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A28 The Seattle Times Sunday, December 5, 1976

Frank Peratrovich he[[?]]

Stanton H. Patty
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The name Frank Peratrovich may not mean much to the new crop of Alaskans.

But without him and those other pioneers who bridged the difficult time between territorial days and statehood, the shape of Alaska might be markedly different today.

Peratrovich and his wife, Violet, vacationed here recently.

He is trim and cheerful at 81 — still dreaming big about Alaska's future.

There have been so many "firsts" and honors for Peratrovich that he can't remember them all.

"I've been fortunate, that's all," he says.

PERATROVICH is an Alaska native, a Tlingit Indian from the village of Klawock in Southeastern Alaska.

When first he came to Juneau in the mid-1940s to take his seat in the Territorial Legislature, there were "Caucasians only" signs in the windows of some businesses.

Peratrovich served in the Legislature, off and on, from 1945 to 1972, both in the Senate and House of Representatives. He was the first native from Southeastern Alaska to be named to the Senate and for four years (1961 through 1964) was president of the State Senate.

In 1955 and '56, he was first vice president of the convention that wrote the constitution for the yet-to-be-born State of Alaska. He was the only native delegate.

It was exactly 40 years ago that Peratrovich began fighting for a just settlement of Alaska's native land claims. It was 1971 before Congress acted.

He also is remembered for starting the battle that resulted in the abolition of commercial salmon traps in Alaskan waters. That was one of his toughest campaigns.

In 1973, the University of Alaska awarded Peratrovich an honorary doctorate in public service.

"Frank, I've waited for this a long time," Dr. William R. Wood, then the university president, whispered as he presented the degree.

So had Peratrovich.

Without bitterness, Peratrovich talks about when he wanted to attend high school and then college.

There was no place for him in Alaskan high schools then, so Frank and his late sister, Sarah, were "shipped out" from Klawock to the Bureau of Indian Affairs school in Chemawa, Ore. They never had been "Outside" before.

"I didn't know where we were going," he said. "They just told me it was in Oregon."

"For two years, I used to go down to the barn (on the Chemawa campus) and cry my eyes out, I was so darned lonesome."

LATER. Peratrovich attended a business college in Salem and then went to Portland to study accounting.

"My ambition was to be a C.P.A. (certified public accountant)," Frank said. "I worked in logging camps, but couldn't muster enough money to make it."

Peratrovich joined the Navy in World War I and played first trumpet in a Navy band.  A gifted musician, when he returned to Klawock, he formed a concert band of 26 natives. He taught them to read music.

He still has the gold-plated horn the grateful band members gave him in Klawock way back then.

After his wartime duty, Peratrovich joined the Seattle Fire Department as a trumpet player.

"I only stayed six months," he said. "It was too much like the military. Besides, I wanted to go back to Alaska."

Back in Klawock finally, Frank worked as the skipper of a cannery tender and helped organize the Alaska Fishermen's Union in Southeastern Alaska.

"We got the price of humpies (pink salmon) up from 4 cents to 10 cents," he said with a laugh.

It was the union activity that led Peratrovich into his long legislative career.

Peratrovich also is a past grand president of the Alaska Native Brotherhood, the first organization devoted to bettering the lives of Alaska's native peoples. The A.N.B., he says, has received too little credit for its role in winning the 1971 land-claims settlement. We agree.

You could say the land-claims effort began on a February day in Wrangell in 1936 at a convention of the Tlingit and Haida Indians of Alaska.

Peratrovich was there, the delegate from Klawock. So was Judge James Wickersham, the territory's long-time delegate to Congress.

"Judge Wickersham spoke and told us we had just grounds to seek this settlement — he really pushed this issue for us," Peratrovich said. "I made the motion that we go ahead and sue the federal government."

IT TOOK 35 years before the natives won their settlement of 40 million acres and almost $1 billion.

"Yes, I'm pleased with the way things worked out," Peratrovich said. "I believe it is a fair settlement."

"It's certainly a lot better than what the Russians gave the Tlingits — a kick in the pants — when they took over Alaska. It was our land."

Peratrovich resolved to wipe out the fish traps many years before statehood. The tender he operated out of Klawock was forced to pitch salmon overboard when the traps were fishing.

He protested the waste of the fish and the hardships this practice caused fishermen and their families. Once, at the risk of his job, he signed an affidavit with the federal Bureau of Fisheries. The agency refused to accept it.

When he entered the Legislature in 1945, Peratrovich' first move was to introduce a bill to eliminate the traps.

"I was just a green House member and it caused an awful rumpus," he said.

Peratrovich remembers defending his bill in a tense legislative