Aleut Community of St. Paul Island v. United States

WHITAKER, Judge.

This case is before' us on defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiff’s petition.

The petition alleges that plaintiff is a band of American Indians on St. Paul Island, which is one of the Pribilof Islands (located about 350 miles off the west coast of Alaska in the Bering Sea); that it had exclusively occupied this island since long before the acquisition of Alaska by the United States from Russia, during all of which time it had enjoyed the exclusive right to catch seals in the waters around the island, from which it derived its food and clothing, and which it used in the making…