"Some in the Native Village of Tetlin claim their leaders broke tribal laws when agreeing to the Manh Choh mine."
"People in Alaska’s rugged Interior have long known the hills surrounding the Native Village of Tetlin hid gold. As tribal member Kevin Gunter grew up, his elders told him such riches should be left alone. Nothing good would come of digging them up, they warned. Now, Gunter fears what might happen as an open-pit mine comes to his tribe’s land.
Kinross, the majority owner and operator of the project, plans to haul the ore roughly 250 miles on public roads to a mill at another mine, called Fort Knox, outside Fairbanks. To learn more about the company’s plans for the new mine, named Manh Choh, Gunter took a job as a senior electrician at Fort Knox about a year ago. He soon grew frustrated by the culture. “Nobody’s doing any quality control,” he said. “They won’t plan a job. And they won’t work the plan.”
That didn’t inspire confidence in Kinross sending 80-ton trucks rumbling down the primary highway linking Fairbanks to Canada and the Lower 48. So Gunter started digging into how and why his tribe approved the company’s lease for the land. He and other tribal officials found what they allege is a series of questionable background deals, corruption, and self-serving arrangements by the former chief and current tribal leaders."
Lois Parshley reports for Grist (co-published with Alaska Public Media) December December 1, 2023.
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