[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 179 (Friday, December 4, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12411-S12412]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     REMEMBERING MITCH DEMIENTIEFF

 Ms. MURKOWSKI. Mr. President, last April I spoke about the 
loss of Buddy Brown, a leader of the Athabascan people of interior 
Alaska, who served as president of the Tanana Chiefs Conference, Inc. 
Buddy died at the age of 39.
  Today it is my sad duty to report the passing of another Athabascan 
leader and former president of the Tanana Chiefs Conference, Mitch 
Demientieff of Nenana. Mitch died unexpectedly on Tuesday, December 1, 
at the age of 57. Like Buddy, he left us too soon. He accomplished so 
much in a short time and was taken from us when he had so much more to 
give.
  Mitch was first elected president of the Tanana Chiefs Conference in 
1973 at the age of 20. He was elected to serve in that role again in 
1987. Today, the Tanana Chiefs Conference is an economic powerhouse in 
interior Alaska employing hundreds of people and administering a wide 
range of Bureau of Indian Affairs and Indian Health Service programs on 
behalf of some 10,000 Native people in a territory that extends over 
235,000 square miles. TCC is looked upon as a national pioneer in 
Indian self determination and that is in large measure due to the 
leadership initiatives of Mitch Demientieff. Under Mitch's leadership, 
TCC created a regionwide health care delivery system which is today 
anchored by the Chief Andrew Isaac Health Center in Fairbanks.
  Mitch had the good fortune of serving as president of TCC in the run-
up to passage of the Indian Self Determination and Educational 
Assistance Act of 1975. He positioned TCC as an early adapter of this 
powerful tool through which Native people rely upon their tribes, 
rather than the Federal Government, to deliver Federal Indian programs 
and services. TCC has used these authorities wisely to improve the 
quality of services to the people of interior Alaska and provide life 
changing career opportunities to Native people from Fairbanks and 
communities throughout its region. It also began to administer housing, 
lands management, tribal government assistance, public safety, 
education and employment and natural resources programs.
  One of the characteristics that distinguish Alaska's Native people is 
the continued reliance on traditional ways of living in our villages. 
Subsistence, the use of the Earth's resources for cultural and 
emotional sustenance, as well as food, is the way of life in interior 
Alaska.
  Mitch Demientieff, even while running a multi-million dollar tribal 
enterprise, never forgot that subsistence

[[Page S12412]]

is fundamental to the survival of his Native people. Whatever else 
might have competed for his attention subsistence came first.
  In 1995, when Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt assumed responsibility 
for implementing the subsistence protections of the Alaska National 
Interest Lands Conservation Act, he turned to Mitch as his man on the 
ground. Mitch chaired the Federal Subsistence Board from 1995 until 
2006 protecting the subsistence interests of rural Alaskans throughout 
the State.
  Nor did Mitch ignore the needs of his own Native village of Nenana, 
which sits about 60 miles south of Fairbanks. Mitch chaired both the 
Nenana tribe and the village Native Corporation.
  I extend my condolences to Kathleen and the entire Demientieff 
family, a grand Alaskan family with a tradition of leadership, and all 
of our Native people on the loss of this Chief whose contributions were 
greatly respected throughout Alaska.

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