Alaska Cultural Pioneer, Dr. Walter Soboleff Dies at 102

Dr. Walter Soboleff died in Alaska at the age of 102. His life in Alaska spanned much of the history of the territory and the state. An influential Tlingit, Presbyterian minister, Dr. Soboleff was much respected and highly regarded.

His passing takes with it something of the end of an era of Alaska cultural synthetic pioneering through the period leading up to and through statehood.

Dr. Soboleff's Russian name continued some of the Russian heritage in the state from the pre-territorial days when the capital was at Sitka and relations between Tlingits, Russians and later British and American settlers was occasionally fractious. Much of Alaska's early western era development was along its rich in natural resources coastal areas; Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian lands historically. With traditional land titles fogged with the new legal systems; Russian and British based prevalently on force of occupation, the next, the U.S. legal system, arose to present conflicting native and federal land claims were not settled until the Nixon administration's A.N.I.L.C.A. legislation passed congress and was signed into law.

Continuing into the American era the Alaska coastal region was the core area for natural resource extraction industries such as timber products, minerals, ice and also fish (not an extraction industry).

In entering the ministry Dr. Soboleff became a unifying interpreter of culture in addition to being a minister of the word of God. He remained active asserting a positive influence throughout his life.

http://www.adn.com/2011/05/23/1877936/tlingit-leader-soboleff-dead-at.html