoping that the rest of the community can dream like we can, and that we can make sure that this community is thriving.
