Calista Corporation


Calista Corporation is one of thirteen Alaska Native Regional Corporations created under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 in settlement of aboriginal land claims. Calista was incorporated in Alaska on June 12, 1972. Although the Calista region is in western Alaska, Calista Corporation is headquartered in Anchorage, Alaska. Calista is a for-profit corporation with 17,300 Alaska Native shareholders primarily of Yup'ik descent.
The name Calista is a portmanteau of the Central Alaskan Yup'ik words cali-, meaning "to work," and -ista, meaning someone or something which does. The Yup'ik language does not have a word for "corporation".
As part of ANCSA, Calista received patent for from the federal government as well as approximately $80 million, making it the second largest corporation established under ANCSA. The Calista region covers Alaska's Bethel and Kusilvak census areas and includes 56 villages.

Shareholders

At incorporation, Calista Corporation enrolled 13,303 Alaska Natives, each of whom received 100 shares of Calista stock. The total number of shareholders has fluctuated since due to transfers through inheritance and gifting of shares, but the total number of shares remain the same. Currently, Calista has almost 14,000 shareholders, almost all of whom are Central Alaskan Yup'ik people, and most of whom still speak the Yup'ik language and live a largely subsistence lifestyle of hunting, fishing, and gathering.
As an ANCSA corporation, Calista Corporation has no publicly traded stock and its shares cannot legally be sold.

Lands

Calista Corporation owns about 6.5 million acres in southwestern Alaska on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta and the Kuskokwim Mountains Nearly 5 million acres of the remaining traditional lands and territories of the First Nation peoples has been illicitly conveyed without consent of the original land and territory owners. Congressional law ordered Corporations to be created as State Corporations, thus alienating the true owners of the lands and territories to a state Corporation titled: Calista. Currently 56 villages are Federally Recognized Tribes within the Calista area.
Because of to the importance of the land to the traditional subsistence economies of the region's Yup'ik residents, including the bulk of Calista's shareholders, Calista concentrated most of its land selections under ANCSA in the areas surrounding the region's 56 villages.
Under ANCSA, Calista Corporation also holds subsurface estate correlating to 6.2 million acres of surface lands selected by the 46 ANCSA village corporations in the Calista region. Calista’s own entitlement includes of fee estate lands. Of these lands so far conveyed to the corporation, about half are in areas with high mineral potential or current mineral production. Sand, gravel, and quarry rock also form a significant portion of Calista's subsurface estate. Calista is encouraging exploration for oil and natural gas resources in the region.
In a land exchange with the federal government, finalized in 2001, some of Calista's surface land parcels and a portion of its subsurface estate were incorporated into the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge, while preserving subsistence hunting and fishing rights.
Calista is land owner to subsurface rights from ANCSA, and holds title to the large Donlin Creek gold deposit, which is leased to Barrick Gold and NovaGold Resources.

Business enterprises

Key Calista businesses include oil well services, telecommunication and VoIP services, secure data hosting, cybersecurity, business services, equipment leasing, computer consulting, real estate, environmental consulting, construction, marketing and advertising.
Under federal law, Calista Corporation and some its majority-owned subsidiaries, joint ventures and partnerships are deemed to be "minority and economically disadvantaged business enterprise".

Wholly owned subsidiaries

Calista's subsidiaries include:
Calista owns joint ventures in: