Swiss has received a conveyance of a primary place of business site. This was his guiding campsite at Cathedral Creek. He has also had a tract near Fan Creek conveyed to him as a subsistence campsite. In this case, Swiss ultimately came to claim that he was entitled to conveyance of the Black Lake camp as another subsistence campsite.[1]
John Swiss is a big game guide and subsistence hunter and fisherman. In 1949 he and his family began setnet fishing at Polly Creek; in 1951 he opened a commercial big game guiding business. Swiss set up permanent hunting camps in several places around the state. One of these was at Black Lake, the site at issue in this case. In 1967 Swiss built a cabin at the site. This camp has been used as a place out of which hunters were guided and for obtaining meat for personal use from moose, caribou and ptarmigan.Pursuant to section 14(a) of ANCSA, 43 U.S.C. § 1613(a), Chignik River Limited (Chignik) selected and received title to large blocks of federal land including the land on which the Black Lake camp stands. Section 14(c)(1) of ANCSA, 43 U.S.C. § 1613(c)(1), requires village corporations to convey to “any Native or non-Native occupant” title to the surface estate of tracts of land obtained under section 14(a) used, as of December 18, 1971, “as a primary place of residence, or as a primary place of business, or as a subsistence campsite, or as headquarters for reindeer husbandry.” Id.Swiss has received a conveyance of a primary place of business site. This was his guiding campsite at Cathedral Creek. He has also had a tract near Fan Creek conveyed to him as a subsistence campsite. In this case, Swiss ultimately came to claim that he was entitled to conveyance of the Black Lake camp as another subsistence campsite.[1]
Adds precedent that influences how ANCSA corporations, regulators, and shareholders interpret governance rights and remedies.