Lincoln Bean

Photo by SEARHC

“There’s a place we call Scotty’s garden, just south of Kake. They came across poles in the sides of the river. Fish traps. They did a carbon test on the poles in that stream, and those poles came out to be 3,000 years old. And so obviously that tells you how we survived on the land, and how important fishing is to our people.
The mines affect our way of life, not only as Native people — but the fishermen, the tourism, the beautiful timber in the streams that attracts people. That’s all going to be destroyed. Nothing will be the same, if we have a Mount Polley disaster in a transboundary stream.
It’s something that needs undivided attention from our Congressional delegation, from President Biden, from Canada. If we don’t work together, and our Indigenous people too, we’re falling fast. It’s not if, it’s when. And when that happens, who is responsible for it? Can it be prevented?
We need to keep the water quality not just for Southeast Alaska, but for the whole Pacific Ocean.”

—Lincoln Bean, Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission Tribal Representative, SEARHC board member, and Organized Village of Kake council member