Vehicles are now legally allowed to access a popular hooligan dipnetting spot near the Chilkoot River Bridge.
Last week, Superior Court Judge Philip Pallenberg ruled in Juneau that a public easement for vehicles to reach the dipnetting spot for eulachon – otherwise known as hooligan or candlefish – exists on the land of Reuben and Rosalie Loewen along the river.
That easement exists only for a short time in the spring when the anadromous fish return to spawn.
“We’re very pleased with the decision,” said Kristen Miller, attorney for the Alaska Native groups Sealaska, the Chilkoot Indian Association and the Alaska Native Brotherhood.
“The tradition and history (of fishing in this area) goes back for centuries,” Miller said.
Rosalie Loewen said: “We don’t feel (the ruling) was against us. We feel it came out much better than we hoped.”
Loewen viewed the ruling as allowing the public – especially Native families doing subsistence fishing – access to the dipnetting area, while keeping vehicles out of that privately-owned area for most of the year.
The Loewens live on the west side of the river, and filed for an accretion of their property in 2013. A riverside land owner’s property usually extends to the high water mark of that river. But the Loewens’ land slowly rose over decades because of glacial rebound. Consequently, the high-water-mark property boundaries change.
Filing for accretion is how a landowner legally nails down the changing boundary.
But when the Loewens filed, the Alaska Native Brotherhood, the Chilkoot Indian Association and Sealaska intervened, claiming an easement existed to allow continuing access based in sustained, traditional use. There was also a question on whether a state transportation department right-of-way existed on the disputed piece of land.
The Loewens were OK with people walking to the river. But they objected to vehicles because of the environmental impacts. They eventually blocked vehicle access with boulders.
“That was devastating to our clients,” Miller said, noting they included elderly people, while everyone has to deal with the difficulty of hauling thousands of pounds of fish by foot.
The Native families removed the boulders. The Loewens put the boulders back. The dipnetters removed them again. And so on. Arguments erupted between the two parties at the site.
Finally, the dispute was resolved last week in court in Juneau.