They wander the streets of this chilly city just steps from the arctic tundra, native people who have little money and nowhere else to go. Some come from villages without plumbing. Others drift among the city's bars or hold down low-wage jobs. Wearing flannel shirts and tennis shoes, they are among America's poorest corporate shareholders.

They came by their holdings in the Sitnasuak Native Corp. as a birthright, when Congress established more than 200 Alaska native corporations, or ANCs, 40 years ago to provide land and money for indigenous people who had long been mired in deprivation and dislocation.

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