Cook Inlet Region, Inc. (CIRI) is one of thirteen Alaska Native regional corporations created under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 (ANCSA) in settlement of aboriginal land claims. Cook Inlet Region, Inc. was incorporated in Alaska on June 8, 1972.[1] Headquartered in Anchorage, Alaska, CIRI is a for-profit corporation, and is owned by more than 7,300 Alaska Native shareholders of Athabascan and Southeast Indian, Inupiat, Yup’ik, Alutiiq and Aleut descent. [2]
The CIRI region in the Cook Inlet area of southcentral Alaska is the traditional homeland of the Dena'ina and Ahtna Athabaskan peoples, and about 40 percent of CIRI shareholders are of Dena'ina or Ahtna descent. However, as the CIRI region also holds the urban center of Alaska, including Alaska's largest city, Anchorage, the region has attracted Alaska Natives from many other parts of the state. Consequently, CIRI's shareholder population is diverse, including descendants of all Alaska Native cultures, including Dena'ina, Ahtna, other Athabaskans, Tlingit, Tsimshian, Eyak and Haida Indians; Iñupiat, Yup'ik, Siberian Yupik, and Alutiiq Eskimos; and Aleuts.[3] As a result, about 20% of CIRI's shareholders also enrolled in Cook Inlet's ANCSA "Village Corporations". Most other ANCSA regional corporations have the opposite 80/20 At-large/Village shareholder ratio, demonstrating urban migration and assimilation patterns that affect the operations of the regional corporations.[4]