act would have getting through congress. Many respected politicians and businessmen attended the meeting and delegates were astonished at the attention which they received from well-known political figures of the state. The growing presence and political importance of Natives was evidenced when association leaders were elected to the legislature. Members of the associated gathered and were able to gain seven of the sixty seats in the legislature. When the group met a second time early in 1967, it emerged with a new name, The Alaska Federation of Natives, and a new full-time President, Notti. AFN changed the human rights and economic stability of the Alaska Native population forever. In 1967, Governor Walter Hickel summoned a group of Indigenous leaders and politicians to work out a settlement that would be satisfactory to Natives. The group met for ten days and asked for $20 million in exchange for requested lands. Among the other task force proposals were an outright grant of 1,000 acres per native village resident; a revenue-sharing program for state land claims and national mineral development projects; secured hunting and fishing rights on public lands; and a Native Commission to administrate state and federal compliance with the provisions of the claims settlement. They proposed receiving 10% of federal mineral lease revenue for ten years, once the freeze which had been placed on land patents to allow oil exploration was lifted. In 1968, the Atlantic-Richfield Company discovered oil at Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic coast, catapulting the issue of land ownership into headlines. In order to lessen the difficulty of drilling at such a remote location and transporting the oil to the lower 48 states, the oil companies proposed building a pipeline to carry the oil across Alaska to the port of Valdez At Valdez, the oil would be loaded onto tankers and shipped to the contiguous states. The plan had been approved, but a permit to construct the pipeline, which would cross lands involved in the land claims dispute, could not be granted until the Native claims were settled. Hearings were held for the first time before the United States House's Subcommittee on Indian Affairs in July 1968. Among those who attended the hearings were officials and legislators, as well as Laura Bergt, Roger Connor, Thoda Forslund, Cliff Groh, Barry Jackson, Flore Lekanof, Notti, and Morris Thompson. In 1969, President Nixon appointed Hickel as Secretary of the Interior. The Alaska