Ketchikan Indian Community’s clinic and administration building on Tongass Avenue. (Facebook photo courtesy of Ketchikan Indian Community)

Ketchikan’s tribal government will soon be under new leadership. The Ketchikan Indian Community announced on earlier this month that Emily Edenshaw will be their new CEO. 

Edenshaw is currently the president of the Alaska Native Heritage Center in Anchorage. She previously worked for the Central Council of Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska.

KIC has more than 6,500 federally recognized tribal citizens. The tribe’s attorney Steve Hartford served as the interim top administrator before Edenshaw was hired.

The tribal government said in a press release that Edenshaw is Yup’ik and Iñupiaq from the Native Village of Emmonak in Western Alaska. Edenshaw is a shareholder of two native corporations in the interior: Doyon Limited and Calista Corporation. The press release said that Edenshaw’s husband is from Hydaburg and she was adopted into Haida Gwaii’s Raven Thunderbird Clan.

Gloria Burns is KIC’s tribal council president. She wrote in a press release that Edenshaw has “a love for elders and education as well as a passion for economic sovereignty.”

Edenshaw is set to officially step into the role in August. 

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